By John L. Micek | jmicek@masslive.com | November 3, 2025

Good Monday morning, everyone. And Happy Election Day Eve to all who celebrate.

It’s easy to forget, but Massachusetts still has two (more or less) functioning major political parties.

And with the federal government shutdown hitting the one-month mark over the weekend, Bay State Republicans, whose constituents are also feeling the pain from the paralysis on Capitol Hill, have been raising their voices in protest.

Caveat Emptor: Because Democrats hold supermajorities in the state House and Senate and control the executive branch, the MassGOP has a limited set of options to influence the debate.

That hasn’t stopped them from trying.

Just a couple of examples:

Late last week, Republicans in the state Senate called on the chamber’s majority Democrats to pump some extra cash into a $2.3 billion year-end budget to cover the lapse in SNAP benefits for 1.1 million Bay State residents.

They also called on the Healey administration to dip into the state’s roughly $8 billion Rainy Day Fund to temporarily cover the cost of benefits (around $240 million a month), according to Politico.

Gov. Maura Healey, who advanced food banks $4 million last week to keep benefits flowing, has steadfastly rejected those calls. She’s argued that other states similarly have declined to tap their cash reserves — which doesn’t mean that there haven’t been some creative funding approaches elsewhere.

Senate Republicans pointed to New Hampshire turning to a $2 million hospital fund, while officials in Vermont “moved quickly to fully fund SNAP benefits” from state coffers. Officials in Louisiana also authorized spending $150 million in state funds to cover any lapse in benefits.

“These measures across a range of states demonstrate both the scale of the need and the reasonableness of Massachusetts acting now to prevent a humanitarian and logistical crisis,” they wrote.

An added wrinkle: On Friday, a U.S. District judge in Boston let the program lapse, at least for the weekend, giving the feds more time to come up with a solution to fund the program for November, MassLive reported.

Separately, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the White House to pay for benefits with an emergency fund.

On the other side of the building, House Republicans called on the Bay State’s two Democratic U.S. senators to do what they could to broker a deal to end the shutdown.

However, like the state House GOP, U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey are in the minority in the upper chamber. That means they have the same limited palate of options.

“The ongoing stalemate at the federal level is untenable and is creating significant hardships and uncertainty for many Americans,” House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones Jr. and his GOP colleagues wrote to Warren and Markey.

“We cannot allow this situation to continue indefinitely without a resolution because far too many people are being hurt by Congress’ inaction,” Jones, R-20th Middlesex, continued. “While both parties may disagree on certain policy priorities, maintaining the basic operations of government and protecting the people we serve should never be a partisan issue.”

Not to be left out …

Two of the three Republican candidates for governor in 2026 also got in on the act, blasting out statements that managed to straddle the gap between partisan indignation and something approximating practicality.

The latter fell to GOP hopeful Mike Kennealy, who offered an 11-point plan (Yes, 11) to solve the SNAP crisis. The proposal from Gov. Charlie Baker’s former housing czar also called for dipping into the Rainy Day Fund to keep benefits flowing.

Kennealy further demanded that the state’s all-Democrat congressional delegation return to D.C., where Republicans control both chambers of Congress, and do something.

“With Maura Healey in the Corner Office, Massachusetts has a governor but not a leader willing to put our neighbors above their own partisan agenda. It’s time for a change,” Kennealy harrumphed.

Quick context: The U.S. Senate has been in session since the shutdown began and has voted unsuccessfully at least a dozen times on a stopgap funding bill (Thanks, filibuster).

The U.S. House has been a ghost town since the start of October, with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., keeping the chamber out of session (in no small part to avoid seating a newly elected Democrat and to dodge a vote on the release of the Epstein Files).

GOP hopeful Brian Shortsleeve, who helmed the MBTA for Baker, went for straight-up condemnation, arguing in a statement that Healey was “more interested in grabbing a headline rather than putting aside partisan politics to feed people.”

Late last week, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., predicted that the shutdown would continue to drag on into this new month.

It came at the same time as President Donald Trump called on the upper chamber to scrap its 60-vote threshold on legislation (the so-called “nuclear option”).

To borrow from the great philosopher Carl Spackler, so, y’know, we have that going for us.

Department of Endorsements

Once again, in news that would be surprising if it didn’t happen, Democratic U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey have endorsed state Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell for reelection in 2026.

The Bay State lawmakers issued statements last week backing Campbell, of Dartmouth. Right now, the state’s top lawyer has no declared Republican challenger. But that is almost certain to change.

Here’s Warren:

“Now more than ever, we need leaders who will fight for us — leaders who will fight to lower costs for families, who will put money back into the pockets of workers, who will take on Wall Street when they scam consumers and who will not back down to Donald Trump,” the Cambridge Democrat said.

Here’s Markey:

“This is a defining moment for our country. Our democracy, our freedoms, and our fundamental rights are all on the line, and attorneys general like Andrea are on the front lines of that fight,” the Malden pol said. “She has taken on corporate polluters to protect our communities and the planet, held Big Tech accountable for harming our kids’ mental health, and stood up to Trump and the federal government when they’ve tried to take away our rights or threaten our economy. Massachusetts, and our country, need her leadership now more than ever.”

The Moulton derby

There’s a growing field of Democratic candidates vying to succeed U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-6th District, now that he’s challenging U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in the 2026 primary (h/t Politico).

The names you need to know:

Dan Koh: A former Biden White House aide who formerly ran for the 3rd District seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan. Here’s the intro video for his candidacy.

State Rep. Tram Nguyen: First elected in 2018, she’s the first Vietnamese-American to be elected to the Legislature, where she represents the 18th Essex District.

Former state Rep. Jamie Zahlaway Belsito: She ran against Moulton in 2020. She’s touting her time on Beacon Hill and her experience helming a nonprofit.

Rick Jakious: A longtime Moulton aide, is now in it to win it. This is a pretty common path — from staffer to elected office.

Bethany Andres-Beck: A software engineer who argues on their campaign website that “politics as usual has not saved us. It is time to get creative.”

John Beccia: A lawyer and crypto executive from Lynnfield.

The wide field is a reminder that there isn’t often an opening in the state’s nine-member congressional delegation — all currently Democrats. It’s going to make for a fascinating primary and general election season.

What Ed Markey is watching

Either U.S. Sen. Ed Markey has an active Netflix subscription or someone on his staff does.

Either way, the Malden pol dropped a reference to the streamer’s new nuclear war flick “A House of Dynamite” in a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

At issue: The Pentagon’s recent assertion that the political thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow is inaccurate because it distorts the nation’s ability to counter a nuclear strike.

That’s netted pushback from at least one expert.

Fred Kaplan, a political journalist and former defense-policy adviser, told CNN last week that the film’s assertion that the country’s $50 billion nuclear missile defense is accurate half the time is correct, according to TMZ.

Enter Markey, who called on Hegseth to come clean, “given the film’s consistency with the public record.”

“According to Bloomberg, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is claiming in an Oct. 16, 2025, internal memo that interceptors have displayed a 100% accuracy rate in testing for more than a decade,” Markey said.

“Unfortunately, this rosy assessment would appear to have everything to do with misleading the public and nothing to do with providing accurate information. MDA is apparently following the lead of President Trump, who also exaggerates the success of missile defenses, promising that his Golden Dome system will be nearly perfect, ‘forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland,’” Markey continued. “Pentagon and White House officials have a long history of overstating the effectiveness of the GMD system.”

The movie’s screenwriter, Noah Oppenheim, told MSNBC’s “The Weekend” program that the filmmakers “respectfully disagree” with the Pentagon’s assertions, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Monday numbers

New data from the Tax Foundation puts Massachusetts in the bottom 10 states nationwide for the competitiveness of its tax structure. The Bay State finished 43rd in the think-tank’s annual rankings list.

One big negative, according to The Tax Foundation: The state’s “Millionaire Tax,” which requires people who earn $1 million or more to pay an additional 4% in state income tax. The tax has raised billions for transportation- and education-related programs since it went into effect in 2023.

The state also had points deducted for its corporate tax and property taxes, according to the analysis.

“Massachusetts’ property taxes are among the highest in the nation, and the base includes some business inventory, though a levy limit, conventionally called Proposition 2½, does help reduce the further growth of property taxes,” Tax Foundation analysts wrote. “The state taxes commercial property more heavily than residential property, adding to businesses’ tax burdens. Additionally, Massachusetts levies both an estate tax and a real estate transfer tax.”

The pro-business Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance jumped on the results, arguing in a statement that the rankings “confirm what Massachusetts residents and employers already know: our tax burden is too high, making it increasingly difficult for people and businesses to thrive here.”

The organization also pointed to its monthly polling, which it said “shows Massachusetts voters consistently rank high individual and corporate taxes among their top economic concerns.”