Will Maura Healey run for second term? Massachusetts governor's status among key 2025 storylines.
BOSTON - The new session of the Massachusetts State Legislature kicked off last week with speeches from the Senate President and House Speaker scolding the local news media for allegedly failing to accurately report on what they claim was a productive 2023-2024 season.
In particular, the two branches were criticized for failing to reach agreement on important, long-pending bills before the end of formal sessions in July, but most of those items on their to-do list were completed by year's end.
Veteran political reporter Gin Dumcius of CommonWealth Beacon previewed the upcoming legislative session and other key 2025 topics in Massachusetts politics on the Sunday edition of "Keller At Large."
"Self-inflicted" negative news coverage
Gumcius called much of the negative coverage of the legislature "self-inflicted."
"Certainly, they've kept working, but a lot of the negative news coverage has been self-inflicted on their part," Gin said. "They've blown past deadlines. You know, we've had the headlines from the Globe about a top lawmaker having a close relationship, with a lobbyist. So you have all that in the mix. The Senate president was [lamenting] the fragmentation of the media. That's true, but that also means that lawmakers have the biggest avenue right now to directly reach constituents. They can bypass the media if they want."
Legislature audit
Meanwhile, perhaps the legislature's biggest critic has been State Auditor Diana DiZoglio, a former member of the House and Senate who successfully backed a statewide ballot question giving her authority to audit the legislature. Legal challenges await, but if she finally gets the green light, what are the chances she finds any serious malfeasance?
"Let's see what the books say, if they're willing to open them up," says Dumcius. "But I think in many ways, she's already won. She got the ballot question through. She is one of the most intense campaigners statewide. She's really up there in terms of meeting voters. Even when she could be vacationing somewhere, she'd rather be meeting voters. So, you know, she obviously has her eyes set for higher office, and this has offered her a platform to go get that higher office."
Will Gov. Maura Healey run again?
Speaking of campaigns, 2025 will be decision time for Gov. Maura Healey regarding a run for a second term.
"The knock on her in some corners of Beacon Hill is that she's conflict averse," Dumcius said. "And I think this year we're going to find out how conflict averse she is or isn't. The transportation funding gap is huge and the T needs more money. So deciding what to do could be controversial. If you saw what happened in New York with congestion pricing, and the governor there kind of backing off it and then coming back to it in part, I think you're going to see exactly how far [Healey] wants to go on on that. On the migrant crisis she's been trying to walk this line of not angering the incoming Trump administration too much. We'll just see how conflict averse she is or isn't.'
Dumcius also discussed the governor's contentious relationship with the teacher's union and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's 2025 re-election bid.
Click in the video player above to watch the entire interview, and join us every Sunday morning at 8:30 a.m. for Boston's most-watched Sunday political interview program.
