Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has been in office for roughly 100 days – already facing numerous winter storms, deficits over $1 billion and the failure of greater Boston’s transit system. Still the Republican is getting the thumbs up from many citizens and legislative Democrats.
Governor Charlie Baker talked about his first 100 days in office during an event at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Tuesday evening. Baker says he didn’t think his first few months would be all handshakes and ribbon cuttings, but didn’t expect record snowfall in eastern Massachusetts and subsequent failure of the T.
“It was a pretty good way to introduce ourselves and how we wanted to operate to a lot of other folks around the commonwealth at a point and time when they were really paying attention,” said Baker.
It’s also been pointed out that Baker, a Republican, chose a number of Democrats to serve in his administration, among them Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack and economic development Secretary Jay Ashe.
“I said during the campaign that we were running a bipartisan, problem solving, best answers race type and first of all I meant it,” Baker said. “Secondly, I really did try in those senior positions to find the best person for the job.”
Senate President Stanley Rosenberg says Governor Baker has gotten off to a strong start handling a $765 million deficit inherited from Democratic Governor Deval Patrick’s administration. Rosenberg credits Baker’s team for digging deep and finding another $1.8 billion deficit.
“So he said it’s time to bite the bullet on these and he put forward a budget that reflected an effort to put the budget back into balance,” Rosenberg said. “It doesn’t make a lot of investments in our future which is frustrating to many people. Frankly, I’m assuming, frustrating to him as well.”
Rosenberg, an Amherst Democrat, says Baker’s administration did have a rough start when it comes to western Massachusetts, with the Republican naming just seven people from the four western counties to his 175-member transition committee. Rosenberg says Baker did better when it came time for the judicial nominating committee. Rosenberg is also hitting the 100-day mark as Senate President. He says he’s enjoying it and so far relations are good with the Republican administration. Governor Baker agrees.
“I certainly believe there’s going to be pushback along on the way on a bunch of stuff, but my hope here is that we will be able to disagree without being disagreeable,” Baker said. “And that we won’t stop doing one of the things that I think sometimes happens in government, which is people stop talking to each other.”
So far voters seem to be fond of Governor Baker as well. A number of polls show his job approval rating is above 60 percent, including one from Western New England University Polling Institute.
“That 62 percent job approval, it could reflect some holdover from the election,” said institute director Tim Vercellotti. “It’s actually an improvement over his standing in the election where he barely beat Martha Coakley, just by about two percentage points. Maybe a bit of a honeymoon period still. It may also be that the tough decisions are still ahead. The state is still working on the budget for the coming fiscal year. There are a lot of other policies out there where the governor has not had to make the kinds of decisions that can send your job approval down.”
The mayor of Massachusetts’ smallest city and former hometown of Martha Coakley, North Adams, says communication with the governor’s administration has picked up recently.
“My biggest thing is with Governor Patrick, he was always available,” said Democrat Richard Alcombright. “So far the last few weeks now that the transition is over I’ve found that our state government and this administration is very available right now.”
