With incoming Republican President Donald Trump promising bold action following his swearing in, Massachusetts Democratic lawmakers including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Worcester Rep. Jim McGovern and Springfield Rep. Richard Neal are all planning to attend his inauguration. But a number of Massachusetts lawmakers are not attending. Reporter Chris Lisinski of the State House News Service explains what this signals in the respectful transfer of power and for tradition.
Chris Lisinksi, SHNS: I think this is a reflection of where we're at politically as a country. This is not new for certain people not to attend the presidential inauguration. Remember that Donald Trump did not attend the inauguration of Joe Biden four years ago, when he handed the handed the reins to Biden. So, this is not a brand new trend. It's just a continuation of the intense partisan divide that we are seeing up and down our political system.
Carrie Healy, NEPM: The Associated Press reports president-elect Donald Trump will begin taking executive actions the day he takes office. Today, following his inauguration, it’s expected that he'll be signing about 100 executive orders. In Massachusetts, officials have been anticipating and preparing for this moment.
Attorney General Andrea Campbell set the scene in comments on WGBH radio last week, saying, “We're gearing up for a whole host of executive orders that will likely not necessarily go with the way in which we want to proceed on a whole bunch of issues.”
So, with a focus on electrification and clean energy in Massachusetts, Chris, how far can the state attorney general go to resist or refuse to comply with this pro gas and pro-oil executive orders?
There's certainly a lot the attorney general can do to resist. Look back at the time that Maura Healey, now governor, spent as AG during the first Trump presidency. I want to say she sued Trump something like more than 100 times, and it would not be surprising at all to see AG Campbell take a similarly public facing, oppositional stance toward Trump. The bigger question is just how much impact her resistance to Trump executive orders on the energy front can go.
You know, folks should keep in mind that the AG is the chief ratepayer advocate, the chief person in charge of advocating on behalf of consumers of energy in Massachusetts. So, there is a vested interest in whatever the president does on oil, gas, energy, things like that.
You mentioned Governor Healey. In her state of the Commonwealth address last week, she didn't mention incoming President Donald Trump by name, but said she'll take any opportunity to work with the federal government in a way that benefits Massachusetts. So, never saying ‘Trump’ [by name] … is this about the power of words? What is that all about?
A little bit yes, [and] a little bit no. I would say these speeches go through so many drafts and redrafts. So many people in the governor's team have their hands on the speech that it has to be intentional for her not to use the words ‘Donald Trump’ in her speech. We can read that as a signal of how she's thinking about the next four years ahead.
But keep in mind the actual substance of her message [was] pledging to do her best to work with the federal administration without losing who we are as Massachusetts. There is an attempt at finding a middle ground there.
Last week, 13 of the state's GOP minority party lawmakers refiled a proposal allowing judges to detain criminal suspects on federal immigration holds. This comes as Trump's anticipated executive orders will be speeding up that deportation process. With the governor stating her intention to begin restricting shelter availability to Massachusetts residents, will GOP lawmakers get their way with this?
They seem to think that they're going to get their way, at least on a few different fronts. Some of the early reactions we saw last week to the governor's new shelter proposals were Republicans saying, ‘Great, we've been calling for this for a year, two years, all along. Finally, the governor is coming around to our way of thinking.’ They probably won't get every single request, especially given that these ideas need to go through the House and Senate, where top Democrats have not exactly embraced the governor's proposals wholeheartedly. There's a lot of question marks about what reforms will actually make it back to the governor's desk.
And finally, this week, the governor files her budget for the next fiscal year. While legislative budget writers have made their anticipated revenue projections, how it gets spent is a many months-long process. And kicking it off is the governor's proposal for spending the money. So, what are some of the knowns and what are some of the unknowns there?
We know that the governor is going to use her budget as one of several vehicles to pursue a sweeping overhaul of the state's transportation system. What we don't know are some other priorities she's going to target.
We don't know, for example, what the local aid proposal will be. That's something that cities and towns are always eagerly awaiting. We don't even know what the bottom line is going to be, and that's another pressure point. As budget writers grapple with an outlook in which state tax revenues are forecast to grow, but only by a little bit [2.2%] and the pressures are mounting.
