March 6, 2025

Last week, Beacon Hill’s Senate budget chief castigated the business community for not working hard enough to oppose the ballot question that eliminated the MCAS test as a graduation requirement.

“I’m very disappointed in the lack of business community involvement in the MCAS test repeal,” said Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues at an event hosted by Associated Industries of Massachusetts, as reported by the State House News Service. “The silence was deafening from the business community.”

In fact, the problem was not that the business community was silent on the topic. Indeed, the Boston Business Journal ran editorials, op-eds, and commentaries by CEOs to illustrate the perspective of the business community. But the collective business lobby — ie., the trade groups and industry associations paid by businesses to represent their perspectives to elected officials — was also busy making a simultaneous case for transportation, for housing and, most often, for lower taxes and business costs. So we wholeheartedly agree with Rodrigues that the business community’s response was ineffective. But rather than “deafening silence,” a more accurate description of the business community’s efforts toward legislators would be something akin to “cacophonic incoherence.”

This is not a new observation. Since the days of the “shadowy group of Boston’s corporate heavyweights” known as “the Vault” that exerted its influence on the region’s politics in the 1980s, the business community is no longer represented by a small group of well-connected CEOs with companies based here and employees who live here. Rather, there are several organizations — paid handsomely by local companies for membership — that supposedly represent business interests. But “the main characters are not often united,” said Chris Anderson, the president of one of those organizations, the Massachusetts High Technology Council, in a conversation on this topic this week.

Anderson diagnoses the problem as one of differing levels of willingness to oppose the will of elected officials. We heartily agree that local business leaders need a stiffer spine and a willingness to stick their necks out to speak out against proposals like the MCAS ballot question or the millionaires tax, which are hurting the state’s reputation as a place to come to do business.

Making matters worse, executives themselves seem to be unable to step up on their own. Thanks to increased globalization, fewer of the state’s largest employers are actually based in Greater Boston, and local managing executives are not the CEO — and therefore are rarely in a position to take a stand locally that may be seen as controversial in other states where they do business.

In 2023, we reported on the drop in local philanthropy that often accompanies a company being acquired by an out-of-state entity. The same can be said for local political involvement.

What’s to be done? Business groups must provide more support to local executives who may be willing to stand up for issues vital to the state’s economy. And those same advocacy groups would also do well to focus on more than just taxes and business costs when knocking on doors on Beacon Hill. Yes, those are important, but prioritizing them above all other civic concerns feeds the perception that businesses are only looking out for their own bottom lines. By giving voice to other vital economic issues — like the need for housing, or better public transportation — business leaders can establish the clout they need to tackle a range of issues.

The business community has lost some battles at the ballot box. Its confidence is on the wane. Until business leaders unify around a clear and common message, little will change and policy-makers will continue to vote in ways that hurt our long-term economic prospects.