Episode 223: The all-nighter no one wanted

8/4/2022 -- This week on The Horse Race, Steve and Lisa start the show off with a rundown of the recent democratic primary debates. Then we dive into the Wednesday announcement from the MBTA: The orange line will be down for 30 days! Lisa gives us the scoop on what this means for riders.

On Monday morning the legislative session ended after 23 long hours. During the marathon, lawmakers passed bills that legalized sports betting, expanded mental health support, reformed cannabis laws, and much more. Our own Lisa Kashinsky was there and we also have Katie Lannan of GBH News on to talk about the great all-nighter and clarify the opening time of Capitol Coffee House.

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Full show transcript below:

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:00:26] Today on The Horse Race. We're running through the latest on the MBTA service woes. Then we're getting the inside scoop on what happened this week during the state house's great all nighter. It's Thursday, August 4th. [00:00:39][12.6]

Steve Koczela: [00:00:50] Welcome back to The Horse Race, your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts. I'm Steve Koczela here this week with Lisa Kashinsky. And Jenn Smith is off this week. Lisa, we haven't seen you in a few weeks, so what have you been up to? [00:01:02][12.4]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:01:03] I've missed you guys. It's just been so busy, covering the end of session, the fallout from the Supreme Court rulings. I'm trying to go back and think of what was my reason for missing every week. I got dehydrated one week because of all of the heat. It's just been it's been a very busy time, you know, even before the state house pulled this, you know, this insane all nighter to get all their legislating done, there was the question of what was even going to make it until that point, and there was just so many moving pieces. [00:01:36][33.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:01:37] Yeah, it was quite an interesting last few last couple of weeks and last couple of days. Looking forward to getting into that a little bit later with with you and Katie just to hear about what that was actually like, you know, being there in the building. And then another thing, of course, that's happening right now that I know has been keeping you busy from the messages that we've exchanged, of course, is all of the debates that have been going on, debates for statewide office, for other offices. So which ones have you been watching and which ones have really stuck out to you as particularly notable? [00:02:07][29.4]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:02:08] So we've had three already this week, one for the Democratic primary for attorney general, one for the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor and one for the Democratic primary for auditor. These are a little bit of a tongue tie here, and these are just the first three of what we're looking at is about two weeks of debates on, you know, both sides of the aisle, except for in the Republican side of the governor's race, because they just can't seem to come to an agreement on a second debate. It's been really interesting so far because we've gotten, you know, in the AG race, there's a lot of drama over campaign finance with superPACs and self-funding and things like that, that in their race is kind of overshadowing what are actually really key policy differences between the candidates, both in vision for the office and on things like Medicare for All and Rent Control and and things like that that are a little less in the purview of the office, but do have marked differences between the candidates. But when you get into the LG race and the auditor race, it's a lot more policy talk like, yes, there are jabs back and forth. The LG debate was pretty tame. The auditor one on Wednesday morning and WBUR was a little spicy, a little bit of jabs on, you know, kind of this ongoing question, this race of what the auditor's office has control over. And so it was really just interesting to see these candidates kind of in the same room again and talking about this. And it was a good introduction for voters. You know, people who have not been following these races as much as those of us here on The Horse Race have to really get to know these candidates and kind of what their main priorities are for office. [00:03:51][103.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:03:52] And those themes that you mentioned kind of sound familiar from some of the interviews we've seen, some of the campaign materials we've seen, particularly with the auditor's office and a lot of disagreement both between the candidates and some, you know, observers pointing out, one, things that the candidates are talking about aren't really the purview of the office to begin with. But for voters who haven't actually tuned in yet, there's still more to come. Right. This isn't kind of their last opportunity to learn about what the candidates are up to. [00:04:20][27.8]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:04:20] No, there are going to be debates through the at least the middle of August. And I'm sure I don't know yet. But I would wouldn't be surprised if there are some form of TV station debates after that. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, is that now that early voting and expanded mail in voting is law permit, you know, these pandemic era changes are permanent. It's kind of moved up the timetable a bit because people are getting their ballots probably now. Their ballot applications have been going out over the past few weeks. People are able to start voting already. So there is, you know, some kind of new push or impetus to start doing these debates and campaign ads on TV and things a bit earlier. That's why you're seeing some candidates go up earlier this year. But there will definitely be plenty more opportunities for people to learn about the candidates. And I'm sure we're still going to see the same end of August, early September push leading into this primary that you would in any normal election year. [00:05:16][56.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:05:17] Yeah, that's very interesting. And also worth noting is that your kind of super participants and you're upper income voters and strong Democratic voters are the ones who are most likely to vote early. So it's not even just that votes are being cast early. It's that the voters that, you know, these campaigns most want to talk to are, you know, already getting their ballots in, already kind of deciding who to vote for, and the next few days will already be mailing in their ballots. So definitely a lot going on. And of course, one of the other things that happened in the last couple of days is that there was an announcement of a 30 day shutdown of the MBTA orange line in response to the issues that the orange line and really the MBTA system as a whole have experienced recently. So we're going to dig into that and then a little bit later, our good friend Katie Lannan is joining us here to talk about what it was like inside the state house during one of the longest legislative end of sessions in recent memory. So, Lisa, shall we ride? [00:06:12][54.5]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:06:13] Let's do it. [00:06:13][0.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:06:20] On Wednesday afternoon, the MBTA and Governor Baker announced that the entire MBTA orange line will shut down for weeks to make much needed improvements. This is, of course, after a series of mishaps, derailments, and in the midst of an ongoing federal safety inspection. So, Lisa, with this shutdown, what are orange line riders in for? [00:06:39][18.5]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:06:40] A lot of disruption appears to be the answer to that. So basically, the system is going to shut down for 30 days. And by this system, I do mean just the orange line specifically. There might be a small green line shutdown, but they're not really talking about what or when that is yet. So this is going to be the entire orange line shutdown from 9 p.m. on August 19th through September 18th, with service set to resume on September 19th. The governor and the MBTA general manager said that this has been in the works for about a month now of planning and they're announcing it a couple of weeks ahead of time to give people the chance to kind of come up with their alternatives for getting around. Because this is, you know, a line that cuts from Malden all the way down, you know, through the city of Boston down to Forest Hills. This is a very big line that affects a lot of different communities. [00:07:34][53.6]

Steve Koczela: [00:07:35] Yeah. And I'd say this is the line that I ride when I go downtown. You know, I get on at Oak Grove and and ride downtown. So this is, you know, certainly going to affect me and many of my friends and neighbors around here, too. There have been a lot of confused and upset text messages trying to figure out, you know, how people are going to get to work and what the impact is on them as they try to get downtown. So certainly a lot you know, a lot of disruption and a lot of problems to come. But in terms of what this is actually going to enable. What is the administration and the T saying about the kinds of repairs they'll now be able to do? [00:08:11][35.9]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:08:12] Basically, they're looking at trying to ram through some long overdue repairs to, you know, particularly tracks. They're going to be replacing, you know, thousands of feet of tracks and ties. They're going to be making signal upgrades at certain stations. They've promised deep cleaned stations when riders return in September. And they're saying that a lot of these upgrades are going to help make faster trips and smoother commutes for people. You know, the orange line has these slow down areas right now. Part of this work will be to eliminate those. So they're basically saying that by shutting it down for 30 days, they're able to do and having 24 hour access to the, you know, the tracks and the stations and everything, without people around that, they will be able to do the same amount of work that they say would have taken five years of overnight and weekend diversions in 30 days. [00:09:07][55.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:09:08] And in terms of people then who are going to be dealing with the shutdown, they did announce a series of, you know, kind of alternatives, none of which are 1 to 1. People are going to be having much longer commutes and, you know, really kind of a lot of issues getting up and down the orange line. But in terms of what the alternatives are, Lisa, what were the announcements today? [00:09:28][19.6]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:09:29] They have signed a big shuttle bus contract for a few tens of millions of dollars to run shuttle busses. And they are also really encouraging people to use the commuter rail for this, saying that that's a viable option to help with this and that people are going to be able to use their regular Charlie cards on zones one A, one and two. So they're trying to make it easier for people to not have to deal with the standard commuter rail fees and fares and everything and just use the same Charlie card that they'd be using on the T, you know, to kind of help again in not quite a 1 to 1 replacement. [00:10:06][36.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:10:07] And that's that is definitely a huge deal just because, you know, at least on the on the northern part of the orange line, the Haverhill commuter rail line literally runs right along next to the orange line. But, you know, to go the same distance or just an extra mile costs almost three times as much. So to get people on to the Haverhill line really does make a lot of sense. So definitely good good news about that. Shuttle busses all the way from Oak Grove to downtown, that sounds frankly pretty miserable. So definitely sympathy for people who are trying to trying to get around that way. But this did kind of seem to come out of nowhere. You know, there were rumors circulating last night, but of course, you can't plan something like this in one day. So who was involved in the conversations that led us here? [00:10:53][45.3]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:10:54] The Governor and the MBTA general manager, Steve Poftak, said that of course the FTA, which is, as you said in the beginning, in the middle of a federal safety inspection of the T, was involved in these conversations and that they would not have gone forward with this plan without the FTA's input and approval. The city of Boston and the mayor were also involved, but there were a lot of people who weren't and a lot of stakeholders who weren't. I was talking to lawmakers Tuesday night when reports of this started to break who were finding out about this on social media or hearing about it from constituents as opposed to, you know, the Baker administration. You have several community colleges whose stops are right on the Orange Line, Roxbury Community College, Bunker Hill Community College, and the MBTA GM said that they have not been involved in these discussions so far. The city has because of BPS, you know, Boston Public Schools, the school year will start right in the middle of this shutdown, which is a huge inconvenience and raises a lot of question marks. But again, not everyone was involved in planning for how to do this. They said that by announcing this. Now, what is it, about 15 days before it's supposed to start that they were trying to that more details will become available and that they just wanted to start giving people a heads up. But, of course, people are skeptical of of the mitigation steps that they're going to be trying to roll out over the next couple of weeks. [00:12:21][87.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:12:22] Yeah. And I mean, you mentioned BPS and the colleges. It's worth mentioning, of course, that students will be moving in during the shutdown. So, you know, and I'm sure students scattered all over the country aren't necessarily, in the world, aren't necessarily watching this as closely as we are. So I guess you're going to see a lot of surprised and disappointed students showing up in Boston and realizing that a major transit line has shut down. And so certainly a lot to pay attention to there. Lisa, thank you so much for walking us through all this. [00:12:49][26.9]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:12:50] Always a pleasure. [00:12:51][0.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:12:58] On Monday morning. The legislative session ended after 23 long hours. During the marathon, lawmakers passed bills that legalized sports betting, expanded mental health support, reformed cannabis laws and much more. And tireless statehouse reporters were there to cover every twist and turn. Our very own Lisa Kashinsky spent that night at the state house. And we're also joined now by BFF of The Pod, Katie Lannan, who covers the state house for GBH News. Welcome back, Katie. [00:13:24][26.3]

Katie Lannan: [00:13:25] Glad to be here. Especially glad to see Lisa again after the, what, 20 or so hours we spent together on Sunday night. [00:13:33][7.5]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:13:35] Was a rollicking good time. [00:13:35][0.2]

Steve Koczela: [00:13:37] A rollicking good time. So I have to ask, first of all, what is it actually like, I guess, starting from the beginning of that day? Everybody kind of knows we're going to be here for the long haul. We're going to be here all day, all night. What's it like kind of starting at the beginning of that day? [00:13:51][13.8]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:13:52] Well, for me, I got there a little before Katie did, I think, in in the afternoon. And, you know, people were coming in around like noon, 1, 2, 3 p.m. on Sunday being like, oh, yeah, we know this will go towards midnight, you know, past midnight, etc. And the whole day is just a lot of like hurry up and wait, really, you know, the big decisions that are still left, you know, which bills are still in conference, you know what you're looking for. And it's just a lot of chasing around lawmakers in hallways who, you know, won't say anything because they can't say anything, because negotiations are still ongoing. And in this legislature, those are all behind closed doors and they don't like to talk about them before they're final. A lot of sitting in hallways, sitting on ledges with laptops, chasing people around, wondering if it's safe to go get a coffee unless they're going to break some news in the next 5 minutes. So it was kind of like that for a perpetual almost 24 hours. [00:14:46][54.8]

Katie Lannan: [00:14:48] Yeah, I would say late afternoon or early evening, we started to hear rumors and again, this is Sunday night that they could go as late as 4 a.m., which is kind of how things ended in 2020 and the weird COVID year they went till around four in the morning. But in a in a more traditional end of session, you're usually seeing not a not a hard stop at midnight, but a midnight adjacent. And so I think the fact that they really they were in till after ten in the morning on Monday, caught a lot of people off guard. A lot of lawmakers, staffers, reporters, got to discover just what time Capitol Coffee House Across the street opens up, which is apparently six in the morning, but they'll start doing coffee and muffins a little earlier. So there is a lot of it, a lot of sleep deprivation. And like Lisa said, you're mostly just waiting, and so are the lawmakers, except for the handful who are on the conference committees ironing out the big ticket items. There's a lot of voting on land, taking bills that need to get done before they can no longer take roll calls and informal sessions. Why the land taking bills start moving at the end of the session when many have been filed earlier is a is a great question. But other than those recorded roll call votes, it's a lot of recesses, a lot of just sitting, snacking, caffeinating. [00:16:26][98.7]

Steve Koczela: [00:16:28] So for those unfamiliar, of course, the session is theoretically, technically supposed to end on July 31st. There's a bit of magic that happens, though, where July 31st doesn't end for our beloved Massachusetts state legislature, as one might expect at midnight on the beginning of August 1st. So how does that work? What actually happens as midnight approaches? [00:16:48][20.3]

Katie Lannan: [00:16:50] The midnight rule is really one that is only enforced if a lawmaker objects. And there have been times in the past where the Senate in particular has to suspend its rules to keep meeting, and they'll usually do that in hour by hour increments. So you'll get an 11:55 vote to go past midnight. And after a while, Sunday night, Monday morning, I think around 5 a.m., they just did 5 a.m. and beyond. Rather than continuing the hour by hour. But there is kind of a tacit agreement in the legislature that they'll keep going until they get it done. No one wants to be the one who stops everything from happening, who objects to the continuing to meet past midnight. It's a similar dynamic to how conference committee reports are supposed to be filed by 8 p.m. the night before to come up for a vote. But when we start getting to this deadline, you see them coming out and almost immediately being voted on because they've they've run out the clock. There is no more time. And the legislature is very willing to kind of let these rules fall by the wayside in order to to finish up. [00:18:11][81.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:18:12] So I have to ask on behalf of the millions of Twitter followers who are following along with the 3 a.m. updates that you are providing, what is the reason for this? Who benefits from this? How did it come about? Why does it seem like we have 25 major bills all piled up in the last 23 hour session that the legislature has when they've already been in session for over a year? How did it get like this? [00:18:36][24.2]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:18:39] I think that that's the million dollar magic wonderful question that everyone would like to know. But House Speaker Ron Mariano kind of summed it up when he was on Bloomberg Baystate Business last week. He was like, look, nothing happens here until it has to happen. And these are procrastinating legislators and deadlines are a really motivating factor. Plus, you know, the curve ball that at least hold some of this up with the 62F, which I'm sure that we'll get into. [00:19:05][26.5]

Katie Lannan: [00:19:07] Yeah, I think Lisa's right at this point. A big part of it is that this has just become the way it's done. It used to be that all the the bills would kind of reset at the end of the first year of the session, but they adopted this new model. And part of the reason, it's a relatively new model, I should say, and certainly the way it's always been for my time covering the state house, the July 31st situation, and part of it is to avoid the overlap of legislating and campaigning as primaries and general elections approach. So we're going to see focus turn to the campaign trail from here on out. But the the back log, there's no good answer for that. [00:19:57][50.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:19:57] I mean, election campaigning, I have to say, is a bit of a thin excuse, if only because we have such uncompetitive state legislative elections here. You know, we I don't know if it was true this last session, but for several sessions before that, we had the least competitive legislative elections in the country as a whole. So the idea that there was oh, there were all these challengers out there waiting in the wings, waiting to unseat you, and you really needed to get back to your district and focus on campaigning never really made a lot of sense. But Lisa, we have to get back to the very mysterious and provocative abbreviation that you mentioned, 62F. What happened there? [00:20:33][35.9]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:20:36] So sometime was it last week at this point or the week before there it became apparent. You know, the governor announced that, Commonwealth Magazine was able to kind of get it the night before, that we were about to trigger or are poised to trigger because we don't actually have the final revenue numbers yet. That won't come until September. But we are on track to trigger this obscure 1986 voter passed tax cap law that basically would send roughly $3 billion back to taxpayers because we are experiencing these record revenues and that just totally scrambled lawmakers plans to provide tax relief. They had been working on a plan for a long time to all told, you know, put about $1 billion in tax rebates, one time tax rebates and other forms of relief through changes to the tax code. And that was in this giant like more than $4 billion economic development bill. And then they get this curve ball and then they couldn't figure out what to do with it. [00:21:36][60.8]

Steve Koczela: [00:21:39] And where that ended up was that that bill at least, the economic development bill that had a lot of that stuff in just didn't pass at all right? So all that stuff is now basically in limbo and maybe could pass later in the year. [00:21:50][11.5]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:21:51] Yeah, they basically were unable to come to an agreement on that. Katie might be able to get into the details a bit more than I can, but they have vowed to kind of keep plugging at it. But there's only so much of that bill that they can actually do because of bonding issues. And I think Katie can explain that. [00:22:08][17.0]

Katie Lannan: [00:22:10] Yeah. That that $4 billion package is a mix of a number of things. There's the $1 billion in tax relief and then there's borrowing or bonding authorization, spending of the states surplus from fiscal 2022 and ARPA spending in COVID relief funds. And the the bonding piece that has to be passed on a roll call vote. So that's pretty much dead. Lawmakers don't seem too concerned about that because they note that the borrowing authorizations are long term. So you can come back to them next year if need be. And then, yeah, it's a really good question, what they're going to manage to get done. There's seems to be interest in the money for fiscally strained hospitals that's in there. And an interesting wrinkle is a lot of the economic development bill is earmarked for local projects. That is the kind of thing you hear about on the campaign trail, you know, money for a park or sidewalk reconstruction or things like that. And those are those are out there as well in that same kind of legislative limbo. So we're going to be, I guess, watching to see what pieces resurface, what they look like and when. [00:23:27][76.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:23:28] And, of course, also one issue near and dear to our hearts here at The Horse Race that was in that economic development bill is happy hour. Of course, State Senator Julian Cyr's amendment, which would have brought back Happy Hour, which we talked about in some depth last week, was also a part of that bill. So now if any of that stuff were to pass, it would have to happen an informal session, which of course, is, you know, much more potentially problematic. Any individual legislator can object and basically stop that from happening. So then moving on through the night, we're now at, what, five or 6:00 in the morning, state Capitol Coffee's opening. What's happening at that point? We're kind of right at the last minute when stuff might be passing. Is there any activity that starts at that point or is it still kind of a lot of closed doors and perching on ledges around the statehouse? [00:24:16][48.0]

Katie Lannan: [00:24:18] Yeah, I think around 5:15, around Capitol Coffee o'clock is when the some of the top Democrats in the legislature started announcing the deals on sports betting and mental health legislation and the fact that there was not a deal on economic development. And so for the reporters perspective, then you actually have people to to talk to, to ask questions about they emerged to answer some of our questions. And I'll note, too, that a lot of the staff and the clerks are very busy as all this is going on. Lawyers are reviewing final languages and aides are running around trying to get people to agree to a particular piece of something. And the clerks are really working throughout the night to get everything filed and online. And so that that all that activity started to really pick up around five in the morning. And then it wasn't until much, much, much later in the morning that we started to see in the final votes take place. Well, after the sun was up. [00:25:28][70.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:25:29] And then we're still hours away from the end of session. What time did things finally end and was it the latest and longest session ever or just among the worst or best? [00:25:39][10.2]

Katie Lannan: [00:25:41] So I would say that it it was definitely up there or down there, depending on how you want to conceive of it. And the final adjournments were after 10 a.m. I think the Senate was in for an even 23 hours consecutively. I was talking to a couple of lawmakers around four in the morning who had been on Beacon Hill for decades, who are saying that it used to be much, much more common for the legislature to go into the early morning hours, particularly when they were doing budget debates. There'd be cases where I'm told you'd finish up your budget and you go out for for breakfast or lunch after. So I don't think it's entirely unheard of something like this. But in recent memory, definitely unprecedented. Chris Lisinski at the Statehouse News Service pulled all the dates for the last 20 years of adjournment, and this was definitely the latest. [00:26:41][60.1]

Steve Koczela: [00:26:43] So one final question then for both of you, because you are each there for the duration on a gallon or on a liter basis, how much coffee did you consume from the beginning of that session to the end? And what kind? [00:26:55][12.1]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:26:56] Okay. So I'm not sure. Okay. I can do this in size of Starbucks drinks. I don't know the gallons or is off the top of my head, but it started with, I think a grande coffee, graduated to a venti strawberry refresher. There was apple juice at one point because I thought that that was a good idea for like the sugar content and like, just to break it up. I don't know if I cracked the little espresso cans that someone very nicely brought in for a shout out to whichever reporter that was. I'm sorry, I forgot. So I think that was my progression. But at some point I think I just started running on, like, adrenaline or like the rush of being in the building and kind of stopped chugging the coffee so much and just went for, you know, the 2 a.m. pizza walk outside, you know, a little bit of rain coming down to wake myself up. I think that's about how it went for me. [00:27:50][53.9]

Katie Lannan: [00:27:52] Oh yeah. I was among the the 5:30 clientele at Capital Coffee. I don't think I've ever stood in the line for anything other than like TSA at 5:30 before. But prior to that I did a medium Starbucks on my way in, maybe around 3:00, I had a Diet Coke with dinner a few hours later, and I regretfully, did not do much coffee in between because I was thinking we'd be in for like a 1 a.m. wrap and I didn't want to be unable to fall asleep at three in the morning. Joke's on me. I didn't fall asleep at three in the morning. I think I probably had about four liters of very cold water throughout the night, though. And between that and the adrenaline, I think I kept myself going. [00:28:43][51.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:28:44] All right. Well, thank you so much for the service to the commonwealth and to all of us, in all seriousness, in covering all of that. And it's good to see you both again during the day. And hopefully your nerves have recovered somewhat from all of that. I'm Katie Lannan of GBH News and our own Lisa Kashinsky. Thank you so much for giving us a sense of what that night was like. [00:29:03][18.5]

Katie Lannan: [00:29:04] Thank you. Looking forward to getting my circadian rhythm back on track. [00:29:07][3.1]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:29:09] It's still not there. It's still not there. I've gotten it back to, like, 2 a.m.. [00:29:13][3.9]

Steve Koczela: [00:29:17] And that brings us to our final segment of the week, which this week is a particularly, I think, humorous map oriented mailbag, which is that somebody took it upon themselves to document the most famous or well-known person from every municipality on Earth based on Wikipedia data. So I tweeted out a map of people in Boston, and I'd say there were a few objections. So what were some of your but some of your pushback to this very deeply scientific map mapping project? [00:29:45][28.1]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:29:46] So I was zooming in on Cambridge, where it says that the most famous person is Matt or the most searched person is Matt Damon. But what about Ben Affleck? I mean, was this like pre J.Lo or something? [00:29:58][11.7]

Steve Koczela: [00:29:59] I think for sure. You know, that's worth asking because Ben Affleck stock has definitely been rising. I mean, this deeply scientific, elaborate statistical project only looked at the most searched or notable person born in each place. And Matt Damon was born in Cambridge. And as it turns out, Ben Affleck is actually from Berkeley, California, which I never knew before researching this map. He is the most notable person from Berkeley, California, but Matt Damon is the most notable person from Cambridge. [00:30:31][31.6]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:30:32] So you're telling me that Ben Affleck, notable Bostonian area, Massachusetts person, is an interloper. [00:30:39][6.9]

Steve Koczela: [00:30:40] An interloper, the purveyor of like Dunks cups and, you know, all the movies and everything is born in Berkeley. So, you learn something new every day. [00:30:50][10.5]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:30:51] Mind blown. But that is, I don't even know if I can get through this outro, but that is all the time we have for today. I'm Lisa Kashinsky signing off with Steve Koczela. Our producer is Elena Eberwein. Don't forget to give The Horse Race a review, wherever you're hearing us now, subscribe to the Massachusetts Politico playbook and reach out to the MassINC Polling Group for polls. Thank you all for listening. We'll see you next week, where I might still be processing the fact that Ben Affleck is not actually from Massachusetts. [00:30:51][0.0]

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