A (or One) Skeptic

Question #2 would that employees of the Committee for Public Counsel Services (“CPCS”) are permitted to engage in collective bargaining with their employer (and also that after executing a collective bargaining agreement, CPCS request the appropriation necessary to fund such agreement).

This is one of four questions (#1 Law to Improve Access to Public Records, #3 Relative to Election Day Registration, #6 Law to Protect Water & Nature, and #7 Law to Allow Single-Family Homes on Small Lots in Areas with Adequate Infrastructure being the others) that is formally unopposed. With the exception of Question #1, the lack of opposition reflects the fact that these proposals are generally uncontroversial, and that the proponents simply got tired of the legislature failing to act on their ideas. So they decided to take it to the people.

This particular question is the result of the fact that public defenders in the Commonwealth are, in general, paid woefully inadequately. First, it should be noted that there are two types of public defenders in Massachusetts, bar advocates, the private contract attorneys CPCS assigns to most indigent cases, and CPCS’s own salaried staff public defenders. 

The 2025–26 crisis centered on the first strand, and the second is now on the November ballot.

The bar advocates’ work stoppage (2025)

Bar advocates carry most of the load. They typically represent about 80% of the state’s indigent defendants, with CPCS staff attorneys covering the rest. Historically Massachusetts paid $65 an hour in District Court and $85 in Superior Court, which is much less than Maine ($158), New Hampshire ($125 to $150), New York ($158) and Rhode Island ($112 to $142)

On May 27, 2025, bar advocates in Suffolk and Middlesex Counties stopped accepting new appointments. Because they are contractors rather than employees, their action was not legally a strike. Unrepresented defendants piled up, and the SJC invoked the protocol that defendants held without counsel must be released after 7 days, with their cases dismissed without prejudice after 45 days. More than 1,600 criminal cases were eventually dismissed.

The legislature responded in a supplemental budget (Chapter 14 of the Acts of 2025) which (1) raised bar advocate pay by $20 an hour over two years, (2) gave CPCS $40 million to hire 320 new public defenders by the end of 2027 (effectively doubling its staff) and (3) declared any agreement among bar advocates to refuse new cases until rates rise a violation of antitrust law. 

The raise did not immediately end the stoppage. Because each contractor decided individually whether to accept the new rate, the bill was a gamble. Some bar advocates returned, but fewer than before the stoppage.

CPCS goes to the SJC, and loses (March 2026)

CPCS then asked the court to go past the Legislature, in Committee for Public Counsel Services v. Middlesex and Suffolk County District Courts and Boston Municipal Court (SJC-13824). CPCS acknowledged it had to show the Legislature’s response was “constitutionally inadequate.” It proposed no number, asking instead that the single justice be empowered to raise rates temporarily. However, the court ruled unanimously against CPCS.

Staff attorneys and Question 2 (November 2026)

This question concerns not the bar advocates, but CPCS’s own salaried employees. They lack the collective bargaining rights held by public employees at most other state agencies. Question 2 does nothing for bar advocates. As independent contractors, they are not covered and get no compensation increase. Supporters frame the stoppage as context rather than cause. They argue the $40 million staff expansion that came out of it is exactly why CPCS staff attorneys always needed a union.

My personal view is that CPCS staff attorneys should have the same bargaining rights that most other non-management state employees have.

This question would make most records held by the  Legislature and the Office of the Governor public  records under the Massachusetts Public Records  Law. It creates two new exemptions, one for “policy development” and one for communication between the legislature and their constituents. The question is, in many ways, the continuation of a long-running feud between Massachusetts Auditor Diana DiZoglio and the Massachusetts state legislature (formally the “General Court”). She is joined this time by former gubernatorial candidate Danielle Allen (more on her in the discussion of Question #3). As I wrote two years ago when discussing 2024’s Question 1, relative to the ability of the Auditor to audit the legislature:

2024’s Question #1 passed overwhelmingly by 72%, but the issue has been tied up in court ever since. The legislature claims that the Question violated the “separation of powers” doctrine, and the case has gone up to the Supreme Judicial Court. As of early October 2026, the SJC has not ruled on the merits. Instead, the SJC round was procedural: DiZoglio filed directly in the SJC in February 2026, through her general counsel. The petition asked the court to authorize appointment of a special assistant attorney general so her office could be represented, and to directly compel legislative leaders to comply with document requests under the 2024 law. In March, the court blocked her from bringing on Shannon Liss-Riordan as outside counsel, instead of using the Attorney General. The day after argument, they gave AG Campbell 30 days to decide whether she would represent DiZoglio. Campbell then said she would let DiZoglio appoint an attorney to go into court on four specific records requests that DiZoglio had made to kick off the litigation. The legislature then gave DiZoglio the four requested documents, so that the question now is whether the case is moot. It’s still lingering in Superior Court, without the SJC having considered it on the merits.

And here we are.

Be sure that the current Question #1 is aimed directly at the Legislature. Yes, the office of the Governor is also included in the proposed changes, but the executive branch and all of its agencies are already fully included in the public records law. The Governor’s personal office is not, but the new law proposed to exempt discussions “related to the development of public policy,” which means that most of the records generated by the Office of the Governor would be exempt anyway.

No, the real target here is the legislature, and that will create a new fight over separation of powers, as the Auditor is in the Executive Branch and the Legislature is its own branch. They will not be open to having the Auditor decide whether the legislature complied with the public records law. 

I think the likelihood is great that this question will pass overwhelmingly, just like Question #1 from two years ago. But it won’t make much difference. When it comes to questions related to the development of the budget, or the Commonwealth’s finances, the Executive Office for Administration and Finance already provides exhaustively detailed material in its budget submission, available on the Commonwealth’s website. Most of any additional materials will be governed by one of the two exemptions, either the policy development exemption or the constituent communications exemption.

And the rest of Question #1 will be tied up in court, just like Question #1 from two years ago.

Some of my loyal readers remember that every two years I like to provide summaries of the Ballot questions, and arguments for why one should vote for or against them. For the 2026 Ballot, Massachusetts has an unusually large number of ballot questions: nine in total. It also has the unusual situation of having about half the ballot questions being formally unopposed.

Also, a quick reminder that  the Initiative and Referendum process is governed by Article 48 of the Amendments to the state Constitution (later modified by Articles 74 and 81) which creates two citizen-driven mechanisms: (1) the initiative statute (or, on occasion, the initiative constitutional amendment) and (2) the popular (veto) referendum.

In 2026 there are eight questions that are statute-based initiatives, and one that is a veto referendum.

Article 48 bars certain subjects from both initiative and referendum:

• religion and religious institutions, including public aid to sectarian institutions
• the appointment, qualification, tenure, removal, or compensation of judges, and the reversal of judicial decisions
• the powers, creation, or abolition of courts
• measures limited to a particular town, city, or political subdivision
• specific appropriations from the treasury
• a list of Declaration of Rights guarantees, including just compensation for takings, jury trial, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, and freedom of speech, press, elections, and assembly

A measure that is substantially the same as one qualified for or submitted at either of the two preceding biennial state elections is also barred. 

Here are the nine ballot questions approved for the November 3, 2026 ballot. The ones where there is no “opponent website” are the five that are unopposed. Over the next week I will be examining the nine questions and providing you with my personal take, which is, of course, not unbiased. But at least a little bit informed.

There was a video on my Facebook feed that I have to admit I didn’t get. It was apparently from today’s hearing where the Republicans are trying to get Jack Smith and prove that his investigation of Trump was illegitimate. Here’s the video:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2148662619117337

It turns out that Eric Schmitt, the Republican senator from Missouri, questioned Smith about February 3, 2024. He first established that Smith said he had never met Fulton County DA Fani Willis or special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who at the time were handling Georgia’s election-interference prosecution of Trump. Schmitt then asked whether Smith had traveled to Atlanta and attended the Atlanta Hawks–Golden State Warriors NBA game that night. Smith said no.

That was supposed to set up the reveal. Schmitt said his office had obtained text messages from members of Smith’s team supposedly showing that Smith was at a basketball game, and he warned Smith to think carefully so that he wouldn’t “perjure yourself.” After Smith continued to deny attending the Hawks game, Schmitt said, “I think you’ve already perjured yourself.”

The apparent theory behind the questioning was that Smith secretly traveled to Atlanta , to meet with Willis and Wade. Therefore his denial of contact/coordination may be false.

That would have been potentially significant. Smith was running the federal Trump election case while Willis and Wade were running the separate Georgia state case. Evidence that Smith had secretly traveled to Atlanta and met with them could have raised legitimate questions about coordination between the two prosecutions, particularly if Smith had previously denied such contacts.

But the factual premise fell apart.

Smith said that he did remember attending a basketball game around that date. It wasn’t an NBA game in Atlanta. It was Iowa vs. Maryland women’s college basketball at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. Caitlin Clark was playing for Iowa. That game occurred on exactly February 3, 2024; Iowa won 93–85 and Clark scored 38 points. Smith also said the U.S. Marshals Service had accompanied him, meaning there should be government records corroborating where he was.

And that’s when Sen. Amy Klobuchar apparently figured out what had happened: Iowa’s team is the Hawkeyes, which Smitt’s team apparently interpreted as the Atlanta Hawks.

Oops.

Of course, by then Schmitt had already accused Smith of having perjured himself and of being a “dirtbag.”

I guess if you’re going to have a big “gotcha” moment on live Television it helps if you get you’re facts straight. The Hawks ain’t the Hawkeyes.

Conservative Trump supporters used to love to say that the rest of us had Trump Derangement Syndrome, but of course, by now it should be clear that Trump himself is the one who is completely deranged. Just consider what he’s done in September.

• He opened Labor Day Weekend with a stream of 36 tweets, which included images of Trump with George Washington, Trump as Hulk Hogan, Trump as a superhero and Trump conquering outer space, a redrawn map of North America that includes Greenland, and tweets that threatened a lawsuit over crime statistics and banned the Canadian Bombardier from being sold in the United States, among other things.
• He refused to attend the 9/11 Memorial in New York because he would not be allowed to give a political speech (and also he would have to stand throughout the ceremonies like the other American Presidents) and instead went to Washington D.C. where he did give a political speech and promptly fell asleep.
• At the midterm RNC Convention he twice promised people (in consecutive night speeches) a $5000 “Trump bonus” if the GOP retained the House and the Senate, despite never having delivered on the $5000 “DOGE” checks or the $2000 “tariff bonus” checks that he had promised us. Also, he did not limit his promise to people who voted for the GOP (so he wanted to send me a check?) but the money had to be spent in the United States (which would be administratively unenforceable). 
• In bilateral trade negotiations with Canada (separate from the USMCA), Canada walked away from the negotiations after last minute demands from the United States to (1) have a veto power of Canadian trade deals, (2) add changes affecting Canadian cultural and language policies, and (3) refuse to include medium- and heavy-duty trucks. Consequently, the U.S. imposed new 50% tariffs on selected Canadian goods and Canada retaliated with tariffs of 15%, 25% and 50% on various American goods.
• The European Union subsequently offered Canada “associate” membership, a first, as Canada redirects its political energies towards mainland Europe.
• Trump barred CNN, MS-NOW and Politico from the White House grounds for reporting that he did not like, which was overturned a few days later by a Trump-appointed judge. 
• It was reported that Russian Oligarch (and close Putin ally) Umar Kremlev paid for a part of Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding to Bettina Anderson. Kremlev reportedly paid for renting one of the private islands, an elaborate fireworks display and other substantial expenses.
• The United States signed an agreement with Denmark and Greenland, which essentially had the same provisions as an agreement that President Truman signed in 1951, except that included a “poison pill” provision that renders the agreement ineffective if the United States leaves NATO. This, after all of Trump’s saber rattling about invading Greenland.
• President Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping, the news about which was primarily that it made no news, and that Trump made no progress on any diplomatic front despite the important issues that China and the United States should be making progress on.

That, my friends, is your President of the United States of America.  And that’s only September. Wait until October is complete.

To say that our trade war with Canada is stupid is being unkind to the word “stupid.”

Why are we doing this? 

That is an excellent question without an excellent answer.

It seems to be mostly to give Donald Trump the chance to embarrass and bully a neighbor. Trump has, of course, long wanted Canada to become the “51st” state (a Constitutional impossibility) in part (I read recently) so that the United States would “look bigger” on a map. With Canada, the United States would be the second biggest country after Russia.

I can’t prove that that’s true.

But it feels like it’s true.

Regardless, let’s set up the context. The United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, which was Trump’s replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement, requires among other things that the agreement be renegotiated six years after its July 1, 2020 signing. That would have been July 1 of 2026. Canada and Mexico were willing to extend USMCA; the United States was not. 

Separately, Trump threatened to impose 50% tariffs on Canada because (he claimed) Canada had discriminated against the United States with respect to autos, alcohol and dairy. Canada has imposed some tariffs on the United States mostly in retaliation for tariffs that the United States earlier earlier in the Trump administration. So, the two countries’ representatives had been increasingly intensifying negotiations since July to work this stuff out.

It looked like it was worked out until the United States, in last minute maneuvers, added a bunch of new items to the equation.

• First, we essentially demanded veto power over the kind of trade agreements Canada could make with other countries.
• Second, we demanded changes in French-language & cultural protections, and specifically Canada’s Online Streaming Act and Canadian-content regime which can require streaming services like Netflix and Amazon to contribute money toward Canadian content.
• Finally, the United States refused to include medium- and heavy-duty trucks as part of he tariff relief.

The first two items here (especially the first) really have to do with questions of Canadian sovereignty. I don’t know what genius on the American team really thought that the Canadians were going to give them a veto power over agreements they might make with other countries.

The Canadians also objected to the United States team bringing these other issues in at the last minute when most everything had already been decided.

And now here we are, in the stupidest trade war of all time. Just remember that (using 2024, which is a good pre-trade-war baseline) total two-way trade was about $917.4 billion. The U.S. exported nearly $441 billion in goods and services to Canada and imported roughly $477 billion from Canada.

Canada is going to turn more and more to other trading partners. They are already turning to the European Union, and the EU in turn is turning towards Canada. The EU is, of course, the second largest economy after the USA. Canada is also going to turn to the United Kingdom and China. And also a bunch of other countries.

And we’re going to find ourselves more and more isolated. Thanks, Great American Dealmaker.

I just want to point out that these days you really cannot keep up with the news. Especially if you’re writing a blog. I mean, in the last week, we’ve had all of the following news stories:

• The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee votes to refer Dr. Fauci for criminal prosecution for Contempt of Congress.
• Trump tries to fire Lisa Cook from the Fed again, this time alleging unproven mortgage fraud as “gross negligence” instead of criminal violation.
• Todd Blanche is confirmed in a 50-49 vote after Bill Cassidy joins John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of NC in relenting their opposition.
• It is reported that Trump secretly rode in an airport catering truck and switched planes during his departure from Turkey after a NATO summit.
• Netanyahu rejects the “Board of Peace” proposed 15 point Gaza peace plan, and explains no withdrawal until Hamas is completely disarmed first.
• Iran demands that the US withdraw from the Strait of Hormuz, lift the naval blockade, unfreeze assets and compensate Iran for war damages before they will open the Strait.
• Trump signs an executive order reducing childhood vaccines from 17 to 11, and breaking up the MMR vaccine (allegedly to combat autism).
• The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approves a preliminary charter for World Liberty Financial (the Trump family cryptocurrency) to become a bank. 
• The USS Abraham Lincoln is being replaced by another carrier after 250 days at sea (including broken plumbing, food shortages, etc.)

Each one of those stories deserves its own blog post. But I can’t keep up.

The remarkable Heather Cox Richardson writes a substack post almost every day, but she is (1) a professional historian, and (2) now making literally millions from her substack.

It is the firehose theory for how to govern. Steve Bannon and others of Trump’s allies have promoted that idea in the past.

I heard some people fret on social media that it’s going to take years to unravel all the damage that Trump has done in his first two years, never mind if he makes it to four.

Maybe.

But there is a potential silver lining to that. If it does take years, we’ll also have years of evidence to remind people about what happens when a raving lunatic and his grifter family get their hands on the reins of government.

This wasn’t an accident.

With Fox News and right wing media riling up their listeners for 25 years with lie after lie after lie, at some point people were going to believe that somebody like Donald Trump (Donald Trump!) was the solution to their problems.

Narcissistic playboy Donald Trump was going to come fix their lives. Or at least he was going to punish the people they thought should be punished.

And now they only have themselves to blame. Like Brent Jindra, the Triple Trump voter whose Russian wife, Galina Bobreneva, was detained by ICE at Burbank Airport in July 2026.

Oops.

Insert Schadenfreude here.

With this week’s histrionics before Senate Rand Paul’s Committee, it begs the question as to why we’re relitigating the Covid pandemic now, six years, four months and 21 days after it officially started over here.

Are Republicans still mad about mask mandates and school closures now?

And they call us snowflakes?

It seems like there’s a good chance that this is a kind of “wag the dog” distraction from the fact that Donald Trump has exacerbated inflation and that there is no end in sight for his useless war with Iran. 

Otherwise, what’s the point?

First of all, Trump’s contribution to “Operation Warp Speed” is one of the very few successes of his first term as President. At that point, he and Fauci were actually on the same side.

Second of all, Fauci did not impose mask mandates or social distancing requirements or mandatory vaccinations. That was mostly done by various governors and mayors and the CEO’s of hospitals and the like.

Also, who gives a shit whether the Covid started in a wet market or at the Wuhan Institute of Virology? It can’t be proven definitely one way or another. The better science, I am told — and unlike a lot of MAGA types, I’m no fucking virologist — is that it started in a wet market. But if it had started at the Institute, so what? 

Also, the Institute is a research facility under the Wuhan Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It’s not under Fauci’s control, or, for that matter, anyone in the United States government. Fauci served as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and NIAID provided some funding to the Institute through the EcoHealth Alliance. Some of that funding supported coronavirus research involving collaborators at the Institute, and some of that work might have involved “gain-of-function” research.

Also, NIAID did not fund research that would have been prohibited under U.S. policies. This research is used to better predict emerging infectious diseases and to develop vaccines and therapeutics. It is not illegal in any sense of the word.

Now, did Fauci make some mistakes along the way? Of course, who doesn’t? One of them was clearly to leave a kind of “diary” on the servers of Health and Human Services. 

Does he exhibit a certain amount of hubris in those diaries? Yes he does. 

Is that unfortunate? Yes it is.

But as one of my friends likes to say, the last guy who was perfect and they nailed him to a cross.

People seem to forget the scope of this pandemic. It was worldwide.

There were 350 vaccine candidates that entered preclinical or clinical development, and more than 35 ultimately received authorization or approval somewhere in the world. Those vaccines came from well over a dozen countries, including China, Russia, India, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Iran, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Canada, France, and Belgium.

Fauci did not control vaccine development in any of those places, or even here in the United States.

The two mRNA vaccines that were successfully developed were done so by Moderna (in the United States) and by Pfizer-BioNTech (jointly in Germany and the United States). These vaccines were not developed by the government but by private companies, albeit with a lot of assistance from the U.S. Government.

Which was controlled by Trump, not by Fauci.

Experts estimate that about 70.7% of the world’s population received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, that with a world population of roughly 8.1 billion, that corresponds to approximately 5.7 billion. That this probably saved in the neighborhood of 20 million lives.

Out of the approximately 5.7 billion people receiving at least one dose, there are almost no reported cases of deaths resulting from adverse vaccine events. There were a few reported cases of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome and myocarditis and pericarditis, none of which are normally fatal.

Instead of complaining about vaccine mandates, people should be celebrating the absolute miracle that these things were able to be developed in a matter of months, instead of years.

By the way, some commentators have noted ironically that Republicans were able to locate and release Fuaci’s “diary” but have still not managed to release the complete Epstein files.

So get a grip, Republicans. Fauci is no evildoer, and most of what he did was done with the explicit approval of Trump’s first administration. He’s 85 years old and hasn’t been in office for several years.

Maybe you people could focus on something that is actually happening now, like the war in Iran that Trump promised not to start, and clearly has no idea how to end.