Unfortunately, Boston has a new entry into the dark money politics game, the Boston Policy Institute (BPI). If you are concerned about how the power of unaccountable money erodes our politics, this is more bad news. Gintautas Dumcius of CommonWealth Beacon just did a fine piece on BPI The shadowy think tank fighting Boston City Hall: Nonprofit stirring the pot on property taxes won’t reveal donors so go read that and I’ll keep this brief. Here’s a telling paragraph from Dumcius: The Boston Policy Institute, launched in December by two 37-year-old Democratic insiders, says its goal is to shine ..read more

The Boston Globe recently framed the possible MCAS ballot question as a contest between the “Boston business community” and the Massachusetts Teachers Association. A better frame would be “capital v. labor”–which applies to additional ballot questions this year as well. First, some housekeeping: I’ve recently been writing about coverage of billionaire-funded K-12 interest groups and the lack of local media, especially the Boston Globe, to offer adequate coverage of these interests. I’ll break up themes for three different (and shorter) posts. The First part is, This is a contest between labor ..read more

Last week I was in a colloquy on Twitter with a Boston political journalist and an activist, neither of whom enjoys my focus on money in politics. So, I’ll be doing more of that. But first, one thing they both say is the public does not care at all about who funds politics, especially dark money. So I mentioned Jane Mayer’s book Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. It came out in 2017, was a long-time bestseller, one of the New York Times’ 10 Best Books of the Year, National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, Los Angeles Times book Prize fin ..read more

Politics-as-usual at the Massachusetts statehouse has long been an establishment-friendly, status-quo and incumbency-protective affair in which professional politicians balance the preferences of average voters and organized special interests in order to serve the public interest and to advance their political careers. This arrangement has endured thanks to the confluence of key cultural, institutional, and structural dynamics in the state. Bay State voters have proven pragmatic and receptive to the career-minded, transactional approach of legislators at a statehouse where the legislative supr ..read more

On March 14, 2024, I wrote to several Boston Globe editors and reporters concerning the Globe’s coverage of K-12 interest groups in Massachusetts. I have received no response. The letter is below, I will list addressees and another note after the letter. I hope you will also read Banned in Boston: Coverage of Walton Family Spending on K-12 Interest Groups, 2022 Edition,  Latest on the Barr Foundation K-12 Interest Group Team, 2022 and Banned in Boston: Globe Coverage of Barr Foundation’s K-12 Interest Group Spending. Dear Reporters and Editors, I read Jon Chesto’s report MCAS ballot quest ..read more

As I wrote yesterday in  Latest on the Barr Foundation K-12 Interest Group Team, 2022, from 2017-2022 the Barr Foundation spent over $14,000,000 to support K-12 interest groups in Massachusetts. The twist is, Barr also helps fund the Globe’s K-12 interest group coverage. So, we have the unique situation in which Barr funds K-12 interest groups and the Globe’s coverage of them. From 2019-2022 Barr donated over $1,400,000 to the Boston Globe for its The Great Divide education coverage. The Globe originally announced the funding relationship with Barr on June 20, 2019 as a two-year program ..read more

On Tuesday, March 26th, I had the opportunity to provide testimony to the Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions regarding the pending ballot initiative that would explicitly authorize the state auditor to audit the General Court (i.e. the MA state legislature). I had previously expressed my take on the measure HERE and HERE. All of the invited testimony can be viewed HERE. My rather energetic testimony begins with 35 minutes, 12 seconds left in the video and lasts about 20 minutes. As luck would have it, I testified last, which is to say, I was the last speaker who had been invited to speak ..read more

This post is a preview of an forthcoming article in the New England Journal of Political Science. Politics-as-usual at the Massachusetts statehouse has long been an establishment-friendly, status-quo and incumbency-protective affair in which professional politicians balance the preferences of average voters and organized special interests in order to serve the public interest and to advance their political careers. This arrangement has endured thanks to the confluence of key cultural, institutional, and structural dynamics in the state. Bay State voters have proven pragmatic and receptive to t ..read more

When we read an article in the Boston Globe sports page about the Boston Red Sox, we frequently see a critique not just of the performers on the field but also of manager Alex Cora, the coaches, team president Craig Breslow, the geeks in “baseball ops,” the minor league staff, and owner John Henry, who also owns the Globe.  But Boston Globe articles about K-12 education interests cover only the performers and rarely the powerful actors who put them in to play. Why? (Please read the Disclosure below. Michael Podhorzer puts it so much better than I do). This omission occurs again today in M ..read more

Newton public education is the target of a coordinated right-wing extremist assault. The latest is a frivolous attack on Newton Teachers Association but that follows attacks on diversity programs and racist attacks on two superintendents. Wake up, folks. I wrote about Christian Nationalists Attack on Newton Teachers Association just the other day. That post featured a Wisconsin attorney with deep Christian right ties (former aide to anti-union former WI governor Scott Walker, etc., etc.) filing suit on behalf of several Newton parents over the NTA’s recent strike.  That filing went nowher ..read more