Update from Beacon Hill from Mass Access October 29, 2020
November 2, 2020David Gauthier
WINCAM
Thursday, October 29, 2020
As of Wednesday night, DPH reported a total of 150,498 cases of COVID-19.
The state has now confirmed a total of 9,700 deaths from the virus.
The Boston Athletic Association announced that the 2021 marathon, is being “postponed until at least the fall of 2021.”
Governor Baker, while still hoping that lawmakers will deliver him an overdue fiscal 2021 state budget by the end of November, looked ahead to next year on Wednesday, forecasting a “pretty decent” spending plan for fiscal year 2022.
The fiscal 2022 budget will be outlined and debated in the first half of next year, when Governor Baker could be enmeshed in a reelection campaign if he decides to pursue a third term in the Corner Office.
Noting the “bittersweet” circumstances of her nomination to lead the state’s top court, Supreme Judicial Court Justice Kimberly Budd said she hopes to emulate the late Chief Justice Ralph Gants’s respect and collegiality if she is confirmed, making history Wednesday by becoming the first Black woman nominated to the state’s highest judicial post.
Budd earned the nomination Wednesday of Governor Baker to ascend from associate justice to chief justice of the 328-year-old court, a role that has been vacant since Gants died last month.
During a press conference unveiling her nomination, Budd praised Gants as a mentor and a leader who was able to “bring people together” and treat his six fellow judges as a “team of equals,” a model she said she will mirror.
The Governor’s Council, an elected body that vets and confirms judicial nominations, will interview Budd on Nov. 12.
If confirmed, she would become not only the first Black woman chief justice in the history of the state’s top court, but also just the second woman to the lead the court after Margaret Marshall and the second Black chief justice after Roderick Ireland.
Budd has been a member of the Massachusetts judiciary for 11 years.
She was nominated to the state Superior Court in 2009, for a position Gants vacated when he joined the SJC, by Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat.
Baker then successfully nominated Budd to join the state’s highest court in 2016 alongside fellow Justices David Lowy and Frank Gaziano.
She was unanimously confirmed, and Budd has since authored 85 SJC decisions.
At 54 years old, Budd is set to become the Supreme Judicial Court’s youngest chief justice in at least a century.
Five out of the six sitting justices are all Baker appointees.
The lone judge who was not tapped by Baker, Justice Barbara Lenk, plans to retire on Dec. 1, one day before hitting the mandatory retirement age of 70.
The Republican governor will now get to nominate two additional associate justices, one to replace Lenk and another to fill Budd’s position if she is confirmed as chief justice.
Those two nominees, if confirmed, would give him a complete sweep of the state’s highest court.
As Massachusetts residents find other governors warning their constituents not to visit the Bay State as COVID-19 transmission rates climb, Governor Baker said Wednesday he told New York and Connecticut they were making a mistake.
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont added Massachusetts to his state’s advisory list on Tuesday requiring visitors to fill out a travel form when they arrive in Connecticut and to present proof of a negative coronavirus test or quarantine for 14 days.
And in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said it was not “practically viable” to try to limit travel between neighboring states, but discouraged his own people from non-essential travel to Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
Governor Baker said Wednesday his administration spoke with New York and Connecticut on Tuesday about the travel advisories, and respected each state’s right to do what they think is best.
Home and condo sales and prices skyrocketed across Massachusetts in September, with the median single-family home price surging to $472,000.
The Warren Group on Wednesday reported that nearly 6,400 single-family homes were sold last month, up from just over 5,000 during September 2019.
The 27 percent increase in home sales was coupled with an 18 percent increase in the median sale price.
The strong demand for new homes comes as pandemic era unemployment remains high and the state tries to guard against tens of thousands of evictions now that Governor Baker and the Legislature have let an eviction moratorium expire.
Bills to boost the supply of housing also remain bogged down on Beacon Hill.
The third straight month of large housing market gains followed a sales slump in the earliest months of the pandemic.
There are actually fewer North Atlantic right whales left in the world than federal monitors had previously thought and perhaps as few as 356 left alive, according to reports this week.
An official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently sent an email to a whale-related task force that revised the 2018 preliminary population estimate of 412 right whales downward to 383, the Gloucester Times and others reported.
The Natural Resources Defense Council said that known right whale deaths since 2018 would lower the current right whale population to 356 of the endangered mammals.
With a massive federal decision looming, the first utility-scale offshore wind farm in the country took another step towards becoming a reality Wednesday with the announcement of a transmission agreement with the grid operator.
Vineyard Wind announced that it had struck an agreement with ISO New England that will allow its planned 800-megawatt offshore wind generation development to connect to the New England electric power grid at the NSTAR 115kV switch station in Barnstable.
The company said its interconnection agreement won final authorization from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in September.
A federal decision on a final permit for Vineyard Wind I is expected by Dec. 18, 2020 – more than a year later than first anticipated.
During an Avangrid earnings call last week, a company executive said the firm feels good about the project as a federal decision draws nearer.
