Let us not despair but act? (WMP&I)

BOSTON—In her second State of the Commonwealth address, which solemnly nodded at the coming national change, Governor Maura Healey celebrated legislative accomplishments and restated 2025 goals. Among these were her $8 billion transportation plan. It was a laundry list and a pep rally that, as such speeches tend to do, rhetorically spanned the commonwealth from east to west.

Healey hits the halfway mark of her first term having endured considerably less fiscal turbulence than her last Democratic predecessor. That, and popular grace around what controversies that have arisen, buoyed her with the public. Still, the legislature’s dysfunction loomed over the last session. Calls have grown for more change. Meanwhile, reflecting her new role compared to eight years ago,  Healey offered only subtle subversion to the incoming regime in Washington via historical flourish.

“Two-hundred fifty years ago this April, on a common in Lexington and a bridge in Concord, the farmers, tradesmen and shopkeepers of the Massachusetts Militia took a stand,” she said “They risked everything for the right to self-government and they started the Revolution that gave us our country. This is our legacy, Massachusetts, and it’s more than history. It’s who we are.”

Healey immediately turned to service personnel, whose units descended from those regiments. The implication, however, was inescapable and was confirmed in her close.

The more muted response to Donald Trump’s return has alarmed many. It has led to calls for Democrats to show more spine. Healey has attributed her tone to holding a different role as governor. This contrasts to the last go-round when she was attorney general. Indeed, her successor in that office, Andrea Campbell, has been staffing up to do battle with the feds in court.

The audience in the House chamber included the executive officers, legislative leaders, and US House Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Reps Stephen Lynch, Richard Neal and Lori Trahan. Onetime leaders in attendance included former Governor Bill Weld and, notably, former Senate President Stan Rosenberg of Amherst.

While Healey’s remarks ran the gamut of policy and departments under her control, transportation, housing, health care, and permitting reform featured the most prominently.

Swiping into the T with a smile now. (WMP&I)

Without directly highlighting the steaming piles her predecessor left her, Healey said state infrastructure was a mess. Among the most prominent of these was the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

“Now, we can start building the kind of transportation you deserve. Here’s how we’ll do it. It’s not with new taxes, but with smart, forward-thinking management,” she said. “Our plan is to invest $8 billion over the next 10 years to make transportation in every corner of our state more secure, more safe, more reliable.”

Healey mentioned projects throughout the commonwealth, including I-391’s viaduct in Chicopee. However, it was clear that the MBTA was the main event. She praised the agency’s General Manager, Phil Eng, for eliminating slow zones in about 15 months.

A substantial part of the revenue in her proposal relies on the Fair Share Amendment in one form or another. The 2022 change to the state constitution imposes an additional 4% surtax on incomes over $1 million (indexed to inflation). The money can only be spent on education and transportation.

The $8 billion proposal Healey highlighted would use debt-backed Fair Share funds. The governor announced it earlier in the week. Not all of it would finance debt. Some funds would be direct payments to right the MBTA’s fiscal ship. However, by using some funds for bond payments, dollars could go further faster, depending on market conditions and surtax revenue.

Cheers, not jeers, for MBTA chief Phil Eng in the House chamber. (via MBTA)

The proposal is not without criticism, especially since it emerged from Healey’s long-term transportation funding committee. Some presumed new revenue would be part of stabilizing the MBTA, while reserving Fair Share funds for capital projects. Moreover, the MBTA’s capital project deficit alone is three times the size of Healey’s overall plan, never mind other organs of the state transportation network.

Still, it will come as a relief to MBTA riders. Her proposal to expand Chapter 90 funds for municipal roads should receive a warm welcome in city and town halls. Spending on the program has not risen in over a decade.

On housing, Healey mostly focused on implementing last year’s housing bills and the MBTA Communities Act. The latter requires communities with transit zone to allow more housing. However, it is possible existing housing can count toward the quota.

“This year, with the Affordable Homes Act in place, we’re going to get shovels in the ground and people in homes, and we’re going to do it working together,” Healey said.

However, Healey proposed no new legislative initiatives to cut back regulations and zoning rules that block much-needed home construction.

Health care had taken an outsized role in Healey’s administration with the collapse of private equity-owned Steward Healthcare. She praised her Health & Human Services Secretary, Kate Walsh, and her staff for maneuvering through that period. However, she also said she was directing her administration to find ways to make primary care more accessible.

Recognizing Massachusetts AFL-CIO chief Chrissy Lynch, Healey touted the permitting reform law that passed last year. Climate hawks hope it will smooth the way for energy infrastructure the state needs to plug into green energy projects.

Mariano meet the press and greeting Healey’s proposals. (WMP&I)

Healey defended the work of the legislature in the last session, which nearly imploded after the House and Senate smashed into their July 31 deadline. Legislative leaders seemed to return the favor by offering minimal critiques. They had quibbles here and there after the speech. One area House Speaker Ron Mariano said could be most difficult was primary care.

“Primary care is an interesting challenge. I’ve been doing health care since 2006,” he said in a scrum with reporters, laying out various initiatives to get doctors to stay in primary care. “It’s very difficult to get doctors to enter into a primary care business. The amount of renumeration over your career for what you expect to get to be a primary care doc doesn’t work.”

Senate President Karen Spilka, likewise, did not betray any major schism with Healey. Asked about the governor’s transportation funding proposal, which would shift spending to be about equal for both transportation and education—Spilka was noncommittal, but not hostile.

“Well, I think again, it’s all a matter of balancing that the fair share amendment surtax expressly says for the money that comes from it to go to both education and transportation,” she said. Spilka acknowledged K-12 education had long been a priority of hers, but acknowledged the importance of transportation, too.

Spilka, whose senate presidency dates to the last Trump term, said Beacon Hill would fight back if necessary. (WMP&I)

Both leaders had little reaction to Healey’s approach to Trump, though Spilka plainly stated that Beacon Hill would act to protect the interests of Massachusetts residents.

Healey closed with the only explicit mention of Washington. This was where she linked the transition to her earlier reference to Lexington and Concord.

“This is a moment to know our past, to understand our present, and to build our future,” she said. Turning to the transition, she continued, “I assure you we will take every opportunity to work with the federal government in any way that benefits Massachusetts, and I also promise you we will not change who we are.”

That was the headline out of the speech. Very likely, it was what Healey and her staff wanted amid the looming changes in the nation’s capital. As if to emphasize that point, Healey did not end there, but referenced President John F. Kennedy’s visit to the State House shortly before taking office 64 years ago.

Healey recalled that Kennedy spoke of “courage,” “judgment,” “integrity” and “dedication.”

“These are the historic qualities of the Bay Colony and the Bay State–the qualities which this state has consistently sent to this chamber on Beacon Hill here in Boston and to Capitol Hill back in Washington,” Kennedy told a joint session of the legislature, according to the JFK Library archive.

But just before that, Kennedy had said a bit more that resonates.

“History will not judge our endeavors–and a government cannot be selected–merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these,” he had said then. “For of those to whom much is given, much is required.”

Even if the commonwealth’s politicians have not always lived up to these values, Kennedy aspired to bring them to his administration. Unlike then, they are not being sent to lead the federal government this year.

For her part, Healey said the values Kennedy outlined “must guide us now in our resolute focus on what people need and how we can work together to deliver for them.”

“Because in this moment, our actions matter more than our words,” she added.

Indeed, at this appointed hour, the actions Massachusetts officials take could matter gravely for residents. As Kennedy said, “when at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each one of us.”