During the gubernatorial campaign, Governor Patrick promised that if he were reelected, he would borrow some ideas from Charlie Baker. One particular idea that he should consider adopting is Baker’s proposed review and reform of regulatory procedures. When Congress and state legislatures enact laws, they authorize certain agencies to fill in gaps in the legislation by issuing regulations that clarify and expand on various legislative provisions. For instance, in Massachusetts, agencies have issued regulations ranging from rules regarding the manufacture of ice cream to procedures governing the licensure of optometrists. (Regulations are available on the state’s website organized by topic.) Lawmakers authorize agencies to issue regulations for several reasons: Agency staffers have greater expertise in a given area than lawmakers […]

Scott Brown’s election in January 2010 was supposed to be the beginning of a Republican wave. Comparing the vote totals between the major party candidates in the special Senate election and yesterday’s gubernatorial race provides some insight. In total*, Patrick beat Baker by 153,000 votes. Comparing raw vote totals with the Brown-Coakley election, Patrick improved his raw votes by 5% – getting 105% of the votes that Coakley got. On the other hand, Baker severely underperformed Brown’s raw vote totals, attracting only 82% of Brown’s votes, an almost 200,000 vote difference. If you put Baker and Cahill’s totals together, you are up to 95% of the vote. Looking at the municipal level shows gives some additional texture: Patrick outperformed Coakley […]

Today’s Globe endorses Deval Patrick for Governor, an expected and surely welcome recommendation. My quibble is with the Globe’s overemphasis on clean energy. (Obligatory Throatclearing: Clean energy is undoubtedly important, for many reasons.) Why is clean energy mentioned 8 times in a roughly 1100 word endorsement? The clean tech industry in Massachusetts is, at best, 10,000 to 15,000 jobs (or here), with the prospect of adding 5,000 or so jobs in the next five years. And I suspect that those numbers include a lot of HVAC tech and energy/power automation companies that were around long before the ‘green energy’ wave became high profile. The growth in jobs is welcome and should be encouraged but in an economy with 3 milllion […]

I confess to being stumped by the contradictory information circulating today. From a survey of households, you get evidence that unemployment is dropping: From August to September, on a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of unemployed dropped by 12,000 while the number of employed grew by 13,900, resulting in an 8.4% unemployment rate. From a survey of employers, you get evidence that jobs are being eliminated: From August to September, on a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of jobs declined by 20,900. What gives here? Could it be that people are giving up and dropping out of the workforce? I don’t think so — the first link, the survey of households, actually shows the labor force expanding by 1,900 during […]