As President-elect Joe Biden will get able to take residency within the White Home, a brand new political panorama looms for Massachusetts politics.
The all-Democratic state congressional delegation has spent 4 years preventing President Trump, his administration and their congressional supporters.
Kimberly Atkins, a senior opinion author for the Boston Globe and former WBUR Washington, D.C., correspondent, says members of the state’s delegation could have an affect on the incoming Biden administration. She spoke with WBUR’s Weekend Version.
Interview highlights:
On who has what influences:
You may have folks from the delegation who’ve been key advisers to President-elect Biden, most likely most notably so Sen. Elizabeth Warren… who has actually helped to push him on some progressive insurance policies and can most likely proceed to be somebody who has his ear when it comes from all the things from local weather coverage to home coverage spending, how the funds is crafted and what key aims are from, you realize, all the things from felony justice reform to different measures.
Sen. Ed Markey… is the writer, co-author of The Inexperienced New Deal. He will definitely be in Joe Biden’s ear about progressive local weather insurance policies. But additionally on the Home aspect, you may have management. Katherine Clark is the assistant speaker of the Home and is somebody who wielded an amazing quantity of affect and energy, definitely within the impeachment continuing and that impeachment vote, in addition to Jim McGovern, who’s the top of the Guidelines Committee, who crafts laws and will get it to the ground in a means that can be essential when Joe Biden is pushing ahead his legislative priorities.
On the delegation’s totally different priorities and methods for learn how to work with the Biden administration, and whether or not this might make the Massachusetts delegation have extra conflicts inside itself.
The delegation will not be monolithic in any respect. It is the extra reasonable members of the delegation are those who backed Joe Biden early, folks like Congressman Stephen Lynch and Congressman Seth Moulton, as soon as he himself ended his presidential bid. So you may have these people who definitely are way more consistent with Joe Biden than you may have a number of progressive people, together with Ayanna Pressley, who can be pushing a way more progressive agenda.
I believe to this point what we have seen and in my time overlaying this delegation for a number of years is that whereas their priorities are totally different, they appear to… work collectively… in attempting to choose and select their initiatives that they put ahead and not likely have rigidity with each other. They respect the truth that they signify totally different districts, that they arrive from totally different locations, that they’ve totally different concepts and views. And you have not seen the sort of rigidity which you can see within the broader home or within the broader Senate in relation to these divisions.
On the stress between pushing to enact as a lot laws as shortly as doable on the Democratic priorities or attain extra compromise with Republicans:
You’ll proceed to see what we noticed within the final Congress… members of the Home who’re prepared to behave shortly and cross laws and get it over to the Senate. You may have members of Congress like Congresswoman Pressley, who pushed a lot of payments on all the things from ending the dying penalty to felony justice reform. And also you noticed these payments being supplied, being handed, being tacked onto greater items of laws and sending it to the Senate the place it sat on Mitch McConnell’s desk.
So now on the Senate aspect, there can be extra strain there, definitely to attempt to take up extra of those measures that cross in a short time out of the Home. We’ll simply should see how a lot affect Sens. Warren and Markey have in getting among the extra of these items of laws to the ground.
On Boston Mayor Marty Walsh because the Secretary of Labor:
When you may have a cupboard member who’s from Boston, any individual who’s of Boston and who is aware of the Boston very effectively, that may serve the town very effectively in relation to insurance policies that may assist it. And it is essential proper now. I imply, the problem of labor is an important one popping out of this pandemic, popping out of the financial recession that it brought on… Walsh [will] should get used to saying that may definitely have an affect there. Marty Walsh is not any stranger right here. He labored with the Obama administration, was incessantly right here for occasions on the White Home in that administration. He has that connection. He has that understanding. And he kind of been in Washington’s ear with Boston’s points for fairly a while now. So I believe you may see that proceed if he’s confirmed.
On the Massachusetts contingent of Biden’s administration, together with Jen O’Malley Dillon, the Franklin native who’s Biden’s marketing campaign supervisor and goes to be Biden’s deputy chief of workers:
I all the time discover it unbelievable how Massachusetts, for such a small state, wields such huge affect in Washington from the parents… in order that is not a brand new factor. One in all President Trump’s early allies within the White Home was John Kelly, who was additionally a Boston native. And contemplate the variety of folks from Massachusetts who ran for president. So I believe that affect is regular. Frankly, it will be odd to not have folks from the Bay State within the White Home in key legislative posts as a result of that is the place they’ve all the time been. Dillon is somebody who’s a veteran. She is aware of the White Home very effectively. She understands Washington very effectively. And so if Boston goes to have an ally, she’s a really sensible one for them to have.
On how the brand new political panorama in Washington will have an effect on Gov. Charlie Baker:
Gov. Baker is [often] in comparison with Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland, as Republicans who should not Trump voters who converse out in opposition to him. However you don’t see Gov. Baker talking out in opposition to President Trump. You have not in the identical means that you’ve got with Gov. Hogan. He appears to be [much happier] to faux that Trump did not exist, however will converse out in opposition to him now and again.
Proper now the Republican Social gathering would not have an enormous house for reasonable Republicans. You see the individuals who have coalesced behind Trump. It truly is the occasion of Trump. And you’ve got just a few outsiders who oppose Trump who converse out. However for probably the most half, notably right here in Washington, these people haven’t got a really lengthy political life they usually have not over the past 4 years. And maybe that is one motive that Gov. Baker tends to maintain his head down in that sense. I imply, Gov. Baker is at odds with the state’s personal GOP. I believe it will be definitely simpler for him to work with President-elect Biden than it was with President Trump on greater points.
