Dashed spending dreams: SJC nixes ‘millionaire’s tax’

By
South Boston Today Staff
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As most readers probably know by now, the Supreme Judicial Court yesterday rejected the ‘millionaire’s tax’ ballot question, ruling it violated the state’s constitution on what can and can’t be put to a statewide public vote. The BBJ’s Greg Ryan, the Globe’s Jon Chesto and SHNS’s Katie Lannan at the Lowell Sun have the details on the actual ruling.

But, obviously, the big news is how the ruling is a major setback for progressives hoping to have a major new tax revenue stream for various state programs. SHNS’s Matt Murphy (pay wall) reports the the SJC decision will force Democrats to regroup and rethink their spending priorities moving forward. The Globe’s Matt Stout writes that the SJC ruling “turns up the pressure” on Democrats on Beacon Hill, while the Globe’s Marek Mazurek reports progressives were despondent in general yesterday.

Of course, not everyone was despondent yesterday. Far from it. The BBJ’s Max Stendahl reports the business community is ecstatic about the ruling. The Globe’s Rachelle Cohen says the state just “dodged the economic bullet.” The Herald’s Howie Carr couldn’t be happier. Shira Schoenberg at MassLive reports on the general ‘relief and dismay’ reaction to the decision.

The big question moving forward: Will there be a sales-tax-cut question on the November ballot?
 
 
Pollster: Warren can unify Democrats, win White House in 2020
 
Democratic pollster Brad Bannon makes his case in The Hill for U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren as the most likely candidate to unite the still-warring wings of the Democratic party and lead it to victory in 2020. Bannon argues Warren has the progressive bona fides to keep Bernie Sanders supporters from defecting to third party candidates and a career’s worth of work on economic issues that could appeal to the minority and low-income.
Nurse-staffing ballot question survives court challenge
 
It wasn’t all thumbs down at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court yesterday. Shira Schoenberg at MassLive reports that the high court upheld the ballot question that seeks to mandate nurse staffing ratios at hospitals. Backed by nurse unions, the measure is opposed by hospitals. Look for a tough, and expensive, ballot-question fight on this one.
 
 
Berkshire veterans oppose statue of W.E.B. Du Bois due to his past communist ties
 
Great Barrington wants to honor its native son W.E.B. Du Bois, the late African-American scholar, civil rights activist and one of the co-founders of the NAACP, by erecting a life-size statue of him in front of the Great Barrington library. But some residents, including veterans, oppose the move, noting Du Bois ultimately joined the Communist Party when he was in his 90s, reports Terry Cowgill at the Berkshire Eagle. Mary Serreze at MassLive has more.
 
 
The real villain: Unpatriotic woodchuck blamed for stealing cemetery’s American flags
 
Forget commies. What about woodchucks who have total disregard for the American flag? There’s at least one of them at the Bellevue Cemetery in Adams, where police suspect a woodchuck is responsible for the disappearance of dozens of flags at the graves of veterans, reports Adam Shanks at the Berkshire Eagle and Steve Annearat the Globe. “Of all the things that go on in today’s world,” said Police Chief Richard Tarsa, “we have a woodchuck problem in our cemetery, stealing flags.”

 

State study: North-South rail tunnel could cost $12.3B – and possibly much higher
 
And we were just coming around to liking the idea. From the BBJ’s Don Seiffert: “A year-long study sponsored by the state to study the North South Rail Link project, released on Monday, estimates that the project will cost at least $12.3 billion — significantly greater than previous estimates.”

Bruce Mohl at CommonWealth reports that former Gov. Michael Dukakis and U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, outspoken backers of the North-South project, are dismissing the findings in the MBTA report. “They have no relation to reality,” Dukakis said of the cost estimates. SHNS’s Andy Metzger at WBUR has more, including how a more extensive version of the project could cost about $21.5 billion.
 
 
Don’t give up on that Boston Harbor sea barrier
 
Supporters of the North-South rail link take heart: Here’s proof that massive infrastructure projects can’t and won’t be killed off by mere studies alone. Vernon Woodworth, a consultant at AKF Engineers and a faculty member at the Boston Architectural College, takes exception to a recent UMass Boston study that said a 14-mile long harbor barrier to protect Boston from storm sea surges just isn’t feasible, saying that the study was based on faulty assumptions and that it’s still “too early to discard any options, and too late to delay any further.”
 
 
Up and down: MBTA plans parking fee hikes here and fee cuts there, as part of pricing experiment
 
Daily fees at dozens of MBTA parking lots and garages would rise, while fees at other lots would either fall or remain the same, under a new MBTA program that’s attempting to tailor prices based on demand and, hopefully, attract more riders to less-busy lots. The plan also raises $8.5 million in new revenue, it should be noted. CommonWealth’s Bruce Mohl and the Globe’s Adam Vaccaro have more.
 
 
On the T’s TTD list: A Blue-Red lines pedestrian link
 
The MBTA has compiled a long-term things-to-do list of projects, one of which could be a new pedestrian link that would finally connect the Blue Line to the Red Line in downtown Boston, reports CommonWealth’s Bruce Mohl, who notes the connection would be an alternative to building an actual rail link between the two lines.

 

Citing ‘inhumane treatment of children,’ Baker cancels sending National Guard personnel to border
 
This one made the Drudge Report cut yesterday. From Amanda McGowan at WGBH: “Governor Charlie Baker is canceling the deployment of Massachusetts National Guard troops to the border in light of recent reports about the Trump Administration’s practice of separating immigrant children from families. ‘Governor Baker directed the National Guard not to send any assets or personnel to the Southwest border today because the federal government’s current actions are resulting in the inhumane treatment of children,’ said Baker communications director Lizzy Guyton in a statement sent to WGBH News.”
 
 
Romney calls for end to Trump’s ‘pretty disturbing’ family-separation polices
 
Speaking of the immigration controversy, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, now running for the U.S. Senate in Utah, yesterday took time out from praising President Trump to return to criticizing Donald Trump, calling for an end to the president’s “pretty disturbing” and “heartbreaking” immigrant family-separation policy at the southern border, reports the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, the Globe’s Joan Vennochi writes that two women, Laura Bush and Melania Trump, have become the “voice of reason and Republican outrage” over the president’s controversial policy. But, then again, it’s a woman, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who has become the “the public face of the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance strategy,” reports the Washington Post. The Herald’s Joe Battenfeld writes that Trump needs to abandon the family-separation policy, if only because it’s become a PR nightmare that Democrats are taking full advantage of, even though former President Obama implemented similar separation policies when he was president.
 
 
‘Harvard can’t have it all’
 
Charles Lane at the Washington Post writes that Harvard University, now the subject of an admissions discrimination suit filed by a group representing Asian-American students, is trying to have it both ways when it says it’s not discriminating as it tries to create a more diverse student body. The bottom line: Some sort of discrimination is needed, and unavoidable, when pursuing diversity of any kind. Btw: Lane is sympathetic to both Harvard’s policies and its plight.

 

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