Commonwealth Politics This Week:
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Agency General Manager Phillip Eng was named interim transportation secretary by Gov. Maura Healey Oct. 16.
This appointment comes as Transportation Secretary, Monica Tibbits-Nutt, resigned in the midst of a brewing scandal over the failed bid by Applegate to take charge of and renovate the state’s network of highway rest stops.
Eng will remain on as general manager of the MBTA while surviving in his new role. He will be joined by Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver, who will also pull double duty with his current role as highway administrator and under secretary of transportation.
“What I made clear to my team this morning and MassDOT is I intend to stay just as engaged as I’ve been with the MBTA,” Eng told the press Oct. 16.
Tibbits-Nutt’s public profile has been in decline since last April when she proposed implementing tolls along Massachusetts’s borders with other states, ostensibly to toll out of state drivers in hopes of funding Massachusetts transportation systems.
The toll plan was swiftly denounced by the governor, who said at the time, “The secretary’s comments do not represent the views of this administration, and to be clear, I am not proposing tolls at any border.”
Eng, who has been serving as the MBTA’s general manager since 2023, has had a largely successful run. When he was first appointed, the MBTA had around 214 slow zones, covering 23% of the track miles on the subway and Green Line. By late 2024 all of the speed restrictions had been removed, according to the Brown Political Review.
Eng has also renegotiated the MBTA’s contract with CRRC, the Chinese railcar manufacturer producing the new Red and Orange line fleet. The cars have seen repeated cost overruns and setbacks amid COVID-19 and import restrictions imposed by the current Trump Administration.
Eng will serve as interim transportation secretary until a permanent replacement can be appointed. Tibbits-Nutt will remain on with the state as an advisor until the end of 2025, when she plans to return to private industry, according to the governor.
The Audit Fight:
Massachusetts State Auditor Diana DiZoglio is rekindling her fight with Attorney General Andrea Campbell over her years-long battle to attempt an audit of the State Legislature.
DiZoglio has been seeking approval from Campbell to take the legislature to court in hopes of starting her long sought after audit of the institution.
Campbell has repeatedly declined to represent the auditor’s office in court, citing issues of constitutionality of DiZoglio’s plan.
While voters did pass a resolution offering the state auditor’s office the ability to audit the legislature in November of last year, the senate president and speaker of the house had the final say.
DiZoglio is, at the end of the day, an officer of the executive branch and an audit by her office would violate the separation of powers clause of the constitution.
“Chapter 250 of the Acts of 2024 violates the Massachusetts Constitution. It runs afoul of the constitutional provisions authorizing each house of the General Court to set its own rules and undermines basic separation of powers principles,” said New England Law Boston professor Lawrence Friedman to the Boston Herald.
“Massachusetts voters have been asked to decide whether the state auditor, a member of the executive branch, should be authorized to audit the Legislature without its consent,” he said. “Now, on the surface, this might sound like a simple move towards transparency, but beneath the surface, question one threatens one of the foundational principles of American constitutional government — separation of powers,” said University of Massachusetts Amherst political science professor Ray La Raja to the Boston Herald,
In addition to questions of constitutionality, DiZoglio has over the years admitted multiple times in state paperwork that “there are ‘threats’ to her ability to impartially audit the Legislature because of her past work as a Massachusetts lawmaker,” as published by the Boston Herald.
Read All About It:
- U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton has made it official, he is challenging incumbent Sen. Ed Markey in the 2026 democratic senate primary race. Moulton is 46 years old and has said that his campaign will revolve around his “youth” in comparison to Markey’s age of 80.
Markey, who has said he will seek reelection, has faced younger challengers before and won. In 2020 he faced off against Joseph Kennedy III in a primary campaign and won with over 55% of the vote.
That race also saw age as its principal issue, to combat that Markey aligned himself with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and built himself a younger and more progressive coalition from the further left wing of the Democratic party.
“In a news release and video launching his campaign, Mr. Moulton leaned hard into the idea that the Democratic Party must change and embrace fresh leadership in an urgent bid to maintain relevance and power,” Jenna Russell wrote for the New York Times.
- Fenway Health, which specializes in transgender care, has announced that it will no longer provide gender affirming care to patients under 19.
The community clinic said that the new age restrictions are the result of new requirements for funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration. The change in policy was announced in a letter to patients, according to the Boston Globe.
- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the first institution to reject the Trump Administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”
The plan would have limited the institution’s ability to set its own admissions policies, educational standards and curriculum.
“It asked the universities to use standardized tests for most admissions and to “commit to using lawful force if necessary” to respond to and prevent campus protests. The schools would also commit to creating an environment where conservative ideas could be freely expressed,” according to BBC News.
At least six schools have rejected the compact, but many others are still considering the offer. If agreed to, institutions may have access to increased federal funding, but it is yet to be seen how that may materialize.
