State House Takeout

As Beacon Hill table-setting for 2020 continues, mayors like Marty Walsh in Boston are pushing their local legislative agendas. The SHNS crew also looks to leaders of other New England states for clues to the future of the Transportation Climate Initiative pact. Colin A. Young has updates on long-term clean energy planning, with news on Canadian hydropower and offshore wind.

Here's what to watch as 2020 dawns on Beacon Hill. The SHNS crew previews what we might expect from Gov. Baker's State of the Commonwealth speech, and legislative debates on transportation funding and climate change initiatives.

Count down the Top 10 Beacon Hill stories of 2019, as voted on by members of the State House Press Association. The SHNS crew analyzes the last 12 months along with the big stories of the last decade.

For this week's Takeout, the News Service gathered a venerable band of State House reporters, past and present, to discuss changes they've seen in journalism under the Golden Dome. Panelists are Mark Leccese of Emerson College, Craig Sandler of SHNS, Steve LeBlanc of The Associated Press, and Peter Lucas of the Lowell Sun and Boston Herald. This week's special podcast covers a wide range of topics including camaraderie in the Press Gallery and the changing nature of press secretaries.

Holiday spirit abounds, and the House and Senate finally came together on a supplemental budget compromise - under pressure from the comptroller, a Gov. Baker appointee. Also: a sharp report on MBTA safety failings was unveiled, and the ban on sales of vaping products in Massachusetts is largely in the rear-view mirror.

The Takeout crew takes stock of economists' predictions for next fiscal year, and ruminates on lawmakers' inability to wrap up last fiscal year's accounts. Also: a hangup in setting a special election date for the open Senate seat on the South Shore.

The Takeout team runs down the final formal sessions of the year, where lawmakers sent Gov. Charlie Baker a cornucopia of bills banning flavored tobacco and taxing e-cigarettes, injecting $1.5 billion in K-12 public education, requiring drivers to put down phones behind the wheel, and more. The crew also ponders the fate of the fiscal year 2019 closeout budget that failed to emerge and what pathway forward there is at this late time of year.

The Takeout crew reviews the ethics report on Sen. Michael Brady and the punishment he faced Thursday, along with progress on vaping and flavored tobacco legislation, a look ahead to the final week of 2019 formal sessions, and other tidbits from a long four-day week.

There's always fresh vaping news, and the Takeout crew this week digs into legal and regulatory moves imminently affecting medical marijuana vapers. Also on this week's episode: municipal elections and their effect on the House and Senate ranks, and a sweeping vision for the future of Massachusetts railroads.

In a post-Halloween edition, the Takeout team talks about the specter of an overdue fiscal year-end budget, the debate over inclusion of menthol in the proposed ban on flavored tobacco products, and all the ideas floating around for new revenue.