Episode 244: Reaching the End of the Lyons
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Steve Koczela [00:00:02] The horse race is brought to you by benchmark strategies. Benchmark is setting a new standard as Boston's fastest growing public affairs consulting firm. To know more, connect with Benchmark on Twitter at Benchmark Boston.
Jennifer Smith [00:00:26] This week on the horse race, sports betting is now live in Massachusetts. We'll touch on that briefly. But then Lisa Kashinsky is going to talk us through the change in leadership at the top of the MassGOP. And then finally, we'll take a closer look at the MBTA Communities law. It's Thursday, February 2nd.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:00:54] Welcome back to the horse race, your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts. I'm Lisa Kashinsky, here with Jennifer Smith. Steve Koczela and Jenn will talk housing and Boston geography a little bit later in the show. But for now, let's start with some of the big news this week. Sports gambling is now legal in the Bay State after months, years, etc., of pressure campaigns. I don't know. Are you on your way to Everett with a I guess either a duffle bag full of cash or handcuffed to a briefcase, a-la Julian Edelman?
Jennifer Smith [00:01:27] I mean, I was thinking we could actually go with maybe I could dress in full robbers uniform with just a big burlap sack with a dollar sign painted on it maybe, and just scurry in, lose all my money, and then rob the place on my way out. All of this to say, no, I will not be heading to Everett with a duffel bag of cash. But you all can if you're listening to this. It's available at the casinos. Online sports betting platforms aren't going to come online until March or so. But, I mean, if you feel like doing an in-person attempt to give the house all your money, power to you out there.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:02:09] Yeah. Like, is anyone safe to bet on at this point? I, I will admit that beyond football, I don't follow the Boston Sports very well. Like, I've seen a lot of bets on the Celtics. Is that, like, fair game this year? Is that a good investment of their money?
Jennifer Smith [00:02:24] Man? I might be the only person worse to ask about this than yourself. All I'm going to say is that it's been very interesting watching Massachusetts kind of kick around, so to speak, the sports betting football, because now sports betting is legal in the majority of states. You know, it's been this slow roll across the country and then suddenly it seemed like it was just a flood all at once, like 2018. And then suddenly, you know, it's 36 states, including us, have legalized sports betting. I mean, what is the context here that the lottery brings in a decent amount of revenue. So now we also want want to bet on on whatever sports are happening.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:03:08] Yeah, it's kind of interesting that there is not a super solid revenue estimate or projections about what sports betting will generate in a year. So the lottery I think generates about generated $1,000,000,000 last year. The state lottery and sports betting is going to be less than that. I mean, we've heard anywhere from like on the conservative side, I think 35 million to like 50 some odd million. There's estimates up to, you know, 60 million in tax revenue. There's extra money from licensing fees, but it's kind of like the millionaire's tax that people don't have. The most concrete idea of how much money this is really going to bring in.
Jennifer Smith [00:03:49] Right. Yeah. And I mean, we always have to look at it with a certain amount of skepticism when the the pitch is essentially this will bring in a bunch of money. It's going to be a windfall because half the time, you know, the numbers are magic. But speaking of magic, we are magically here today in the virtual bunker. Two of us, because there can only ever be two of us in the bunker at the same time. Lisa, why are you here with me today? What are we actually going to walk through?
Lisa Kashinsky [00:04:18] We are going to walk through the changeover of leadership in the Massachusetts GOP a day that some thought might not come, some hoped would come and has now come to pass. And then we'll be going on to talk about housing, One of our favorite issues to return to on the pot.
Jennifer Smith [00:04:40] Absolutely right. Housing and how that relates to our broken transit system. We love it. We love both of these. Let's get to it, shall we?
Lisa Kashinsky [00:04:47] Let's ride.
Jennifer Smith [00:04:55] Well, we're recording this episode less than 24 hours after the mass GOP held its leadership election. And of course, as you know, here to help us sift through the results is beloved co-host and some would say preeminent reporter on all matters. Mass GOP Politico, Massachusetts Lisa Kashinsky. Thank you for being here with me.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:05:15] Thank you for such the lovely introduction.
Jennifer Smith [00:05:17] Okay, let's start simple. What happened this week?
Lisa Kashinsky [00:05:21] All right. So a little more than 70 members of the mass GOP gathered in Marlborough. Their meeting area of choice to elect a new party chair. There were many candidates. By the time voting got started, there were three candidates. And in reality, this was just a race between two the incumbent chair, Jim Lyons, and Amy Carnevale, a longtime state committee member, lobbyist. Lots of hires in D.C., on Capitol Hill, etc.. So this went to a second ballot because of the third candidate, and you needed a 37 vote majority to win. And that is what Amy Carnevale got on the second ballot. So with a vote of 37 to 34, Amy Carnevale became the new chair of the Massachusetts GOP.
Jennifer Smith [00:06:09] So heading into this and then as the night unfolded, what were the dynamics, the competing factions that people were trying to sort through?
Lisa Kashinsky [00:06:17] There is a lot of different dynamics at play within the GOP right now and still ongoing even after this chair election. But basically it boiled down to this, you know, most of you listening and readers of Playbook and pretty much any other media in Massachusetts at this point will have seen just kind of the blow by blow or I guess drip, drip, I should say, of documents that have leaked out over the past few weeks in the run up to this election, detailing issues with the party's finances, unpaid bills. You know that when they are fully paid off, could almost bankrupt the party. And, you know, those are coming from people who, you know, wanted to show that Jim Lyons wasn't doing a good job leading the party and had, you know, kind of led this down, this poor electoral returns, poor financial situation of no return and why he needed to go. On the other side, you have Lyons and his allies saying that there has been just this all out assault on his leadership from, you know, people who wanted him gone, who had denied him quorums at state committee meetings, who had levied all these attacks. And that includes allies of former Governor Charlie Baker. So there's just a lot of tension between these two sides. A lot of people expected that this could get pretty ugly. You know, their meetings in the past have become quite fraught. They're you know, some of them have ended in shouting matches, but this one actually ended up being surprisingly peaceful for how much tension there was in the room boiling under the surface.
Jennifer Smith [00:07:49] So you bring up the Baker question as well. And one thing that we continue to try and piece apart slowly over the many years that we've been doing this here podcast and other forms of journalism is how much of an ideological split there is inside the mass GOP and to what extent that really matters or to what extent that like kind of really comes to the forefront. Because a lot of discussion has really been, as you noted, about the efficacy of the party as kind of a force in broader electoral landscapes, whether or not, you know, they can finance themselves. But how much of this has also come down to ideological rifts.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:08:29] There are ideological divides within the GOP, and you heard that in Jim Lyon's speech Tuesday night. You know, to the folks who are about to vote for chair, you know, saying that he wants to really or I guess I should say he wanted to really guide the party in a more Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump ask fashion, you know, a more conservative, you know, more pro-Trump way. And he even said that, you know, that's not going to win a lot of elections in the state. But it's it's that kind of thought in Republican circles of kind of standing up for your beliefs, even though they might be electorally unpopular and just not kind of selling out or becoming a RINO, you know, the acronym they like to use. And then on the other side, you have, you know, the more moderate Republicans who, you know, have enjoyed having folks in their image be governor for the better part of the past 30 years in the state and want to make sure that there can be a return to that. And then there's folks in the middle, kind of like Amy Carnevale, who are these Baker Trump voters, you know, who are a little bit more conservative, but also are kind of willing to compromise, I guess, to try and win some elections. So all of those were at play last night as well. You heard that in the speeches. But a lot of the divisions that really kind of fueled the angst around this election were deeply personal.
Jennifer Smith [00:09:53] And to what degree then, was this informed by the you know, you called it this kind of drip of continuous documents about the way that the finances of the party have been used. Most recently, right before the election, there was a whole situation with Lyons using party funds for oppo research. Can you briefly recap what that looked like and to what extent it came into the discussions?
Lisa Kashinsky [00:10:23] Yeah. So basically the party, you know, you see this, it written this way all the time that the mass GOP is cash strapped, cash poor, whichever way to describe it you want to use. They don't have a lot of money coming in. And what Jim Lyons chose to do, you know, according to this paper trail that the party treasurer had kind of sent out in emails to the state committee over the past month showed that he'd used the party's limited resources to pay for opposition research or at least request it, because part of it is that not all of these bills have been paid into. Now, Governor Maura Healey, you know, looking to dig up dirt basically on her personal relationships and also to investigate members of his own state committee who he opposed and in some cases were trying to remove from the state committee, potentially knowing how close this vote would be. So if the party pays off all the bills that it had owed, it's unclear which ones have been paid at this point and which ones have not. It would leave the party with around $35,000 not accounting for the money that would come in or did come in in January. But that's almost bankrupt and in not a good place for the party to to be in.
Jennifer Smith [00:11:37] Did Carnevale express a vision for what the mass GOP would look like under her leadership?
Lisa Kashinsky [00:11:45] Yeah, she talked about, you know, kind of rebuilding and recruiting candidates, bringing back donors who fled the party under Jim Lyons. She has kind of this group that has pledged to help her do that, and that involves former Lieutenant Governor Karen Polito, former Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson and some others, you know, some bigger names in Republican circles. And, you know, not coincidentally, folks who are more aligned with former Governor Charlie Baker, you know, they're in it to help her do this. And she knows that she has to navigate these deep divisions. She pledged several times in the meeting this week, both to committee members and to reporters, that she would try and bridge those divides and bring the party back together. But that's going to be kind of a big overriding thing that she'll have to deal with while also trying to get more money back to the party, build up its kind of nearly nonexistent bench at this point from the ground, you know, the lowest levels of municipal government all the way up and just kind of, you know, get the party in good fiscal and electoral shape again.
Jennifer Smith [00:12:51] And before I let you go, what are the prospects for GOP influence in Healey administration?
Lisa Kashinsky [00:12:59] Not great, given the state that, you know, the party's in in terms of holding seats on Beacon Hill right now. I mean, there are no Republicans in statewide office anymore. They have the fewest number of seats in the legislature they've had since, I believe, 2009. Shout out to the Boston Globe for going back and crunching those numbers. And the Republican minority leaders are now being involved in Governor Maura Healey's leadership meetings. They were not included in the first one. They were included in the second one. It remains to be seen whether they'll be included for every leadership model going forward or if that was just kind of a one time thing that was related to the budget.
Jennifer Smith [00:13:39] All right. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for running me through all that. We are going to let you go run around the statehouse once more. And Steve and I are going to talk about the statewide housing crisis. This week marked the deadline for 175 cities and towns to tell the state how they'll comply with the new housing law. The so-called MBTA Communities law, which requires towns served by the Tee and commuter rail to zone for denser housing near transit systems is a bit of an open question right now, specifically around enforcement. How strongly will it be enforced? How significant is this particular law as a tool to address what is frankly an absurd housing crisis across the state? And what else is the state engaged in right now that might help bridge the gap in housing units? Here to help us piece that together is Joe Kreisberg. He's the new CEO of MassINC and former president and CEO of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations, a role he served in four decades. Joe, thanks so much for being with us.
Joe Kriesberg [00:14:47] Thanks for having me.
Jennifer Smith [00:14:48] So let's start off big picture as we like to do. Tell us what's happening with the MBTA communities law right now, specifically why Tuesday was important.
Joe Kriesberg [00:14:57] Well, Tuesday was the deadline for municipalities to submit their plans to the state for how they were going to comply, but they are not yet required to comply. And that's an important distinction. The deadlines start December of this year for some municipalities and next year for others. So there's still plenty of time for municipalities to do the hard work of planning and zoning that's required under the law.
Steve Koczela [00:15:21] And just for those who haven't perhaps followed this law as closely as I'm sure all of our audience members have. What does the law actually do? What are the requirements that they're trying to meet here?
Joe Kriesberg [00:15:31] Well, the law requires every municipality that is in the MBTA district, and there were 175 and I believe now Fall River and New Bedford are being added. So there's 177 that have either commuter rail, rapid transit, bus line service. All of them are required to develop multifamily zoning districts where developers can build as of right multifamily housing on each municipality was given a target number of units for which it needs to zone based on the type of transit and the size of that municipality. And there is a minimum density requirement of 15 units per acre, although I think in many cases municipalities will go denser so as they don't have to use up as much of the land in the town. But that's part of what disabilities have to figure out in the coming months.
Jennifer Smith [00:16:26] And so give us a bit of a scale on what kind of housing gap the state is currently trying to close right now. And if everyone kind of complied at the level that this law is calling for, how close that might get the state.
Joe Kriesberg [00:16:40] You know, there are a lot of numbers out there. You know, you hear 200,000, you hear 400,000. I'm not sure anybody really knows and I'm not really sure what happens when we close the gap. People will still be getting born and people will still be moving. The price of construction will continue to rise. So, you know, I think while you have to have some sense of scale in order to do some planning, you know, the bottom line is we need hundreds of thousands of units over the next decade or two, and then we'll probably need more after that. And the key is to try to get the zoning laws and other infrastructure in place that allows for the kind of growth we need. But it's not just pure units that we need to think about. We need units where families can live. We need units where seniors can live and young adults. We need units that are near key amenities. And we need to make sure they hit a range of affordability. So, you know, I think sometimes we focus too much on a single number. We really need a comprehensive approach. And that's been my message to the Healey administration. I don't think of this as one problem that you're solving. This is many problems.
Steve Koczela [00:17:51] And there are, of course, are reasons why these communities that we're talking about in many cases don't have enough density zoned for already. You know, this isn't something where people just needed to be told there was a problem and they were going to do it on their own. This is something where lots of these communities have strongly resisted over a period of many years and decades, you know, individual developments, you know, plans for past rezoning opportunities and that sort of thing. So what's different this time? Is this strong enough? Will it actually create enough zoning for enough housing to actually solve the problem?
Joe Kriesberg [00:18:24] Well, you're absolutely right, Steve. The restrictive zoning that we see across Greater Boston is not an accident. It was by design. And it's similar to zoning we have across the country that was meant to exclude people of color, African-Americans, low income people from certain neighborhoods. And that's the sad history of our country that we have been trying for decades to reverse. Since the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968. And Massachusetts, to its enduring credit, passed the affordable housing law in 1969, a year later, that allows developers to build affordable housing. And multifamily housing in communities across the state under Chapter 40 B. So this is just the latest attempt to try to open up more of these communities. And it is both. It is structured as a mandate and there are penalties for noncompliance in terms of losing access to resources and potentially others. And we can talk about that. But you know what? I think in all the focus on how are we going to punish the few municipalities that don't play ball, we can lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of municipalities are playing ball. It is prompting the kinds of conversations we wanted to see around planning. Where do we want to build? Where do we don't want to build? We're seeing some really encouraging response across the region, and the state is putting in significant resources to support communities and doing thoughtful planning because it's it's easy to wag our finger, but it's a lot harder to actually figure out where we should build and what we should build and for whom. So I think it's important to keep that in mind. And, you know, if more sticks are needed as we go, you know, certainly that's something that housing advocates will be talking to the administration about and the legislature.
Jennifer Smith [00:20:15] I'm so glad you brought up the question not just of compliance, but kind of the review planning process here, because the Healey administration, as you note, is not just out here chasing down the people that didn't send in their plans, but has to review the plans to make sure that they're, you know, substantively complying with the law. So what are you hoping that they're looking for? Of course, the plans are going to vary depending on category, what the type of transit is that they're responding to, whether they're a specific transit hub themselves themselves or an adjacent community. So talk to me a bit about the kind of sprawl of responses you're expecting, and then the Healey administration will have to chase them down if any tweaks are needed.
Joe Kriesberg [00:20:59] Well, Jenn, you're right. This is a tremendous amount of work. And one of the biggest challenges we often have when implementing new programs is just having the staffing power and capacity to implement it. And that is a challenge right now with this program and with many programs. You know, I think what you're looking for, obviously there are certain numerical benchmarks that municipalities have to hit, but we also want to make sure that they aren't putting all this new zoning on land where you can't, as a practical matter, build. Remember, this is allowing people to build. It's not requiring anybody to build a single unit. And so if you just use an extreme example, create a zoning district where there's a currently a cemetery, nothing is going to get built. It shouldn't be allowed. So we have to look for that. And in many cases, you know, there could be a high school located near near transit. Well, you're not going to knock a high school down to build housing. So, again, it wouldn't be a very smart place to put this zoning. So they have to look for that kind of thing. And then. You know, there is this minimum zoning. I don't know that the state can reject a plan. But in many places, especially near rapid transit, 15 units in acres is not necessarily the right level of density. So a lot of the technical assistance is going on is to try to make sure that towns don't see the minimum as a maximum and really do what's right for their community. The other thing I would just add that many housing advocates are a little disappointed about is the lack of incentive around affordability here. This is a 100% market rate housing. Now some municipalities are imposing inclusion inclusionary zoning requirements as part of this, and we hope more do because we want to make sure that low and moderate income people have access to these great sites in these great locations. So I think that's one other thing that they should be looking at and many advocates will be advocates will be pushing for.
Jennifer Smith [00:22:59] And getting to kind of the underpinning point of this particular law is the transit part of it. And I think anyone that's looked sideways at a train in in the last few years might have noticed that it's increasingly more difficult to get to wherever you want to go on time. How do you view the transit itself as a complicating question? If the if the purpose is to say the reason that we want to allow more multifamily zoning or encourage more multifamily zoning around transit nodes. What do you do if that transit is lagging?
Joe Kriesberg [00:23:33] This is a huge problem in general. Glad you brought it up. You know, it's almost ironic that this major investment and commitment to or any development is happening at the same time that our transit system is at its weakest point. You can't have one without the other. And as we build more housing, if this actually works and we do see a significant increase in housing and other activity near transit, it is only going to put more strain on the system. So the state has to invest. All of the developers that we're trying to attract to these sites are going to be wait and see until it gets its act together. So we could have a lot of zoned districts without a lot of housing. If the MBTA isn't functioning at the level it needs to be.
Steve Koczela [00:24:20] And you brought up, of course, the monumental task that this that this puts on the Healey administration. And of course, it's also not the only housing initiative that's out there and the only thing that they're contemplating. So give us a sense of what else is going on and what other things we should be looking forward to see if maybe the housing crisis might ease anytime soon and by soon. You know, this is housing. We're talking a period of years. But, you know, is there good news on the horizon coming from other directions as well?
Joe Kriesberg [00:24:47] Well, the good news in the short term is that we do have significant federal dollars in the affordable housing system that are being deployed to build more rental housing and especially more homeownership opportunities with a specific aim of closing the racial homeownership gap, which is based here in Massachusetts. And, of course, the bad news is that money's going to run out very soon. And I don't think that the Healey administration or the legislature can be serious about the housing crisis if they're not also serious about investing more dollars. I mean, there's just simply no way we can meet the needs and the diverse needs of our state without more revenue and more investment. And that's been true in the past, and it's more true now, especially as there's a renewed commitment, starting with Governor Baker and we know continuing with Governor Healey around creating affordable homeownership opportunities, not just rental. The other big thing, of course, is climate. And we have very ambitious climate goals and buildings and residential buildings are a huge source of emissions and probably the toughest source to reduce. There are millions of different property owners. There's properties of every kind and shape and size and a significant number of very old homes. You know, my home is 100 years old. It's going to be really hard to electrify my house. And we know, especially in our gateway cities, we have a very old housing stock that's not in great shape. So we need a significant investment in rehab and retrofitting of older housing we need, which has the benefit of also making it healthier, I would add, and maybe getting rid of the lead paint while we're at it. So I think we're looking to see what the Healey administration will do there. And of course, at the we have this growing homeless problem and, you know, and in increasing numbers, the need for more shelters. The governor just submitted a proposed budget to the legislature to invest more in the shelter system. So we we've got our work cut out for us, which is why I've been saying that the most important word in housing policy this year is the word. And because we have to do a lot of different things.
Jennifer Smith [00:26:52] And on that note, I think we're going to run into our inevitable problem, which is fewer minutes in the day than we would like to have to talk about housing in Massachusetts. So for now, I think we have to leave it there. Joe Kriesberg, CEO of MassINC Thanks so much for being with us.
Joe Kriesberg [00:27:07] Thank you.
Steve Koczela [00:27:13] And that brings us to our final segment, which this week is a very special Massachusetts geography quiz. Here is the one question for this quiz, Jen. What is ten miles west of Boston?
Jennifer Smith [00:27:24] I well, I think the easiest answer to that, Steve, is first, what is not ten miles west of Boston, which is the Canadian mountains. And the reason?
Steve Koczela [00:27:35] And why would somebody care?
Jennifer Smith [00:27:36] The reason you might be confused about whether or not we have beautiful Canadian mountain ranges ten miles west of Boston is The Last of Us on HBO, a post-apocalyptic kind of zombie plague show has started with its first few episodes in a completely wrecked looking Boston. Allegedly, I've got real questions about how they got to any place from anyplace else, notably the place that they were trying to get and maybe got to is something called ten miles west of Boston, which is just this incredible forest. All of the towns just outside of Massachusetts have been mysteriously wiped off the map, I assume, by the Mounties of Canada, who I don't know, just just took away Framingham.
Steve Koczela [00:28:29] So it set off a round of Internet hilarity, which I actually haven't watched Last of Us yet, but definitely do want to. So people were posting what they thought was ten miles west of Boston. Predictably, lots of images of Dunkin Donuts, lots of marked market baskets. But then some good ones, like there's one there's a couple from Middle Earth. We've got one that looks like is that minus two here at the. I remember that right from Minister. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got pictures of Mordor, actually. Here's one that's almost ten miles west of Boston. Ben Affleck, just Tom Brady. All kinds of good ones.
Jennifer Smith [00:29:07] Oh, it's. It's really good. I will give the show one little bit of credit here in that there is a scene where they go by a vacant Cumberland Farms. So they do know to signal some things about New England. But I just don't understand truly criminally why you would not have some sort of shootout in a vacant Dunkin Donuts. Why?
Steve Koczela [00:29:27] I mean, yeah, right. Or like that. What is actually ten miles west of Boston, which is random condo parking lots in the middle of Natick, because I had nothing better to do. I went to Google Maps and confirmed that, in fact, when you go ten miles west from the furthest west point in Boston, it's random part that condo parking lots of Natick. So you're welcome Internet.
Jennifer Smith [00:29:49] Oh, truly though bless everyone that had a great time with some GIs mapping this week to go and try and figure out, well, what if you meant Northwest? Could you angle yourself in any way out of Boston to hit something that looks like a mountain? The answer is, yeah, but not that kind of mountain. This is Massachusetts.
Steve Koczela [00:30:11] Right? Maybe like if you went a bit further south, you could get, like, in the Blue Hills or something.
Jennifer Smith [00:30:16] Exactly. Very important.
Steve Koczela [00:30:18] Well, very sadly for all of us, that's all the time we have for today. I'm signing off with Jennifer Smith and Lisa Kaczynski. Our producer this week is Adam Boyajy. Don't forget to give the horse race a review wherever you're hearing us now, subscribe to the Massachusetts political playbook and reach out to us at the MassINC polling group if you need polls or focus groups. Thank you all for listening and we will see you next week.