Gov. Charlie Baker used his annual State of the Commonwealth address Tuesday night to reflect on the toll the coronavirus pandemic has taken on Massachusetts and to chart a path forward. The speech was brief: just 23 minutes. Like President Joe Biden's inaugural, it was long on aspiration and inspiration and short on policy specifics.
An unacknowledged question also hung over Baker's remarks.
1. Is He Running Again Or What?
It's time to start asking Baker if he plans to run for a third term. Baker's address was hardly the kind of swansong that departing Boston Mayor Marty Walsh delivered in his State of the City two weeks ago. Instead, Baker concentrated on the here-and-now of the pandemic and how the state will recover after vaccinations bring life back to normal.
Still, the 2022 election season is just around the corner, and Democratic candidates will soon come out of the woodwork. Keep an eye on Harvard government professor Danielle Allen. She is unannounced and still exploring a run. But like the once unknown Deval Patrick, she might prove a formidable challenger.
Baker began 2021 with an approval rating of 73%, according to MassINC Polling Group, a favorable sign that his streak of magnificent political luck isn't about to run out. If Baker does choose to step aside, his lieutenant governor and two-time running mate, Karyn Polito, will tap the campaign war chest she's raised over her years as Baker's deputy to make a go herself. She'll need the money, since without Baker in the mix, a heavyweight like Attorney General Maura Healey could see the open seat as rightfully belonging under Democratic control.
2. A Year Of COVID-19
Baker used the speech to celebrate the efforts of Massachusetts residents in fighting the pandemic while marking the tremendous loss of life and sacrifices made by the medical community, businesses, frontline workers, the unemployed, students, teachers and more.
"The pandemic changed everything," Baker solemnly declared. "It was much more than just the worst public health crisis of the last hundred years. It came with economic calamity, severe job loss, business closures, anxiety, fear, civil unrest, riots, racial injustice, isolation, death and loss."
Most of Baker's address was dedicated to the strategies and programs his administration has launched to deal with the pandemic. The governor covered everything from small business loans and food security programs to a massive testing infrastructure he hopes to build into a nation-leading vaccination system.
3. The Future Of Transportation
Since the pandemic has ended commutes for most Massachusetts office workers, the traffic woes of 2019, and the calls for new ways to deal with them, have quieted. Record low ridership on the MBTA has led the Baker-appointed Fiscal Management and Control Board to cut underused service. The governor himself exercised several proposals for limiting congestion from a recent bond bill, saying that now is not the time to reinvent the transportation system.
Still, the commuters and the traffic will return, and Baker will find himself faced with a Legislature more eager to raise taxes to pay for public transit — or to make drivers pay more to do so. Add to that his own board's call for new revenue to be dedicated to large-scale projects, and it will soon be crunch time — again — for transportation reform.
Part of the traditional victory lap portion of his speech, Baker touched on housing legislation he had been asking lawmakers to pass for years that finally came to his desk at the very end of last year's session. The new law reduced the amount of support needed at the town and city level to approve new housing projects, which Baker insists will spur new construction and alleviate the housing crisis.
"Communities can now move much more quickly to permit and build the housing that we all know we need," Baker said.
Though his speech didn't allude to it, Baker will soon have a big opportunity to weigh in on the future of transportation by naming a new MassDOT secretary to replace the D.C.-bound Stephanie Pollack.
4. The Future of Work
As with changes to how we travel and where we live, how Massachusetts conducts its work has and will continue to change drastically as a result of the pandemic. Baker seems keen to figure out how to prepare the state's economy for a newly remote workforce.
Baker highlighted "the future of work" as a major issue "we need to get right" as the state comes out of the pandemic, and he warned of "big consequences" if public policy doesn't meet the demands of a changing jobs market.
“It’s critical that we understand this and lean into what this reset means so that we create the community-building, housing, economic development and transportation programs that align with these changes," Baker said.
5. It's Budget Season
Baker did not tip his hand on what will come out tomorrow in his annual budget proposal. The governor had already disclosed to municipal leaders last week that he wants to fully fund the first year of the seven year, $1.5 billion Student Opportunity Act that passed in 2019 and was shelved last year because of the downturn in state tax revenue and the opportunity to fund schools with federal relief money.
Baker's budget proposal, known as "House 1" in Beacon Hill parlance, is the starting point for the annual process that determines how much the state will spend on services like health care, aid to cities and towns and much, much more.
Baker's economists and legislative leaders have agreed on an estimate for 3.5% growth in tax revenue in the fiscal year beginning in July, meaning the state's annual budget will likely grow from $45.9 billion to a hearty $47.5 billion.
