Episode 246: A Galentine’s Gallop

This week on The Horse Race, the chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party steps down, who’ll step up to take his place? Then, GBH's Saraya Wintersmith and The Boston Herald's Sean Phillip Cotter help us take a closer look at the Boston City Council’s complex relationship with Mayor Michelle Wu. And we'll highlight a new Galentine's Day tradition that kicked off this week, thanks to Senate President Karen Spilka.

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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. 

Lisa Kashinsky [00:00:25] This week on the Horse Race, the chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party is stepping down. So we'll talk about who's stepping up to take his place. Then we'll take a closer look at the Boston City Council's complex relationship with Mayor Michelle Wu. It's Thursday, February 16th. 

Jennifer Smith [00:00:56] Welcome back to the Horse Race, your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts. I'm Jennifer Smith, here with my co-host, Lisa Kashinsky. And sort of a belated Valentine's Day podcast because Steve Casella is out this week. And we're going to start because, Lisa, it looks like there is a change, a pivot for your coverage because you get a break from being the local GOP whisperer to handling the mask Dems. You reported earlier this week in Playbook, Gus Bickford is stepping down as chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. Why is this a big deal? And who's going to replace him? 

Lisa Kashinsky [00:01:32] So, yeah, it's strange to be reporting on the state Democratic Party as opposed to the state Republican Party. I'm sure we'll have more on the latter coming up. But to the Democrats. So this is something that had been rumored for a while, actually. You know, when you have a Democratic governor coming in, you kind of want them to be able to, you know, as it goes, install their own leadership for the state Democratic Party since they are the top elected official in the state. So basically what happened is Gus Bickford, the chair since 2016 of MassDems announced at a meeting last weekend that he would be stepping aside in April. And both he and Governor Maura Healey are backing Steve Kerrigan to take over as chair. And for those of you who I'm sure remember exactly who Steve Kerrigan has, but for a little refresher, he was former lieutenant governor nominee for the Dems, and he actually lost to Bickford for party chair in 2016. 

Jennifer Smith [00:02:36] And so this is kind of, you know, a transition point. Most governors do end up, if you know, they are the party in power, which is almost always the Democratic Party. If they feel like it, you know, they can kind of end up hand-picking or having some sort of heavy influence over who ends up chairing the party unless they have the kind of, shall we say, difficult relationship that Charlie Baker had with the Mass GOP. So what needs to happen for Kerrigan to actually take the post? 

Lisa Kashinsky [00:03:08] So fun fact, Kerrigan is not on the state committee right now, which is a requirement for being chair of the State committee. On the Democratic side, it was not actually a requirement on the Republican side. Fun, more fun, happily facts today. So basically what's going to happen is he'll have to get put on the state committee likely as treasurer because there's now an opening there as well. Their next meeting will be in April when Gus steps down. So expect to see something like, you know, they vote him in as treasurer and then by the end of the meeting he's elected as chair of the party. Something similar happened when Deval Patrick took over and kind of installed John Walsh as head of MassDems as well. 

Jennifer Smith [00:03:52] Well, Lisa, thank you so much. But that does bring us to the question that we've been asking on the show for many decades, perhaps centuries, perhaps millennia. What are we doing here today? What is today? Where are we going? 

Lisa Kashinsky [00:04:05] We are headed to City Hall, more specifically, the council chamber, ooooo spooky.  We'll be joined by two local reporters who cover that beat better than anyone else. And they'll talk to us about, you know, kind of the current shape of the council and its very intriguing relationship with Mayor Michelle Wu. Shall We?

Jennifer Smith [00:04:27] We shall. Before she became mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu served four terms as a city councilor. Over that time, she was regarded by most as a progressive, an outsider, and eventually top citywide vote getter who fought hard on issues like the environment, housing and law enforcement. But now, obviously, things have changed. Dynamics have changed. How does a progressive city councilor turned mayor deal with a left leaning city council technically empowered to mess around with the budget, particularly on issues like rent control and the school committee? Well, joining us to discuss all of this is GBH City Hall reporter Saraya Wintersmith and Sean Philip Cotter, who covers the same exact beat for the Boston Herald. Thanks to both of you for being here. Let's get local, shall we? 

Sean Phillip Cotter [00:05:16] Thanks for having us. 

Jennifer Smith [00:05:17] So there are so many topics to get into. But let's frame this out a little bit first. Boston is a strong mayor city, and that means historically what you might think of as a push and pull with the city council was mostly just the mayor making moves in the council, pushing back vocally, but without a ton of power and maneuvering that they could do. So, Saraya, Sean, how has that changed during the last two years and really honestly, has it? 

Saraya Wintersmith [00:05:41] I would say that the biggest and most obvious change to the strong mayor system is just the fact that the council can now go back and forth with budget line items. So they share a little bit of power in the budget process, which was previously all mayor all the time. 

Sean Phillip Cotter [00:05:58] Yeah, I that is the case. And historically, over the decades that Boston has been set up as a strong mayor system, which I believe Tom Menino once referred to as the closest thing to being a king is you can be in the United States as the Massachusetts strong mayor system. The council has more of sort of just like a bully pulpit role where they can get up there, they can bring their fast, they can say we need X, Y and Z, and the mayor sometimes has to listen, sometimes does it. The council can has probably historically more power to turn down things that the mayor wants to do than push through things that the mayor doesn't want to do, if that makes any sense. 

Lisa Kashinsky [00:06:52] So let's frame this all in the context of like the current iteration of the council. We're looking at a more left leaning council, as Jenn said. So, Sean, why don't you keep going, break it down for us a little bit of you know where the councilors stand on the ideological spectrum right now. 

Sean Phillip Cotter [00:07:10] Yeah. So the council can sort of be distilled down into three groups. You have the, in a recent article that I wrote, I called them sort of the more centrist group. They're the more conservative group on the council. But this is Boston. They're making it like everybody is sort of a center and then left of that kind of thing. And so there's four councilors who are sort of that position where they're clearly two wounds. Right? There are also probably four or so councilors who are very clearly to Wu's left. And then the other five are in the essentially, they can, in theory, be a swing vote. But it sort of ended up breaking down that many votes appear to be going in a way where those five were sort of probably in similar to Wu politically and breaking with the progressives. And so that's interesting because that now puts pressure on the mayor who's trying to get a bunch of sort of like big swing issues through the council to have to reckon with that. 

Jennifer Smith [00:08:28] And let's get into a little bit and what that looks like in practice. There are a few kind of big ticket items. Saraya, do you want to start us off with rent control since you just filed her proposal for the city earlier this week? What are the basics that she's working with here and what's the nature of the pushback she's receiving, if any, from the council? 

Saraya Wintersmith [00:08:49] Sure. I would just go back to Sean's characterization first and say I completely agree. There is a wildcard category and a centrist category and a liberal or most left leaning category. I just think it's also important to note that between the liberal and the centrist blocs, it tends to fall along racial lines. And that has caused some of the biggest tension that we've seen on the council just in the last couple of years with respect to rent control. Who is going to get it from both the centrist bloc and the left leaning bloc. When she floated some tenants of her proposal, which is now on paper, which the council will sort of absorb and put through process starting this week, we heard from the left that the tie to inflation plus 6% with the total hard cap at 10%, is, in their view, way too much. Not a thing that will. Stabilize rent or help people, but still allow landlords to. Get a lot of money from their tenants. From the centrist bloc. I think the whole idea of rent control is utterly bad, just given that it's been banned for such a long time. And folks over here will remember that people were trying to get rid of their properties and they saw a lot of blight and it was hard to get tenants out. So, for folks who are in that centrist bloc, they might have bad memories of it. They might have constituents that have bad memories of it. And I don't I don't think that you'll see a whole lot of votes in favor of it, no matter how much it changes as it goes through process. 

Lisa Kashinsky [00:10:44] So one thing that the mayor said earlier this week on GBH was, you know, asked if she had the council votes to pass the gun control plan, she said, I'm confident that this is a proposal that meets every criteria that we set out to meet. But it's now a matter of whether the council values those same goals. How did you interpret that? You know, kind of interpret that for us, I should say. 

Saraya Wintersmith [00:11:11] I think it's a classic like, Wu non-answer that doesn't tell us anything except this is the proposal that I put together. And now they're going to do what they do. It was not clearly not an expression of confidence that the proposal that her team has assembled is going to come out the same way that it's going in to the council. To me, that just says that she knows it's going to be a negotiation process. 

Jennifer Smith [00:11:40] Speaking of the council's going to do what the council's going to do, the council had kind of a hard time doing participatory budget amending this last week due to some kind of like flukes around scheduling. Some councilors who were expected to vote on an amended version of a participatory budget ordinance ended up not being there. So the mayor's version went through. Sean, I have been deeply enjoying your live tweeting through the participatory budget process in case people have never heard about what exactly this means and whether or not they'll get to vote on, I don't know, some new trees near them or something like that. Why is participatory budgeting in front of the council or was it? And where are we now? 

Sean Phillip Cotter [00:12:24] So participatory budgeting is in the broad sense, it's a process by which some chunk of the budget activists want a few million dollars is set aside for direct vote by residents on where that money should go, whether it's on specific projects or whether it's on like how we should put more into the roads or whatever like that. The details are vary from city that does this, the city that does this and they're yet to be worked out here. But here in Boston, it was part of the 2021 ballot referendum that also gave the council more power over the whole budget. But that referendum also essentially moved to create this or it required the creation of a office of participatory budgeting to get this process going. This is that process of getting going. The mayor put forth a plan in December, put forth the first proposal, and to create a board to oversee that and create an executive director. And then all those people would work on the rule book for it and the fine details. This is a good example of a proposal from the mayor that was not as is. I'm not sure far left is the right term, because I'm not sure this falls quite on the political spectrum like that. But where the mayor's position and the activist position were not quite in lockstep. And so she got pushback from councilors who wanted to amend and have a larger board, have more language around diversity, wanted the board to be paid. And so that amended version in that manner came up for a vote last week. And while it did get a 6 to 4 majority, that was not enough votes to pass it under the council rules. And therefore, because of the way the mayor had introduced it, was a 60 day order for the council to do anything after 60 days. It just goes into effect as the mayor wants, and so it is now into effect. Technically, the council him proposed changes to it. And so that remains to be seen what happens going forward. 

Jennifer Smith [00:14:59] And what dynamics during that conversation from both of you, because you were both watching the kind of back and forth that wasn't just about, you know, is this the city council versus the mayor's proposal, but also kind of what is the role of the council in the budgeting process that that there was this sort of question about is this an effort to kind of strip power away from a city councilor when, you know, it came in at the same time as a measure that would give them more power than they've had? In pretty much anybody's memory to push back against the mayor when it comes to budgeting. So when you're looking at the debates around rent control, around participatory budgeting, around what we're going to be dealing with today in terms of the school committee, how is wou approach potential conflict with the council and are they positioning themselves in a way that feels similar to you to the way that the council was positioning themselves as a counter to her predecessor, Marty Walsh? 

Saraya Wintersmith [00:16:02] There's a lot in that question. I will just take the first chunk and say it's so wonderful to hear somebody point out the paradox of the council getting more power and then the perception that emerged in the last meeting about the council also being stripped of power. Even though participatory budgeting was approved and it's going to happen. So I think Councilor Baker is the one that stood up and said, you know, he doesn't believe that participatory budgeting is going to be overall positive because in his view. A constituent should go through the council and advocate for projects that they want. That way it's a bit moot because here we are, the people already voted out and it's going to happen. But that that is a view. In terms of your second question, I think you all have been in Boston longer than I have and have a lot more just institutional memory about how other councils functioned. I think. The only thing that's clear to me is that progressive proposals like like the issue of school committee, things that have been percolating for a while. But the most liberal bloc didn't quite have the political muscle to get it over the finish line. They now do. And so people in Boston are talking about. Reparations or an elected school committee or participatory budgeting in a new and sort of, possible universe. 

Sean Phillip Cotter [00:17:41] I think that's exactly right. And under. I mean, one thing under Marty Walsh is at least it seemed to me like there was a larger bloc on the council who sort of always had his back, like he just had more allies on the council. I don't think Wu has tons of natural allies on the council, given that there's like good blocks to her left and to the right. And so I think that makes passage of some things more difficult. 

Lisa Kashinsky [00:18:20] One thing that I do want to know, Sean, is where does the council and the mayor align at this point? We've spent a lot of time talking about where they don't where do they come together? 

Sean Phillip Cotter [00:18:32] That's a great question. I do think that in general, the council exactly is as Saraya just said. A lot of topics that just wouldn't have been on the table under previous administrations, both like the city administration and previous council iterations, sort of topics to the left, such as rent control, such as changing the school committee, all that. These are now on the table and the devil does very much remain in the details and the mayor and the council will seem like they will go back and forth and have disagreements about what exactly to do with these. The fact that they are talking about these at all shows, that they are on the same page to some extent politically, which is to say that it's exactly this race that sort of both the council and the mayor are now farther to the left than they previous were. 

Jennifer Smith [00:19:41] There's two things coming up that I think we can kind of take quickly one at a time. And one of them is, as listeners know, we exist in a liminal space between the past and the present. And you're listening to this on Thursday. But we here exist on the day allegedly known as Wednesday before the council tackles the school committee. Question. Saraya, you noted for GBH the other day that Mayor Wu has doubled down on her opposition to an elected school committee. So what will you be watching in our future? But our listeners past as the council starts to tackle this? 

Saraya Wintersmith [00:20:17] I think it'll be most important to see the margin by which the school committee measure that they will have considered by Thursday by which it passes or fails. I think we all think that it's going to pass, but if it is slim, then the mayor might take that as a signal that there is space to negotiate with the folks that weren't in favor of it and then possibly tank it. If it is unanimous or has the two thirds margin, that means that she doesn't have a whole lot of space to negotiate. And it would. I think, add another layer of political friction to her already saying that she doesn't want to adhere to the overwhelming vote in 2021 where folks expressed that they would like to revert to a democratically elected school committee. So I want to see the margin. And then, of course, I want to see what she's going to do next. 

Jennifer Smith [00:21:31] I love that you're bringing up the third party in the room here, which is people who voted on what they would actually like to see, their government.  We love representation that way. And then we're about to get into budget season in earnest, as much as you can talk about that, because half the year is technically budget season, councilors were able to veto parts of Wu's budget last year. But what are you both watching as this turn gets going? 

Sean Phillip Cotter [00:21:56] One thing that I'd just like to throw out there about all of these bills that are being done by home rule petitions such as the school committee and rent control and everything like that, which means that it needs to then go up to the State House. If it's passed by the council and signed by the mayor is just some food for thought here that historically, mayors have been willing to sign some things that they didn't necessarily love. And councilors have also been willing to have some things they didn't necessarily love via home rule petition, because there's a really good chance that it goes up and gets buried at the state house sometimes with help from a backroom. Can you please think this or just not take it up? Because the state house often just doesn't take up petitions anyway, So that wouldn't be unusual. So it's just some food for thought. Thinking about mayoral petitions on the issues that one side or the other might not be totally thrilled with. But as for the budget, I think that we were going to see similar to last year, but sort of a more organized approach from the council. I mean, we're now in year two of having this council amending process even a possibility. The Ways and Means chair is now in her second year, so it's just everything now has another user experience, and so I wouldn't expect it to be less contentious than last year. 

Saraya Wintersmith [00:23:36] I think the only thing that I would add is just funding for some of the new offices that were put into the budget under her first year. We have an Office of Black Male Advancement, which is kind of similar to other mayoral engagement initiatives in other cities. But one of the big differences with Boston is that Wu's Office of Black Male Advancement has an almost $2 million budget. So I'm curious to see if level funding stays there. Same with immigrant services. Same with women's advancement. 

Sean Phillip Cotter [00:24:15] That's a good point about all those offices. And it'll also be also anything that she was talking about this year, such as the planning office, which we should see the opening stages of the mayor funding a city side planning office as she looks to shift support away from the BPA. And so it'll just be interesting to see when the rubber hits the road for all this with things actually getting money or not getting money. How much goes that direction? 

Lisa Kashinsky [00:24:43] All right. Well, we have just hit on one of Jenn's favorite topics of the BPDA. 

Jennifer Smith [00:24:48] Listeners do not have to worry. You don't have to hear me talk about this again. Why is it still going to be called the BPDA all over again? 

Sean Phillip Cotter [00:24:57] What do you want to be called, Jenn? 

Jennifer Smith [00:24:59] I feel like if you have a problem with the idea that it hasn't had planning involved, I would expect you take planning out of the name. But that's just me. 

Sean Phillip Cotter [00:25:08] The BDA. We'll see. 

Jennifer Smith [00:25:10] It's really fascinating. And I'm so sorry, Lisa, you did this. You kicked me off. Listeners, I apologize. This is my little, little bugaboo here, which is that it's really fascinating, no matter which way you come down on it, that if the critique of what Mayor Walsh did with changing the Boston Redevelopment Authority to the Boston Planning and Development Agency was essentially just a rebrand. It is kind of interesting that some of the first things that Michelle Wu did in term was, for instance, rebrand the Department of Neighborhood Development to the Office of Housing. And so we are seeing kind of the opposite here, which is even as you're creating a city planning department, I am just a little bit tickled that she's just making all of the headline writers jobs a little bit harder because you have to say she's abolishing the BPDA to create the BPDA. That's it. 

Lisa Kashinsky [00:26:06] Look, it's just like saying how tax relief killed tax relief on Beacon Hill. There's always fun wordplay to be had here. Thank you, politicians, for making our jobs a little bit more fun. That is all the time that we have, though, for this segment. Saraya Wintersmith from GBH and Sean Cotter from The Boston Herald. Thanks so much for being with us. 

Sean Phillip Cotter [00:26:26] Happy to do it. Thank you. 

Jennifer Smith [00:26:34] And finally tonight, an update from our Healthy New Traditions department here at Horse Race HQ. Lisa, it sounds like Senate President Karen Spilka threw a party Monday night. And like most good parties don't come at me, there weren't a lot of men there. 

Lisa Kashinsky [00:26:48] That's a very accurate depiction. Yes. Welcome to Galentine's Day, The latest tradition to rise out of a Beacon Hill and a Boston controlled mostly by women. So for the uninitiated, this actually came as a surprise to me, too. Galentine's day is basically just like ladies celebrating. Ladies, as Leslie Knope would say, originated on Parks and Rec. I thought that it existed before Parks and Rec, but apparently, according to the Internet, you know, take that with a grain of salt. It literally was created by the show. Um, yeah, I just thought it was cute, So. And, of course, you know, Leslie Knope would be very proud of Senate President Karen Spilka for, you know, organizing this this little soiree. And she is proud because Amy Poehler is from Massachusetts. And they somehow got her to record a little video sending love to all of our, you know, female politicians, which was super cute and everyone loved it. And yeah, it was just, you know, a celebration of all the women who have risen through the ranks in politics and business and philanthropy and the arts and etc.. 

Jennifer Smith [00:28:01] Well, that's nice. And that lets us take a little turn toward our now, you know, weekly. What did we ask A-I to do for us today segment, because speaking of Karen Spilka, we're looking for committee assignments to finally come down this week now that they have seen who voted which way on the Senate president term limits. We we we kind of wanted to channel that feeling, that expectation and are not with us today. Steve Koczela asks the chat GPT app to write a script for the rose ceremony of a Bachelor style TV show where the Massachusetts Senate president is in fact handing out committee assignments. I would just like to say you should probably plug this into chat. It's a delight. I think the one that got me the most was bachelor Senate president says, I want to thank each and every one of you for being a part of this process. Your passion and dedication to our state have inspired me. I am grateful for the time we've spent together. Ladies, congratulations on being a part of my inner circle. 

Lisa Kashinsky [00:29:15] I love that. And then it goes onto the next line. That is, the show ends with a montage of The Bachelor and the remaining contestants working together on the important issues facing. I can't even get through it facing everyone. It's just. It's such a, shall we say, rosy look on politics and how it works. 

Jennifer Smith [00:29:37] Oh, okay. The absolute nerve of that one without Steve here to back you up. 

Lisa Kashinsky [00:29:43] 38% more puns, 38% more puns. 

Jennifer Smith [00:29:46] 38% more puns indeed. Well, we're going to cap it at 38 because that is all the time we have for today. I'm Jennifer Smith signing off with Lisa Kashinsky. Steve Koczela will be back next week. Our producer is Adam Boyajy. Don't forget to leave the Horse Race a review wherever you're hearing us now to help other people find us and our bachelor state content. Subscribe to the Massachusetts Politico playbook if you aren't already and reach out to the MassInc polling group if you need any polls done.  Thank you all for listening, see you next week.