Ed Lyons, Why is Mass. always in a state of emergency?:

The migrant shelter crisis has brought our state’s problematic emergency law back into public view. Our Legislature somehow shrugged in response to an unprecedented flow of migrants and asked Gov. Maura Healey to change — all by herself —  a marvelous law it once passed with pride.

Healey cannot change our first-in-the-nation “Right to Shelter” legal guarantee all by herself, without invoking a formal emergency under the 1950 Civil Defense Act. House Speaker Ron Mariano advised her to do just that in October…

The primary reason we will see more unnecessary use of these emergency powers is that Massachusetts politics has problems that will increase demands for executive actions. We have a Legislature that is popular, unproductive, and invincible. [Ed. note:  I believe that their popularity is due in part to the fact that they are unproductive.  See also former-Gov. Baker.]

We have chronic policy problems, such as housing, climate, transit, and childcare— that we are not making much progress on.

We have a Commonwealth of cities and towns that often undermines solutions to those chronic problems at the local level, and they send legislators to Beacon Hill who do not want to contradict officials back home…

Dan Drezner, Useless Partisanship Weakens Necessary Partisanship: Continue reading →