Window Into The State House

Window Into The State House provides our readers a synopsis of important issues of interest, past and current, that are being proposed, debated or acted upon by the Massachusetts Legislature. Many issues that are not related to local city government services are acted upon and have a direct impact on daily life. They are tax policy, transportation infrastructure, judicial appointments, social services and health, as well as higher education. We will excerpt reports from the gavel-to-gavel coverage of House and Senate sessions by news sources focused on this important aspect of our lives. These sources include a look ahead at the coming week in state government and summaries and analyses of the past week, re-caps of a range of state government activity, as well as links to other news.

ments in education but also the specter of successful people fleeing the Bay State the State House press corps was very very interested in yesterday’s ruminations.

As predicted in this space Monday, the overarching message was one of caution. Much attention was paid to the revenue from the new Millionaire’s Tax, so-called; state Revenue Commissioner Geoffery Snyder told the lawmakers his department expects $1.4 million in additional income from that new tax, which is statutorily set aside for education and transportation. As to revenues generally, there was little quarrel with Sanchez’s contention that the state’s take will rise modestly, about 1.5 percent, to around $40 billion, in the bookkeeping year ending June 30, 2024.

Healey to press on with push for bridge money - and look hard at cost

A day after news broke that federal officials turned down the state’s bid for money to start on the Allston Multimodal Project, Gov. Healey was asked her view of another 9-figure project also hung up by Washington unwill - ingness to provide startup funds. Healey said she’s strongly behind renewing the state’s efforts to lobby for money to design and construct replacements for the Bourne and Sagamore bridges. “I’ve talked to Congressman Lynch, I’ve talked to other members of the delegation, I’m very interested in looking at the numbers and looking at what’s possible and certainly want to put our best foot forward so that we’re doing everything we can to secure the federal funding and assistance that we need for an incredibly important infrastructure in this state,” the governor told reporters.

Leung calls South Station out for locking out the poor Globe columnist Shirley Leung traveled to South Station to factcheck MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo’s claim that the homeless are not being tossed out of the train station during cold winter nights. She watched security guards put up a sign saying the station was closed between 12 am and 5 am, and tie the doors shut. She gives the details, and quotes Dr. Jim O’Connell, who makes it his business to look out for the interests of the homeless. “Places where people who are real street folks can go are getting fewer and fewer as time goes on,” O’Connell said. “The net result is it’s really hard, we think, for some of the very vulnerable street folks to find a safe place to be at night other than outside on the sidewalk.”

Battenfield wants Justice for Riley, as in punishment

It took the Herald about four and half minutes after the arraignment of Riley Dowell to question whether the daughter of a congresswoman, to wit the powerful Katherine Clark, can really be held to account. Joe Battenfield’s theory: Nope.

Alarming: Globe finds insufficient progress on Capitol panic buttons

Jess Bidgood and Lissandra Villa de Petrzelka of the Globe look into a lapse in response to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection: many congressional offices still do not have continued on page 4