Senator Michael R. Knapik is criticizing Governor Patrick's latest move to cut funding for the state's two Soldiers' Homes.
As was reported by Scaling the Hill yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei has joined with GOP gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker in announcing that he is a candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 2010.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker announced today that State Senator Richard Tisei has joined his team as a candidate for Lieutenant Governor.
The Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development released the latest state unemployment figures today, reporting that the jobless rate dropped from 9.3 percent in September to 8.9 percent in October, despite the fact that Massachusetts lost another 900 jobs last month.
Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei has announced that members of the Senate Republican Caucus will file an amendment today to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts. The amendment is being offered as part of a mandatory minimum sentencing bill scheduled for debate in the Senate [...] 
Pressure is mounting for Janice Loux (right) to step down from her dual role as a member of the MBTA Retirement Board and her new position as Vice Chairman of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT).
The Patrick Administration hasn’t had much luck translating federal stimulus dollars into real jobs for the growing ranks of the unemployed in Massachusetts, but apparently the Governor has no qualms about using the funding as a handout for billionaire sports club owners – especially billionaires who [...] 
We’ve always thought the Patrick Administration’s claims about how many Massachusetts jobs have actually been created with federal stimulus dollars were sketchy at best. Now an investigation by the Boston Globe has found that the official tally of 12,374 jobs “saved or created” with stimulus money [...] 
Assistant Senate Minority Leader Bruce E. Tarr (left) will be returning to the Fox 25 Morning News on Thursday, November 12 as part of the popular "Tolman and Gray" segment, filling in for Rob Gray. Be sure to tune in at 7:15 a.m. for a lively [...] 
Today is Veterans Day, a day set aside to honor the many brave men and women who have proudly served in defense of our nation, including the 441,000 veterans who currently reside in Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts Senate has passed a resolution, sponsored by the Senate Republican Caucus, roundly condemning the scheduled November 12 speaking appearance by convicted domestic terrorist Ray Luc Levasseur (pictured at left) at the UMass-Amherst campus. The resolution was approved late this afternoon on a vote of [...] 
Those tax-crazy Democrats are at it again. The Cape Cod Times is reporting that Senator Robert O’Leary is proposing a new “litter tax” on manufacturers and distributors that would be imposed on any product “made of natural or synthetic material including glass, plastic, rubber and [...] 
November 1st officially marked the first day of transporta-tion reform in the Common-wealth with the launching of the newly realigned Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). After a little more than a week, it’s safe to say that the latest reform efforts have gotten off to a [...] 
Leslie Kirwan. Jim Aloisi. Ben Clements. Michael Pineault. Sarah Iselin. Thomas Dehner. Nonnie Burnes. These are just a few of the key figures who have left the Patrick Administration in recent months, prompting political reporter David Bernstein to ask: Are these high-profile departures just a part [...] 
With less than 48 hours to go until Veterans Day, the Holyoke and Chelsea Soldiers Homes are still facing devastating 9C cuts that could spell the end of outpatient services for thousands of Massachusetts veterans.
We're glad to see that Governor Patrick has finally come to his senses and pulled the plug on convicted terrorist Raymond Luc Levasseur's scheduled November 12 speaking appearance at UMass-Amherst.
The Senate unanimously passed a comprehensive veterans assistance bill yesterday, less than 24 hours after the House approved a similar version. Among the provisions included in the bill: the creation of a Medal of Liberty for families of service members killed in the line of duty; [...] 
Senate Minority Whip Robert L. Hedlund will sit in with Dan Rea Friday night at 8 p.m. to discuss legislation he has filed aimed at putting illegal immigrants at the back of the line when it comes to public housing.
Senator Scott Brown was recently a guest on Boston’s Talk Evolution with Michelle McPhee discussing a bill he filed Friday, October 30th that expands legal protection for Good Samaritans in response to the hospital shooting at Massachusetts General Hospital. Brown’s legislation expands the Good Samaritan [...] 
This past week, our good friend Governor Patrick announced that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding has created or saved 23,533 jobs in the Commonwealth since its inception. According to the administration’s calculations, that would come out to roughly 8,297 full-time positions. Not quite [...] 
Yesterday, Governor Patrick filed legislation to address Fiscal Year 2010’s budget deficit. Included in the legislation is a measure near and dear to the Senate Republicans’ hearts – the elimination of the Suffolk County holidays of Evacuation Day and Bunker Hill Day.
We here at Scaling the Hill would like to extend our sincere congratulations to the Honorable Edward Brooke, the former U.S. Senator and Attorney General from Massachusetts who was honored this week as a recipient of the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal.
Governor Patrick is so focused on making budget cuts to local aid and other vital programs that he seems to have lost sight of the fact there’s still plenty of examples of duplication of services within state government that have yet to be addressed.
Today is the day Governor Patrick is expected to announce his plan for closing the $600 million budget shortfall. But it sounds like many of the details and particulars are still being worked out.
Did you catch the op-ed piece by Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei in yesterday's Boston Globe? Tisei makes the argument that Governor Patrick and the Legislature should be spending more time focusing on ways to pull the Commonwealth through the current fiscal crisis, rather than' [...] 
Senate Minority Whip Robert L. Hedlund (left) sat down with Greater Boston host Emily Rooney Thursday night to discuss the problems at the Registry of Motor Vehicles and the need for cuts in the FY2010 state budget.
Governor Deval Patrick made headlines recently when he called for a boycott of the Hyatt, following the hotel chain's firing of 98 housekeepers. But according to today's Boston Herald, the Governor has also pocketed $3,000 in campaign contributions from the Pritzker family, which operates [...] 
Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei was interviewed by WBUR reporter Monica Brady-Myerov yesterday for a segment on the school dropout rate in Massachusetts.
Get ready for even longer lines at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, now that certain legislators have taken aim at a joint RMV/AAA venture that allows consumers to avoid extended waits by processing certain Registry transactions at their local AAA office (see our June 26, 2009 [...] 
Senate Minority Whip Robert L. Hedlund will be on Greater Boston tonight discussing the Legislature’s reluctance to help ease long lines at the RMV, as well as his proposal to increase the fee for legislators’ vanity plates. Greater Boston airs on WGBH-TV Channel 2 [...] 
If you believe what the Patrick Administration has been saying, thousands of state employees have lost their jobs since the first round of 9C cuts were announced last October. But those numbers are deceiving, and don’t give a true picture of what’s been happening with the [...] 
Apparently, Governor Patrick is serious about resorting to layoffs to balance the budget – but only to a certain point.
The Associated Press sat down with Governor Deval Patrick last Friday and learned that he has been busy working on his autobiography, which is due out next year. Patrick told the AP he is “making progress” on the book and plans to “continue working on it [...] 
Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei spoke with WBZ Radio reporter Kim Tunnicliffe about Governor Patrick's Fiscal Management Plan to address the state's $600 million budget shortfall. In the interview, Tisei faults the Governor for being slow in reacting to the fiscal crisis and failing [...] 
You may remember a while back when the Parole Board received some unwanted attention for dishing out roughly $35,000 on morale-boosting swag and staff appreciation luncheons (see our August 13, 2009 posting "Parole Board's Shopping Spree" and our August 14, 2009 posting "Here Comes" [...] 
The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center is scheduled to release a report this week detailing the Commonwealth’s use of federal stimulus funding. According to the Boston Globe, the report will show that Massachusetts has spent just over $4 billion of the $17.7 billion it [...] 
Inspector General Greg Sullivan recently appeared as a guest on Monday Night Talk, the weekly radio show hosted by Sen. Bob Hedlund on 95.9 WATD-FM. He restated his claim that the problems he has uncovered with Chapter 40B amount to the state's worst financial scandal [...] 
Hold on to your wallets ... tax-and-spend legislators may soon be advancing a proposal to increase the state's personal income tax.
Last week, the Patrick Adminis-tration announced with great fanfare that it would be holding two budget hearings to hear the public’s thoughts on health and human services-related funding issues. But those hearings – including one that was scheduled for the Reggie Lewis Center in Roxbury yesterday [...] 
We here at Scaling The Hill rarely, if ever, agree with John Kerry. However, it looks like the senior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts has come around to embracing a policy concept the Senate Republican Caucus has been touting for some time now: offering tax credits as [...] 
When it comes to bad news, the Patrick Administration seems to have – in the words of the State House News Service – a ”mildly pathological fixation” with releasing the details on a Friday so any PR damage-control can be minimized.
Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei was the featured speaker at the Annual Meeting of the New England Division of Photo Marketing Association International (PMA), a professional trade association of photo imaging businesses that includes over 20,000 members in more than 100 countries. The event took [...] 
The Department of Revenue just released preliminary revenue figures for the month of September, and the news is not good.
Condemning it as “anti-business,” Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei objected to allowing a proposed Senate Resolution calling for a boycott of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation to pass during today’s informal session, saying it is “unprecedented” for the state to urge residents to boycott a private [...] 
Will he or won’t he? That’s the question everyone is asking about Governor Deval Patrick and his plans to seek re-election in 2010.
A recent article from the Herald News, a South Coast newspaper, indicates that the Commonwealth’s Workforce Training Fund is non-existent these days. In FY 2009 the program was funded at $21 million, and to this date only $4 million of that has been appropriated, leaving [...] 
Finally, a victory for the state’s overburdened taxpayers.
Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei released the following statement regarding Governor Deval Patrick’s selection of former Democratic National Committee Chairman Paul Kirk to fill Massachusetts’ vacant U.S. Senate seat until the January 19, 2010 special election:
Governor Patrick is preparing to invoke a seldom-used provision in the state Constitution that would allow him to unilaterally declare the interim U.S. Senate appointment bill an emergency piece of legislation, necessary for protecting the “public peace, health, safety or convenience.” Doing so would enable [...] 
The Patrick Administration is feeling the heat this week, following the publication of a damaging e-mail message by the Gloucester Daily Times that gives readers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the politics of the charter school approval process.
Assistant Senate Minority Leader Bruce E. Tarr (left) can be seen on the Fox 25 Morning News program on Thursday as part of the "Talking Politics" segment. Tarr will be appearing live in Fox's Beacon Hill studio beginning at 7:15 a.m. Topics slated for discussion include today's [...] 
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As the House was busy yesterday debating the U.S. Senate succession bill, the Senate was poised to pass legislation that would have imposed a series of increased costs on pet owners, covering everything from licensing to adoption fees. That is, until Senator Michael R. Knapik [...] 
Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei met with Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board member Mary Connaughton yesterday. A vocal opponent of the Patrick Administration’s efforts to raise tolls, Connaughton is reportedly “leaning towards” a run against State Auditor Joe DeNucci in 2010. She recently told the State [...] 
On August 11, citing "an epidemic of mismanagement at the Commonwealth's Executive Office of Transportation and Public Works," Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei and House Minority Leader Brad Jones sent a letter to Governor Deval Patrick calling for Secretary Jim Aloisi's resignation. In [...] 
On the eighth anniversary of 9/11, Scaling the Hill joins with Americans everywhere in remembering the victims of the 9/11 attacks and saluting our nation's men and women who are serving our country at home and abroad to keep America safe. [...] 
Massachusetts State Senate Minority Whip Robert L. Hedlund recently appeared on Fox News Channel’s America’s Newsroom to explain his concerns about Senate Bill 2028, which outlines the state’s response to a pandemic outbreak. 
Senator Brown recently joined Chet Curtis for an interview on Broadside: The News with Jim Braude on NECN to discuss the succession process for filling the late Edward Kennedy's vacant U.S. Senate seat. In case you missed it, you can watch the interview here.
Attorney General Martha Coakley announced yesterday that her office will be taking a closer look at the executive compensation paid out by the state’s health insurers and hospitals, and has set a March 1, 2010 deadline for these companies to provide her with a breakdown of [...] 
Senator Michael R. Knapik, the ranking Republican on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, is scheduled to be interviewed this morning by Fox News Radio regarding the succession process for filling the late Edward Kennedy's vacant U.S. Senate seat. Portions of the interview will [...] 
Here's something that should come as no surprise: a new Rasmussen Reports telephone poll shows that 70 percent of Americans prefer lower taxes and smaller government. Not only are those numbers up by 5 percent over last month's poll, but they also represent the [...] 
Apparently, when it comes to the question of how best to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate -- by gubernatorial appointment or by special election -- it's not just Massachusetts Democrats who are showing signs of flip-flopping.
Assistant Senate Minority Leader Bruce E. Tarr (left) will appear live on Sirius Satellite Radio on Friday morning to discuss the process for choosing a successor to the late Senator Edward Kennedy. Tarr will be appearing as a guest on the "Morning Briefing", which airs weekdays [...] 
The New York Times has weighed in on the latest controversy surrounding the succession process for filling a potential vacancy in one of Massachusetts’ two US Senate seats.
Remember when Governor Deval Patrick –facing harsh criticism over his decision to appoint Senator Marian Walsh to a plum $175,000-a-year position at the Massachusetts Health and Education Facilities Authority – vowed to undertake a comprehensive review of executive compensation at the state’s quasi-public agencies?
Today’s Boston Herald has an editorial that spells out why redistricting reform is needed in Massachusetts, especially with the state on the verge of losing one of its 10 Congressional seats due to US population shifts.
The weather forecast calls for more hazy, hot and humid weather, but don't expect the state to offer any relief from the heat before the kids head back to school. Although Dave Wedge is reporting in today's Boston Herald that the Patrick Administration budgeted' [...] 
Assistant Senate Minority Leader Bruce E. Tarr (left) will be joining former State Senator Warren Tolman in-studio on tomorrow’s Fox 25 Morning News. Tarr and Tolman will be taking questions from co-anchor Gene Lavanchy regarding Congressman Barney Frank's recent town hall meeting on health care reform, [...] 
The Boston Globe is reporting today that $10 million in bonus payments made available to post-9/11 veterans as part of the state's Welcome Home program have gone unclaimed, with “more than a third of the estimated 30,000 qualified veterans … yet to receive their money.”
Does Governor Patrick understand the Commonwealth is still in the midst of a serious fiscal crisis? Apparently not, judging by his decision to forge ahead with issuing a $4.7 million contract to stamp out a counterfeit cigarette problem that doesn’t even exist.
The State House News Service is reporting that the Registry of Motor Vehicles is opening its second branch office along the Massachusetts Turnpike today, in Natick. According to the RMV, the closing of “a dozen high-cost branches like Framingham”, combined with the opening of several new [...] 
Assistant Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr will be appearing in-studio on tomorrow’s Fox 25 Morning News, along with former State Senator Warren Tolman, who now practices law in the Government and Real Estate Departments of Holland & Knight. The two will be answering questions covering diverse [...] 
How many times have we heard the phrase “shovel ready project” as it relates to federal stimulus funding for states, cities and towns? Is the promised funding of local projects really going to turn the economy around in short order, or will it be another drawn-out [...] 
The state sales tax increase has been in effect for less than a week, but already it has elicited not one, but five citizen-sponsored proposals seeking to roll back the increase through a statewide ballot referendum.The Massachusetts Senate Republicans
The State House News Service is reporting that Stoneham resident Michael Day is "seriously considering" a run for the state Senate seat currently held by Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei. To read more, click 
Finally, some good news for the state’s overburdened taxpayers.
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