Given a review of recent history in Springfield, 2025 may have expressed the disgruntlement many expected in 2023. However, the reasons may not be particular to the City of Homes. A foul wind from Washington was blowing and perhaps coloring the municipal electorate as much as anything. Courts also played a larger role in the city’s political fortunes than they had in years.
HOLYOKE—On the precipice of the municipal election, the Facebook page Keep Holyoke Affordable took out the knives. It posted a darkened screengrab from a virtual Planning Board meeting centered on at-large Council candidate Mimi Panitch. The Facebook post included text that blasted her record on the Board and noted the menacing, eight-armed undulating cephalopod in her background.
Although WWLP is not the Western Mass affiliate of ABC, the Disney-owned network that airs Jimmy Kimmel Live!. However, its parent company, Nexstar, owns ABC affiliates elsewhere. It was via those affiliates that Nexstar contributed to Disney’s decision to suspend Kimmel’s show.
On August 29 Judge Richard Leon dealt a blow to the efforts of Springfield and other municipalities to recover billions Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency illegally rescinded. As had seemed likely after a Supreme Court ruling days before, Leon found that he lacked jurisdiction over the claims and therefore dismissed the case.
Earlier this year, the EPA essentially refused to disburse billions in the Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants
SCOTUS dealt a potential blow to efforts to recover grants that Donald Trump’s administration had swiped from Springfield and other municipalities. In a fractured ruling, five of the nine Supremes stayed an order that had required the National Institutes of Health to restore grant funding. The ruling, in effect, said recovery of the funds did not belong in US District Court.
UPDATED 8/5/25 12:34AM: To include an update from the court that it will hear all motions on August 5. Next week, the City of Springfield will do what countless entities have done since January 20—it will march into federal court to confront Donald Trump and
Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil came to Capitol Hill to lobby on behalf of Palestinians. Of course, the context of Khalil’s visit was not just the war in Gaza he had opposed as a student. Donald Trump and cronies had imprisoned Khalil, a lawful permanent resident with US citizen family, for his activism at Columbia after the war broke out. Among those Khalil met were members of the 413’s delegation including Senator Ed Markey and 2nd Massachusetts District Rep James McGovern.
SPRINGFIELD—A crowd of hundreds—and perhaps well over a thousand—here joined protesters across the 413 and the United States for the “No Kings” protests aimed at Donald Trump. Hours before Trump’s sputtering military parade in Washington, Americans rallied to oppose his increasingly monarchical tendencies.
Demonstrators gathered at the Federal Courthouse on State Street, filling the plaza at State and Elliot Streets and lining State nearly a block in each direction.
Republicans in the United State House of Representatives jammed through their budget and spending bill this week. Given their rank in the Democratic caucus, both reps for Western Massachusetts featured prominently in the debate.
The federal government has confirmed its cancellation of a $20 million environmental grant to the city of Springfield, but officials are not giving in. There is a formal, administrative appeal process. When city officials learned of the grant’s cancellation, it said it was considering all options. Since then, the city has been in touch with the office of Attorney General Andrea Campbell. That could add some firepower to Springfield’s response.