Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: State Representative Tacky Chan of Quincy is back after a week's hiatus to give us a tacky talk for November. Hey, Tacky, how are you?
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Hey, Joe, good morning.
It's. We're a little late this week. We didn't get together last week for the post election conversation.
Scheduling was, was unfortunately tougher than we expected.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: That's okay. Still, it's still on top of people's minds for sure. And you're wearing the appropriate color to talk about the election.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Oh, this shirt was a clean shirt, folks. So let's just make it clear that this was not an intentional wear today. Sometimes I take the cleanest shirt I can find.
As I often say, sometimes a blind squirrel can find a nut every so often. And I can find a piece of clothing that actually is appropriate.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: But it is appropriate because of the, you know, the quote unquote blue wave or blue tsunami that spread across the country.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm always interesting of terminology. Why tsunami versus hurricane. I mean somebody in the back room must be thinking something because tsunamis are west coast of typhoons.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Right.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: West coast item in many ways. And east coast is tropical storms and hurricanes. So it's, it's interesting because in the west I never heard the word tsunami used on the east coast before referencing to a giant wave. But regardless, this was me wandering immensely wandering off.
No, it was phenomenal. I think the comparison is 1974. This was accurate. Comparison is indeed 1974, which is post Watergate. I was obviously too young for that.
I remember watching the 2010, 2006, 1998 seen a lot of big election turnovers. 2010 in particular is fascinating because it was not just congress, it was also state legislators turnover.
This year, 2026 state legislators also turned over as well as governor's offices to Democrat which is the first time in 16 years have had a massive, significant, not as massive 2000, 2010was just a red wave tsunami, whatever you want to call it. Oh, state legislators. But I mean the local level a big deal around the country as well.
And I've never seen anything like this where for the lack of term like back in this 1974 throw the bums. Right.
Was kind of the whole thing in the 70s.
I've never seen anything like this in terms of the raw numbers and voter angle. We've talked about many times about one of the most important things in voter issues and people ask me this question a lot now. What's the reason? I tell people it's two simple reasons. People can't feed themselves and they don't feel safe.
It isn't complicated. If things are too expensive and you can't put food on the table and your wages are not keeping up with inflation, that's a problem for everybody unless you're very wealthy.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it was maybe during Bill Clinton's second term, the phrase it's the economy, stupid.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Yeah. James Carbo. Right,
[00:02:57] Speaker A: right, exactly. Yeah. And that's what it is. It's kitchen table politics, you know, even at the national level.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: And the second issue really is safety.
People think of safety as a criminal element. It's actually the federal government. I mean, the ICE actions send shockwaves to even the most reasonable or even the most apolitical person about what's going on. You know, Susan Collins, you can talk about three things in Maine. Tariffs, inflation, and frankly, you know, another dead US citizen in Maine.
People do not forget that stuff. And people expect the US government, law enforcement to protect us, not terrorize people.
And you know, pictures of children, you know, put in handcuffs like you saw another Haitian 8 year old yesterday, done so does not, you know, inspire Americans to believe that this government cares about children.
You know, remember the Eliot someone brought up, the what's his name, the kid Gonzalez kid.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: I do remember that. Yes.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: And Janet Reno's call on forcefully removing the child to send back to Cuba.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: That did not sell. That did not sit well with the American public when you had armed federal agents barge into a family home that is not armed to take a child away.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Correct. Yeah, that, that was one example. Remember the Waco standoff was another one.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: Yes. Where unfortunately, actually Quincy agent died. A federal agent.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: But also just civilians also dying as opposed to just kind of waiting it out.
There's many cases in U.S. history, Kent State is the one that everyone comments. Many, even if you weren't born, is a big part of our U.S. history as Kent State.
So I mean, the U.S. the American people do not like watching federal action against people that live here that do nothing, much less murdering for lack of US citizens under very questionable pretense. And nowadays you have multiple cell phone camera angles on top of the media. Plus we have surveillance of cctv. You can debate all you want about surveillance cameras on the street, but they also were utilized in these ICE actions that was available to the public to look at as well as the media because they're mostly in downtown areas.
And then, you know, we don't even know what's happening in suburban neighborhoods. And people live in fear.
People aren't going to English classes, people aren't going to church, people won't go to health centers. People won't get the vaccinations. People will not go get English classes. People won't get a paycheck that actually pays Medicaid and Social Security and taxes. They'll do more under the table money and potential abuse by employers. This is a legit issue. And I think people kind of feel like, well, it never happened to me. And I always tell everybody the same thing. Just because you think it can't happen to you, it most definitely can't happen to you.
If it happens to somebody else. There's nothing that says that you have some magical barrier that prevents the federal government from coming after you next. If they do it to someone else, why can't you be the next one?
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, when, when freedoms start to erode, they erode for everybody. Not, not just some people.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: That is right. I mean, when you look at folks that are marginalized are the first ones to be victimized by the government.
And you can go back to Nazi Germany, folks, you can go back to anywhere in Africa we're getting ethnic minorities.
You can go back to the English and how they treat literally everybody on the planet. I'm sure our Irish friends listening knows exactly what I'm saying.
You know, once they take that first step, they just keep on moving. And even in this country, I mean, the British treated the colonies even though they were Caucasian, mostly British subjects, you know, like second class citizens and you know, started subjugating them like they do other colonies, despite the color of their skin and the ancestry where they came from. I mean, this country was built on rebellion. I, I cannot emphasize that enough.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: Yes.
It led to an all out war, as I recall. Yes.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And no one likes being told what to do. And this is just a fact. I mean, people do not like being told what to do.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: In
[00:07:16] Speaker B: this country in particular, nobody likes being told what to do. And gerrymandering was that Republican gerrymandering was complete and total failure. I think they picked up maybe two seats, a lot of House seats flipped. They took for granted certain people of color, especially Hispanic votes.
If you look even Donald Trump's statements back in the first election, he was telling Afro Americans, what has Democrats ever done for you? You know, I can do better.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: I remember.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: And they started taking those votes for granted.
As I like to remind folks, over and over again, this country is less and less party oriented because frankly, the political parties have done nothing really to attract nor keep voters with them because of bad public policy, especially at the national level.
And at the same time, you know, voters are going to move with their pocketbooks and you know, things that affect them today and promises not kept.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: And even here in Massachusetts, you know, the super Democratic majority, most of the voters are unenrolled.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: That's correct. I always tell people unenrolled voters lean Democrat because the votes show that. Does it guarantee? Well, obviously not. We've had Republican governors,
[00:08:30] Speaker A: right?
[00:08:30] Speaker B: We actually have. When again, I always say, my good friend Donald Wong, he's Republican in Saugus, that's considered Democratic territory by registration.
But he gets along well with local folks as a local politician. And we were commenting how if his opponent wasn't so bad and he wasn't such a strong effort on local politics and keeping touch with folks, and he would have been taken out as part of this year's anti Democrat, I'm sorry, anti Republican, pro Democrat vote. So, you know, anti Republicans and pro Democrats. And you know, and I also expected even Democratic incumbents to take a little bit on the chin because even though it is a super Democratic state, people when they're upset will take it out of the incumbent because really you don't have a lot of choices in the state to do so.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. I think the electorate basically said, okay, here you go, you, you fix it. And if you don't, we won't forget that either.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: I agree with that. I do.
And I'm very thankful again for the voters in 2nd Norfolk, Quincy people to return me to the state House this year.
And this year's percentage was very surprising for me, as I repeated many times. I expected an erosion from people just being upset.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: I think you got 72% of the vote.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Yeah, 72.3 is the highest percentage margin I've ever seen in my election in a Republican Democrat situation.
So, you know, I'm very thankful.
You can call it a mandate if you want, but I was in shock when I got my final percentage numbers.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Were you really tacky after all these years? Yeah,
[00:10:10] Speaker B: I was very surprised. You guys all know I'm a numbers wonk and I
[00:10:14] Speaker A: was
[00:10:14] Speaker B: projecting out a degree of negativity. So I had factoring the possibility, actually the real possibility of just a protest against me just because they're just unhappy with the current life we're living in. Yeah, it's awful.
And of course, you know, fear and safety is, is also part of that.
So you
[00:10:32] Speaker A: just
[00:10:32] Speaker B: take it on incumbent on the channels.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: That's true. I mean, they could have just left it blank. Right. Because blank votes count.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: Yeah. I looked at the blank votes. It wasn't as severe as I believe. I believe that 2/3 of all blanks in my situation was the Republican blanks because okay. Numbers and seeing these. This isn't making sense in the raw totals, especially since I cracked five digits which is, which is very surprising in a gumator year for me with a 47% turnout in my own district, 45% turnout citywide. So my district had a 2% higher turnout than the whole city.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So that does. That does say. Tell you something, I'm sure. Yeah.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: Yeah. People want to send a message. They both.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Yeah. 2% higher than the rest of the city is an indication they wanted. They wanted people to know. They want to be had their opinion. Yeah. There is a trend which I think the analysts will continue to break down about blank voting. Republicans Lorraine Bovette lost in Colorado. She had a close election last time as Republican people may remember. She's very bostic Trump supporter
[00:11:34] Speaker A: and
[00:11:34] Speaker B: she just narrowly lost her seat to a Democrat. And I was watching local news on YouTube there and the commentary was it looks like there's a large number of blank votes. Most likely are Republican votes that was there. So people showed up to vote and you know, just sending a message.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well I mean it resulted in the resignation of the Mass GOP party chairman.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: Now. Yeah, I mean you lose relatively safe seats.
You know, Lombardo was in. Bill Rucker got beat by a 19 year old kid. And once I go, the kid sells braces. Da da da. And you know that's what happens.
David Vieira, which is a more moderate conservative Democrat, a long time person in, in his district. Very. You know we always thought he was kind of a safe seat. Does the work in district level? No, lost.
We did lose one Democrat down in Westport. Rep. Olivet. He was the second term. Not too surprised. There was always going to be a potential Republican seat. And then we have one outstanding rip. Sev Gaskey, who's in the second term, who claimed victory, then lost, then claimed, then questioned. It's a bit of a saga down in the Cava region.
Very confusing messaging coming out of there.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Interesting. Okay. Has that been finalized yet, do you know?
[00:12:58] Speaker B: No.
Both teams have already gone in for a recount.
Very small towns.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: A lot of question marks and who's saying what?
I think one of the towns had numbers. Retracted numbers. It was a whole. It's like a socket out there.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Okay. All right. Well it took, you know, when some of the close races they really have to wait because the mail in ballots that were postmarked by election day can still be received until the end of last week. So they had to wait on those
[00:13:28] Speaker B: have absentee ballots because they're overseas.
Special military ballots get a little time as well. Very rarely do they shift numbers around too much.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: No. Right. But if it is very, very close, you kind of have to wait for those to see which way it goes.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And you see that around the country too waiting to this Friday. Actually some states have absentee ballots in this Friday not mail it to absentee.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Oh, I see. Okay.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: So depends what state you're in. Right.
But yeah, I mean this saga is far from over the national level.
The House picked up a few seats. It looks like we're going to be maybe 127. I'm sorry 137 Democrats and 160 household. We're going to real super majority.
And then you have obviously us say the state Senate continues to be in super majority and most of the contested races there were in the Democratic primary which you're talking about in September.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Yes. Right, right, right. I'm curious to see it'll be if you know the House has veto proof power because the president's been threatening to use the veto pen.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: Oh. I mean the U.S. house would have to get to what 100 and 200 right now NBC News projects on 259. I think they officially hit 255 yesterday.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: On the news media.
Could it get to 260? I maybe 280 is out of the question. There's only about 17, 16 contestancies.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: Okay. All right. So that couldn't happen. So the veto still could, still could be a factor.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And the Republicans in Congress moves very quickly to pick a new minority leader. Johnson obviously had to resign as speaker and minority leader. Whether he finishes his term is interesting but he is you know, Jim Jordan which has been a choice Republicans in the past down there beats Galisi the minority. Well the minority or second leader in that case
[00:15:17] Speaker A: the whip I think they call it. Yeah,
[00:15:18] Speaker B: yeah. The whip lost. Who's this, you know hand man to the speaker or for long years the former leader, now the whip. So you know even among them the leadership would change and but I mean they're in a super minority. I mean even though the, the Democrats don't have a super majority for a override ability that it is there and you know, you know going back to national pol global politics. Right. I mean Serbia had a monster wave wiped out folks. Hungary had a monster wave wiped out the, the folks there. Israel is a mixed wave.
The majority party lost to minority parties but coalition governments are a bit of a messy thing. And understand Luna was a survivor but he has got a, he's got a congress against him in Brazil.
So you know, even though he won the presidency, he still doesn't have the congress. It's, it's going to be an interesting mess as well. And then you know the British on yet how many prime ministers in the last decade?
It doesn't matter.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: I lost count after five I think.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Take out the head of lettuce. We'll see what happens this time. If you know the joke, you know British politics. But I mean. Yeah, another example of doesn't matter what political party you're in. In Britain they've been rotating prime ministers because of frankly ineffectiveness.
So you know, he saw Mark Carney. Hang on. But he was not your typical candidate there for his party. Very unusual candidate. It's almost like the people picked up the candidate for the time. So you know who they need for the moment.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: So you know, around the world, I mean there is a huge anti incumbency and anybody in Europe in particular that was pro Trump is getting destroyed in parliamentary elections in Europe.
France is up next.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: I was just going to say France is next. Yeah, I was just going to say that.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Oh, that's going to be a fun one to watch folks.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Yes. If you're a political junkie, keep an eye on the French elections. Yes.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: Plus protests once again getting violence because it is French.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: Yes,
[00:17:26] Speaker B: it's a French thing. I had never seen a first world country continually have violent protests as much as that country.
I mean there's supposed to be a first world civilized democracy and all they do is firebomb things.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: Oh well, at least that we see. Yeah,
[00:17:41] Speaker B: yeah. So I mean this is going to be a conversation piece as we continue. We're down to one U. S. Senate race as of the filming here on Thursday.
Well, if it is the Alaskan one, it is ranked choice voting. Once you get past the first vote, it is a question mark. We can happen on the second vote.
So that one's going to go on for, for another couple weeks it looks like.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: If remember, ranked choice voting is you got the first pick, they have to pick your second pick by dropping off the lowest number and then you just keep going down until someone gets 50%.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: Right, right. Yeah. Speaking of, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about the nine ballot questions because we spend so much time on them, we really should Do a little review of them.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Yeah, we should have done a off the record
[00:18:29] Speaker A: prediction.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we
[00:18:32] Speaker A: would have been right.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I was right on my back of the envelope of predictions. How it came out somewhere close than I expected.
[00:18:42] Speaker A: 7. The, the, the zoning issue was very, very close.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Was very, very close.
And when it comes to things like property issues, there is a divergence between homeowners and renters.
There's always going to be the divergence and I'm not sure what caused it. I'm curious if there's a study done on how the voters look like.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: I haven't seen one, but you're right. That'd be interesting.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: That'd be interesting. That stuff tends to be a homeowner versus non homeowner.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: I think it would come down to kind of suburbia versus urban. I bet you if you looked at it very closely, suburbia kind of went out very closely.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: Agreed, agreed. So maybe there'll be some studies done on that one to see how that that turned out. But, you know.
Yeah, some things are obvious. Ooh. You know, public records in the legislature. I mean, people love beating us up. I mean, it isn't difficult to do. I mean, anything involves kicking us around in the legislature was fine. I mean.
[00:19:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a given. It was going to pass, of course. Yeah.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Never any in the. I don't think anybody can tell me a time when a ballot question that challenges anything in the legislature ever lost.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: One surprise to me was the, the state revenue limits. I thought that would pass
[00:19:58] Speaker B: and that was a very confusing ballot question.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: Because it wasn't always clear to folks how this tax policy worked. We talked about the fact that we thought it was a little bit deceptive regarding exactly what taxes they considered because considered non state collected taxes as part of total tax collector revenue.
So I think people are kind of. I think that would confuse people a bit.
Ultimately, the voters agree to the legislature on that one.
That, that people should all get an equal share. Should deserve to be triggered again versus the amount of taxes received.
If everyone gets equal share, then those are the lower income tax brackets, which is like 75% of us. Will, will, will deal, do better as opposed to giving people gave larger tax numbers who are at the top end of the food chain, more money.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, that was the, that was the initial argument when this first came about during Charlie Baker's administration.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Oh, the wealthy did very well.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah,
[00:20:58] Speaker B: they did very, very well. And you know, if you're, you know, at the making like 40,000, 50,000, even like $60,000 a year. You. You basically lost out of that.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: You didn't do as well.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: What are the single party or no party primary that. That failed.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Yeah. You're actually still watching races in California. No party primaries is Democrats versus Democrats. Republicans. Republicans still votes being counted.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: Yeah,
[00:21:23] Speaker B: fascinatingly in that one in the Republican area more so Republicans are trying to take out incoming Republicans. It looks like that's starting to happen.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: Oh my. They're feeding on each other.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: Well, jungle primaries let you do that.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: Well, it's true. And
[00:21:38] Speaker B: my friend in Washington state is a Democrat lost in her second run primary. So she had to run against the candidate twice, September and November, same individual. And didn't. Didn't work out the second time around. So I mean the voters chose you the first time and then you lose the second time to the same person. What was
[00:21:58] Speaker A: the
[00:21:58] Speaker B: point of the first election?
[00:22:00] Speaker A: Interesting, interesting, interesting. Huh? Okay, let's see. Recreational marijuana. I knew that wouldn't pass given the support it had initially. So that was a no brainer. Yeah,
[00:22:11] Speaker B: agreed. And keeping the current firearm laws in place by overwhelming margin didn't surprise me either. And Quincy, I believe was almost 70% of 71%.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: It was. Yep.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: Which again Quincy, you know, supports the current firearms laws.
And I talk about that as a little bit confusing because you're repealing a statute but it has a ripple effect to the entire statue which actually repealing.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: It's not simple as repealing one session. Well. And it all solves a problem. It's. It can cause a ripple effect that's a little bit unclear what will happen in the end. But it's, you know, that actually has pulled really well on firearms control laws, so to speak, or you know, updating our farms laws as technology changes.
That's always pulled well in Massachusetts and the voters are reflecting that instance. The polling is correct.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: Yep, yep.
Election day Voter registration. We. I kind of figured that would pass.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: Yeah. That was a gimme. That
[00:23:09] Speaker A: was a gimme, right?
[00:23:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Despite all this talk about voter fraud and everything else we talk about, particularly from the Republican side, about voter. Voter integrity and all that stuff. And you know, to be honest, we all know that's a red herring when you think about it. For Pete's sakes, Alaska's flying in their ballots to Juneau from the far reaches of Alaska. Well, that's right. Historically a Republican state. I don't see Donald Trump bashing a Republican state for this type of ballot control.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: No.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm just pointing that out.
So.
No, not surprising.
Massachusetts is continue to believe that our election officials in the local and state level maintain very good control over the election's integrity. And same day registration has historically been very popular. Implementation is going to be interesting. As we discussed before, this was a Secretary of state supported question who is a top election official. He's the final arbitrator of all elections in terms of regulation and telling the clerks what to do.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: And he's going to have to implement those regulations. So we'll see how that plays out.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's. I think it's gonna be more a matter of like just timing and staffing in order to just, you know, verify the voters. I mean it's kind of already existing where you can do it during early voting, but this, this will be in a more widespread level
[00:24:31] Speaker B: or there's also a thing called provisional ballots. So I mean. Right. Yep. Mississippi's doing it now.
Well,
[00:24:37] Speaker A: they are. Oh
[00:24:38] Speaker B: yeah. Mississippi had outstanding ballots over.
Over 15,000 plus maybe even more.
This is why we got this, they got this count going in is they're doing verification on provincial ballots. Maybe you voted, maybe you hadn't voted for a long time and you weren't rose for a bit or there was a, you, you, you had some error someplace.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: On, on your address. Maybe one letter was off. Who knows? I mean.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: Yep, yep.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: You know what I'm saying?
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Sometimes it's like a junior or senior, same name, you know, different person. Yeah,
[00:25:09] Speaker B: yeah. And Mississippi is republican state and they do provincial ballots.
There's. I know that Republicans rally against provincial ballots too, calling it voter fraud. But Mississippi's republican state has provincial ballots. Who has been meticulously counting them right after the election, after the initial count was done, starting that night and doing it non stop to confirm the entity of the provincial ballots to ensure that US citizens that can vote in our Mississippi.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, it's like I said, it's a, it's a clerical thing. It's, it's sheer manpower. You know, you need a lot of people to do this work.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So Republicans, you know, listening about, you know, rallying against that kind of fraud. Well, Mississippi, all Republican controlled state, you know, is doing that now. It is not the same as same day voters, same day voter registration.
But you know, provisional ballots need to be confirmed identity. Right.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Yep. And there was. Oh, the Nature Conservancy Fund. That one passed.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Still no idea how that's going to be implemented.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: I know it's kind of confusing too.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: Kind of confusing. Exactly what is the definition of these very. We think of simple words and not simple when we actually look at it. Still unclear what tax collection actually did not state.
We're going to assume sales tax. But it
[00:26:22] Speaker A: didn't say it. You're right. Yeah, it
[00:26:24] Speaker B: didn't say it. It didn't say it. And mind you, 2, 2 cents of every 2 pennies are taken out of your sales tax. One goes directly to MBTA and the other goes to the SKILL building assistance program.
So, you know, it's going to be a conflicted law that may impact MBTA funding or in the SBA fund. The legislature us is going to have to make some decisions here
[00:26:45] Speaker A: on
[00:26:45] Speaker B: implementation.
I would be doubtful that the environmentalists want to fight us on MBTA funding and school building assistance.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that was, that's like, yeah, two opposable forces. Because who wants to vote against nature, but who wants to vote against education either, you know.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Well, you want to reduce funding to mbta. I mean, that's going to cause a whole lot of anger already because MBTA is a tough agency in the central service and they've had funding problems for a long time because frankly, the cost of doing business exceeds the of revenue coming in. And it's just you can't keep up with the cost of electricity as we've seen most recently the fuel prices right on top of maintenance and everything else. It is not cheap to run a mass transit, particularly one that's 100, what, 10 years old or whatever now.
The
[00:27:39] Speaker A: oldest in the country. Yeah.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: There's going to be ongoing issue in the legislature with the MBTA going to this cycle and many other cycles about this because it's such heavily subsidized compared to other mass transit. People always say that, you know, it's nice everywhere else, but you know, one, most of them are younger than 50 years old and the other is that you're paying a lot more money.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Not surprising, but still amazing is the tenure of Senator Ed Markey.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: I wasn't surprised, I mean, especially on congressional regarding blue waves. I mean, congratulations to obviously everyone that won. But you know, Ed Markey, Steve and Lynch both had resounding solid wins.
You know, the congressional officers had solid wins.
I think it was unrealistic for the governor to get 70%.
It was still better than I expected. I had it closer to 60%.
So she did better than I thought she would.
But I mean, it's, it's.
You got to be careful here. Part of it is, you know, die hard Democrats, part of it is anti Trump.
Right. Yeah. You have to be careful about the length of the mandates, what I'm saying.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I understand. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Don't take it for granted, basically. Right,
[00:28:58] Speaker B: agreed. Do not take it for granted. Do not take for granted that this is a clear, clear and simple mandate.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: Right. No. Because it can happen within. Within your own party too. We saw that within with the election of Congressman Presley. Right. Ousting a longtime incumbent.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: Yep. And we saw this, this last primary where he has some close calls with Senator Braunsberger and that we lost Senator Rush, you know, in this changeover. And it's not unusual. We've seen this changeover in Democratic primaries largely driven from the left, taking out, not left enough.
It tends to be those districts, not someone taking on a moderate. It tends to be a you're not far enough left kind of person.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: And yeah, we'll see how this plays out.
A lot more non conventional Democrats, meaning like the Democrat I grew up with one this year. A lot more millennials than one seats this year. So definitely is moving to a younger generation.
We all have opinions about that. But it is what it is, folks.
[00:30:04] Speaker A: Right. No, exactly. Yeah.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: Can't talk too much more about that. And Massachusetts gets to rise the cream of the crop again. Our little state and congressional politics is a fast rising cream. I mean everything's projecting. Kathy Clock will be number two person.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: Yes. Imagine that. Yeah.
[00:30:22] Speaker B: Richard Neal should return his ways means chair.
Rep. McGovern should be back as Wu's chair. So you know, after you pass the speaker, the next big three jobs are in Massachusetts.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: Massachusetts. Yeah. Imagine. Yeah,
[00:30:36] Speaker B: yeah. And the Senator. I'm sorry, Representative, but you know, Congressman Keating and Congressman lynch should both do very well and you know, lower hand up and low, expecting very well. Congratulations. Dan Cole, who's the first Asian American congressional person elected in Massachusetts. But I mean he's also going to be at the bottom of the food chain in the very Democratic caucus 255 to 59.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: You're at the bottom of that food chain among the other 60 odd people
[00:31:05] Speaker A: right at
[00:31:06] Speaker B: the bottom of food chain trying to figure out where they are despite Kathy being in such a strong position and then you know,
[00:31:11] Speaker A: she's been in for a long time, he's a freshman, so yeah,
[00:31:14] Speaker B: that's exactly it. And she worked away at the top of the food chain and she. You have to feed so many other people in the delegations and they got a Hannah Presley, which I'm unclear whether or not she's going to receive a good post even if it's a subcommittee chair, but we're going to get at least two big chairs. I mean, Ways and Means and Rules. A huge deal in Congress.
And we'll see how Keating and Lynch make up.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: Yep. Gives a small state a disproportionate amount of power for sure in Washington. So it'll be interesting to see what that translates to.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Agreed. And I sometimes think voters in Massachusetts do not fully appreciate exactly how powerful Massachusetts delegations become in the U.S. house.
And, you know, we fully expect Ed Markey and Liz Warren to do well, too. Largely now they have seniority. The first time out, when it was a majority in the Senate, they just didn't have enough seniority. And Ed Markey told me that one time straight up, he's like, look, we have the majority and I'm at the bottom of 100 people right now. So he's gonna have to do what he did when he first got looked at the House. He's gonna have to wait it out and work his way back up the food chain. Even though he's there for 30 years in the house
[00:32:25] Speaker A: and he's 80 years old.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: Yeah. He gets a first chance to start over. 80 years old as the chairman. Not sure what chairman of, but it's still also going to question what Chuck Schumer is, whether he's going to be the majority leader. I fully expect the votes will still be there.
I also find it fascinating. Bernie Sanders is not really a Democrat. He keeps coming in and out of the party at his convenience, which I find fascinating.
[00:32:50] Speaker A: Yeah, he reminds me of. Well, he is. He's from the hippie generations.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a Democratic convenience because he's back on enrolled again along with Senator Angus King, who kept his head down and quiet all through Maine, I've noticed.
[00:33:05] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: And.
But you also have a lot of, you know, changeover in this in the US Senate, and some folks are going to be very exhausted going in. And we'll see. We'll see how it plays out. I think Schumer should be okay. I don't see a reason why he wouldn't be.
But it also doesn't need all those Democrats.
We have a buffer of potentially 56, and that means you only 51. You could lose five Democrats and be fine. And the filibuster rule only applies if you can get to 60. So that's irrelevant. Instead to work on the filibuster. But, you know, they have ability to stop appointments now. They have ability to control reconciliation budgets more.
Congress has been using a weird rule on reconciliation of funding resolutions to try to avoid the filibuster. Both parties have used it in the Senate multiple times. I suspect that won't change the same thing in the House. Shakim Jeffries, who will be the first black speaker ever in Congress, you know, will be able to not need maybe 40 Democratic votes if you just need a simple majority.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: Wow. Wow. Okay. You
[00:34:15] Speaker B: got a lot of space is what I'm saying.
[00:34:17] Speaker A: I was gonna say. Yeah, a lot of leeway. Yeah.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: Maybe not 40. 40 puts it down to. Yeah. He could lose like 35 plus votes and still be okay.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: Still be okay. Wow. Okay.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the. That's one of the things about having a huge majority for House and Senate leadership is to create some space to get to my number.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: Yeah. It'll be curious to see what they use. This, this newfound power, you know, a lot of folks are saying, should they start to investigate the current administration and talk about impeachment articles or, you know, listen to the voters maybe for a change.
You
[00:34:53] Speaker B: can do
[00:34:53] Speaker A: both. Yeah.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: There's no reason you can't do both.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: Well, true. Yeah.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: I mean, the chair of oversight does not have responsibility over trying to bring down costs like you do in chair of Commerce or chair
[00:35:05] Speaker A: of
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Agriculture. Right.
Um, don't ask me to ask questions. Chairs. It's all weird down there because some stuff mushes together to understand.
[00:35:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: But I can see them pushing for things like. And I hope they push for it, you know, Obamacare, tax subsidies on healthcare comes back. It is very much nationally a huge impact of people throwing off healthcare.
Negative impacts on people's lives. Again, they tend to be voted against Trump. They lost that people, they felt the pain of losing SNAP programs this time last year, you know, are going to start feeling it. John Keenan, myself and, you know, speaker and Bruce Ayers offices all went down to dta.
The Quincy office had a chat about that.
And these new regulations, you know, make it very, very tough for applicants now. And they have seen a reduction of applicants, particularly people of color and legal. Legal immigrants who are applying because of government.
So in other states, they confirm when talking to their colleagues just got rid of people.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: They didn't even like, try. They just
[00:36:12] Speaker A: try. Yeah,
[00:36:12] Speaker B: they didn't bother trying. They just got rid of people and.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: I mean, you know, put yourself in your shoes. I mean, if you're a couple kids and you need like 50 bucks a month just to help cover groceries and the government says no to you.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: Yeah. You're in big trouble. Yeah.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, you know, think about that for a second you're looking for like $50 and you got like two kids and you got a job. And because Massachusetts is such a high expensive state, a medium house income, it doesn't, it's not hard to reach the federal poverty lines, you know, even on lower, lower middle income people.
Why we have such a large number of folks on food stamps or SNAP programs here. Even if it's like 50 bucks a month or 25amonth, I mean, it helps. So because you look at the minimum household income so high, the federal poverty level also goes up. I mean, it's half joking that our federal poverty level, it's a lot of money in a state like Missouri, but you know, we live in an expensive place. The poverty level falls to meet the most income. So the math is crazy. But you'd be surprised how many people do qualify. And I, we talk about many times and you guys all should understand, unless you're like, you know, raking in hundreds of billions of dollars a year and I don't think you're listening to me. If you are, it is hard.
Oh,
[00:37:24] Speaker A: there's a very good chance, you know, someone that's on assistance for sure. Yeah,
[00:37:28] Speaker B: yeah. Almost 20% of the city of Quincy.
14, 15,000 households. 2.5 to that. It's. Well, actually more like perhaps 30,000 people.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: Right.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: You know, being considered 14, 15,000 households. You know, some reason, some minimum SNAP program. So as I say over and over again, before you criticize, you know, be wary. You know, I do not like people being shamed for eating.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: Yep. And it puts a lot of burden on the social service agencies that, that are trying to fill the gap.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: That is right. Even food pantries are not receiving as much donations as in the past. A Greater Boston Food.
Greater Boston Interfaith, was it? Oh, what, I can't think.
[00:38:08] Speaker A: Food bank. Yeah, the food bank
[00:38:10] Speaker B: has invited me for a tour, which I'll take up the opportunity when the year changes in January. Schedule is getting kind of wacky this month, but I'll do a tour of the food bank next year.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: Yep, very good. Well, since you brought it up, what's going to be happening on Beacon Hill now? Tacky.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Well, we're still waiting for 13 conference committee reports. So December could be, like I said, strange.
I'm actually, in all disclosure, I'm actually going to Sacramento this afternoon for a national conference. State Legislatures Energy Task Force conference. A speaker put me on this task force.
Unfortunately, I missed an opportunity in June for family problems, which you all know about at this stage.
And there's actually going to be an agricultural task force as well. So we're flying in to Sacramento. There's no direct flights have to go via Seattle and
[00:38:57] Speaker A: there's no direct flights to the. To the state's capital.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: No, not from here. So.
[00:39:01] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: I have to go through Seattle then come back via Salt Lake City on, on Monday's flight. So it'll be kind of messed up next week.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: On travel and is a full conference I looked at itinerate. This is like a 9 to 5 conference.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: Oh okay.
[00:39:15] Speaker B: Non stop plus obviously social time afterwards to network with other legislators and industry folks. So this should actually be a pretty good conference. I'm just going to be absolutely exhausted because I'm not getting into California time to about midnight California time about 3am here and
[00:39:31] Speaker A: then
[00:39:32] Speaker B: like 8am shop start on pre, register on registration and you know, off I go. So I have a friend out there. I'm going to stay at her place and just. She said I could borrow a car.
[00:39:41] Speaker A: No, that was helpful. Yeah.
[00:39:43] Speaker B: Yeah. So this saves a couple of bucks but I'm going to be a complete mess when I get back. Is a Saturday conference. I've never seen a Saturday conference of this type.
Very unusual to a Saturday conference. So I apologize again to the housing community council and the award recipients at a good neighbor war dinner this Saturday.
I had booked this trip back back in September not knowing what is coming down the road and then I don't expect to be doing any kind of holiday travel during the month of December because we are on call in the legislature for 13 potential crimes committee reports and we have to January 5th, the day before swearing in day to get everything done on top of everything I'd like to get done in informal sessions.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: Oh okay.
[00:40:31] Speaker B: Not before. So you know, I expect a very busy and unpredictable schedule in December.
No one likes the word on call. I don't care what profession you're in.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: Yeah, well, does it really limit your personal life? Right. You need to be available.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: Yes, it is. It puts us in a scheduling binding again. Thankfully I'm single.
I don't have a family.
My family life has changed. So obligations have changed. Holidays
[00:41:02] Speaker A: and you'll live close enough to the state house if you need to go.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: Oh yeah. I'm thankful I'm not from North Adams, which can take up to four hours, for example.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:41:11] Speaker B: I never complain about commutes. Believe me. Folks
[00:41:13] Speaker A: coming in from Nantucket or something.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: Oh, 100%.
And you know, if it's a bad weather day, good luck to you.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: Right Exactly.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: So one thing. I never complain to my colleagues at statuses. Distance to the state House.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: No, because they wouldn't let you.
[00:41:28] Speaker B: No, they don't. They don't appreciate that.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: They wouldn't. They would not let you get away with that.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: Never once complain about commute to anyone. Colleagues in the stos. Oh,
[00:41:37] Speaker A: the red line was so packed. Oh, thanks a lot, Tacky. We don't care.
[00:41:41] Speaker B: Pretty much, yes.
Oh,
[00:41:44] Speaker A: you had to sit on the deposit bridge for a while. Too bad.
[00:41:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you know. Oh, you even take the ferry to Long Wharf.
[00:41:51] Speaker A: That's right. Oh, I forgot about that. That's right.
[00:41:53] Speaker B: Yeah. There's no shortage of ways to exit Quincy.
Go to Camaro, to South Station. You can walk up the hill.
[00:41:59] Speaker A: You could do that too. Yeah, that's right.
[00:42:01] Speaker B: No shortage of ways to get into Boston for Quincy. But yeah. So, I mean, you know, I think this is part of the job that did. You know, before you run for office, you kind of should know what the schedule is in the job before you get into it. And this
[00:42:13] Speaker A: is
[00:42:13] Speaker B: different.
[00:42:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So we
[00:42:15] Speaker B: shall see. We shall see.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: All right. Speaking of crazy schedules, mine is also. So unfortunately, I have to kind of wrap it up a little early today.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: Yeah, we're open to sales. Room 42. I got a text from Kathy Hubley, our school committee woman in there, who's actually in there on behalf of the Norfolk county sheriff's office and feels like. Are you in the office? No, I'm here with Joe. So that's why they
[00:42:39] Speaker A: texted hello.
[00:42:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, so that's why they texted back. So room 42, estate house. We are staffed. 6177-223706-17722-2370 is the office numbers tacky Chanmahouse UAV T A C K E Y C H nmaheals.gov and also ma legislature.gov again, strongly encourage everybody to use the website for many reasons, including getting information. It's actually pretty accessible. Believe it or not. If you do a search, it's
[00:43:11] Speaker A: great. All you need is your bill number and you can follow it from beginning to end. It's great.
[00:43:14] Speaker B: Or some keywords.
The search engine is getting a little better. Believe it or not. I
[00:43:19] Speaker A: agree. Yeah. Because I've been using it for a long, long time and it's definitely improved. Yeah.
[00:43:22] Speaker B: Yep. We have state representative Tacky Chan. Facebook.
Like you remember to take pictures of me at events. That would help constantly. Have the staff remind me, got to get a picture eventually.
And then you have Tacky chat og which is the resource page. And of course, you know, Joe Carolina in the morning you can listen to a 10 minute update and also qatvatv.org qatv Joe loves hearing feedback and potential subject matter conversations.
[00:43:50] Speaker A: Yep. Absolutely love to hear from folks whatever they have on their minds. Doesn't have to be political or, or any could be anything else.
[00:43:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Oscar season's rolling around soon, so you want to talk about that?
[00:44:01] Speaker A: Ah, there you go.
[00:44:03] Speaker B: And you know, we can continue our elections conversations because still many outstanding seats to talk about and even a little drama in the state.
[00:44:11] Speaker A: That's right.
All right. Have a safe trip to the West Coast. Tacky. And we'll try and arrange a time sometime next week.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: Sounds good, Joe.
