With more than a million Massachusetts residents now fully vaccinated, the state is shedding even more COVID-19 restrictions.
It's been more than a year of COVID-19 quarantines and gradual reopenings — with the state entering a new phase this week. It's also easing travel restrictions.
Matt Murphy of the State House News Service join us to talk about the latest on this.
Matt Murphy, State House News Service: This is phase 4 of the governor's reopening plan. Way back in the spring of 2020 when the governor rolled out this plan, this was what he described as "the new normal." So we're going to start to get a taste of that. And it means for beginners, large venues like ballparks, arenas, concert halls can reopen if they have a capacity of more than 5,000 people, at 12%. So there will be people in the stands [at Fenway Park] on opening day, fingers crossed, as long as nothing goes horribly wrong in the next couple of weeks.
The governor is also increasing gathering size limits for public venues and public settings to 100 people indoors, 150 people outside. Private gatherings will remain capped similarly as they've been for the past few weeks, at 25 people outside and 10 people inside your home.
But the state also allowing summer camps to consider opening for this summer. Convention spaces and meeting halls can start hosting events subject to the capacity limits. And dancing is back on the table for weddings. So, you know, a small return to some of these things that we took for granted more than a year ago.
Carrie Healy, NEPM: Politics is never far from a lot of these discussions, and vaccines are, of course, no different. A Democratic candidate for governor in 2022, former Berkshires state Senator Ben Downing put out a proposal last week. He wants all teachers and all state police troopers to get vaccinated and he wants to make that mandatory. You wrote about that. What has been the reaction?
The reaction has been a bit mixed. And interestingly, this came in response to reports and data released by the state showing that even though the Massachusetts State Police held clinics for their own employees, only about 70% of state troopers, both civilian and sworn officers, got the vaccine.
The former senator and now gubernatorial candidate Ben Downing says that he does not think that this is acceptable. He agrees that they were prioritized for vaccines because of the nature of their job, because of the way they interact with the public. And he said that because of that, it should be a condition of employment.
The same, he said, goes for teachers who have been prioritized, albeit later in the process. He says they should be required to be vaccinated before they return to a classroom.
Now, the teacher’s union opposed mandatory vaccinations for their members. While the union that represents the state police says that they continue to work with their members, encouraging them to get vaccinated, they said the numbers reported don't reflect people who may have gone outside of the department run clinics and got vaccinations on their own. But they said if the governor were to mandate it, if Governor Baker were to tell police that in order to stay on the job, they need a vaccine, the union would go along with that.
Hate crime language and legislation has been infrequently discussed over the last few years at the Statehouse. Recently, the state Attorney General called for an update and clarification to the laws on the books. With the killings in Georgia of six women of Asian descent, there's renewed attention on the bill. Is that likely to become law?
It's certainly something that bears watching. These hate crime laws and these laws that protect certain groups of people can sometimes be tricky to enforce. And Attorney General Maura Healey, partnering with some members of the legislature, including some Asian members of the legislature, to clarify these laws and make them more easy to use for law enforcement, as well as clarifying some of the language around penalties and such.
We know that House Speaker Ron Mariano of Quincy comes from a district where there is a large concentration of immigrants, including Asian Americans. He has tweeted out, drawing attention to the crimes in Atlanta and standing with people, particularly the Asian community, and condemning these acts of violence. And it'll be interesting to watch to see how quickly the legislature looks at this. I think it will get a close review. I think it'll probably go through the process. I don't think it's going to be on the floor next week or anything, but I think it's something that we could see action on this year.
You know, I was reading through the transcripts of last Thursday's Senate session and saw some senators calling for more transparency, asking that the drafting of amendments and legislation be brought before a wider audience. Then on the other side of the issue, another senator said — paraphrasing here — that the process is easy to engage in and it's up to lawmakers to take the initiative themselves. Is this a touchy subject on Beacon Hill?
It is a touchy subject. There are certainly lawmakers who wished this process was more transparent, particularly the ones who aren't necessarily in leadership and privy to all the conversations that are going on.
It's particularly hitting a chord early in this session, as we've seen the new House speaker, Mariano, partner with Senate President Karen Spilka to try and push a number of things forward very quickly — even as committees are getting set up, in this legislative process that lawmakers are most familiar with, and they know it takes time and there are a lot of steps before a bill actually comes up for a vote.
We're seeing the leadership on Beacon Hill advance some measures very quickly because they see an impetus to get it done. And this most recently happened when they decided to slip in an extension of the tax filing deadline to May 17 to comply with the IRS extension. This was announced and quickly slipped into a bill that was already on the move in the Senate., and some senators objected. They read about it first in the news before they even heard about it from their leadership and they raised some flags.
So I think this bears watching, moving forward to see if the legislature settled back into their more familiar patterns of advancing legislation, or if we continue to see a leadership team up and try and advance some of their priorities more quickly and outside of the normal process.