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GOOD MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS.
AS SEEN ON TV — Democratic presidential candidates have already spent $7.9 million on television ads in the Boston media market this year, according to Advertising Analytics, an ad tracking firm. That total includes broadcast, cable and radio ads in the Boston market from Jan. 1 to Jan. 13.
Why so much? Candidates buy ads on Boston airwaves to reach viewers in New Hampshire, which shares a media market with the Hub. So even though viewers around Boston don't vote in the consequential Feb. 11 primary, they see countless political ads anyway.
That spending will continue to rise. For the week of Jan. 14, candidates are spending serious cash on the political ads. Advertisements for Deval Patrick's presidential campaign will cost around $388,000 this week. The Reason to Believe PAC is spending $341,652 on behalf of the former governor, and Patrick's campaign is spending around $47,000.
In the same period, billionaire Tom Steyer is spending $522,264, according to Advertising Analytics. Former South Bend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg is spending $433,750 this week, and billionaire Mike Bloomberg is spending $385,162. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is spending $282,275, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is spending $270,901. Businessman Andrew Yang is spending $155,925. If you're tired of seeing political commercials, this might be the time to pick up a book.
Have a tip, story, suggestion, birthday, anniversary, new job, or any other nugget for the Playbook? Get in touch: smurray@politico.com.
TODAY — Boston Mayor Marty Walsh speaks at the Boston EMS graduation. Walsh announces a "cultural attraction" coming to Boston at City Hall Plaza. The Kennedy Institute hosts a conversation with photojournalist Bill Brett, Boston Police Commissioner William Gross, George Montilio of Montilio's Baking Company, Dr. James J. O'Connell, director of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program and Grace Cotter Regan, president of Boston College High School, WBZ's Jordan Rich moderates. The Joint Committee on Housing and the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy hold hearings at the State House.
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 | DATELINE BEACON HILL |
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- "Milton Dem Driscoll Taking Lead on Carbon Pricing Bill," by Katie Lannan, State House News Service: "Faith leaders, youth advocates, municipal officials and business groups are among those expected to appear at a State House hearing Tuesday in support of carbon pricing legislation. One of the pricing plans that the Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Committee is set to take up had the potential of hitting a speed bump this month when its main sponsor, Jennifer Benson, resigned her House seat for a post with the Alliance for Business Leadership."
- "Charlie Baker visited the correctional officers injured during an inmate attack at a Shirley prison," by Christopher Gavin, Boston.com: "Gov. Charlie Baker Sunday visited the three correctional officers who were attacked by a group of inmates two days earlier at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley. "They were badly injured, but able to share their thoughts on what happened," Baker, who was joined by Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, said in a tweet. "Very grateful they were there for each other." The three guards were assaulted around 10:45 a.m. Friday inside a general population housing unit, according to the Massachusetts Department of Correction."
- "Repair Shops Threaten Ballot Fight Over Telematics Info," by Matt Murphy, State House News Service: "With a coalition of independent auto repairers eyeing a 2020 ballot question to gain access to digital data collected by vehicles, skeptical lawmakers with questions for both sides heard testimony Monday as they try to decide whether to intervene. The auto shop owners are seeking an update to the 2012 "right-to-repair" law that was passed to make sure car manufacturers were making the same diagnostic repair information available at a "reasonable" cost to both dealerships and independent mechanics."
- "MA Correctional Officers Union Asks Legislature To Revisit Criminal Justice Reforms," by Marilyn Schairer, WGBH News: "The Executive Board of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union asked lawmakers via a Monday press release to revisit prison reforms they say put officers at risk in light of a rise in violent attacks against correctional employees. The call came in the wake of an attack against officers at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley Friday that sent three officers to a local hospital for treatment. The union said that as of Monday, two of them remained hospitalized and required surgery."
- "Racing, simulcast bill in the works," by Matt Murphy and Colin A. Young, State House News Service: "This time they got it done with time to spare, but only a little. After its inaction twice in recent years briefly rendered horse racing and simulcast wagering illegal, the Legislature on Monday sent Gov. Charlie Baker a bill that would extend the authorization for those activities until July 1. Without action, simulcasting would have come to a halt Wednesday night. The bill (S 2308) now waiting for Baker's signature also includes language that would allow Suffolk Downs to hold onto its simulcasting license for the duration of the extension, despite the fact that the racetrack ran its final live horse race in June and has no plans to hold live races in the future."
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| WHAT CITY HALL IS READING |
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- "New Year, new Boston City charter?" by Milton J. Valencia, Boston Globe: "It's a new year. New decade. New Boston City Council. New city charter? At the beginning of a new council term, with progressive-minded councilors holding a super-majority, Councilor Lydia Edwards is calling for a hearing to review the city's charter — what could ultimately become an effort to give the council more power by taking some away from the mayor. The request will be introduced to the full council at a meeting Wednesday, and will likely be sent to a committee."
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| FROM THE HUB |
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- "The Color Of Public Money: Black Businesses' Share Of Public Contracts Has Declined Over 20 Years," by Chris Burrell and Paul Singer, WGBH News: "This article is the first installment in an ongoing investigation by WGBH News' New England Center for Investigative Reporting into racial disparities in government contracting. State and local government agencies in Massachusetts pay billions of dollars to contractors every year for a vast array of goods and services. But minority businesses — and black owned businesses in particular — see only a tiny fraction of this money."
- "How Boston City Councilor Julia Mejia found her voice," by Stephanie Ebbert, Boston Globe: "Julia Mejia has, like many successful women, often harbored a bruising case of imposter syndrome. Still, the circumstances in which she found herself last week felt especially unreal. She was being sworn in to the Boston City Council in Faneuil Hall — the same historic building where she'd raised her hand to become a naturalized citizen nearly three decades earlier. Now, she was accepting a standing ovation from an ebullient crowd as Boston's first-ever Afro-Latina city councilor. She was trying in vain to contain herself, blinking back tears."
- "Northeastern University expansion battled in Nahant," by Sean Philip Cotter, Boston Herald: "Massachusetts' smallest town has a big-city problem as residents say Nahant's crown jewel East Point would be overwhelmed by Northeastern University's plans for a giant new marine science complex. "It would effectively destroy this beautiful headland," said 45-year Nahant resident Jeffrey Musman of the Nahant Preservation Trust. "This is an area that's worth being saved. If you lose this, you're losing our Notre Dame cathedral." On the 1.24-square-mile town's East Point, Northeastern plans to expand its currently unobtrusive footprint with a 60,000-square-foot Coastal Sustainability Institute expansion atop what was once a World War II bunker."
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| ALL ABOARD |
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- "T $25m behind on contract pledge to union," by Bruce Mohl, CommonWealth Magazine: "TOP MBTA OFFICIALS acknowledged on Monday that they have failed to comply with a key provision in a union contract requiring the transit authority to spend $25 million a year upgrading its badly deteriorated bus maintenance facilities. T officials initially included $24 million spent on a seawall outside the Charlestown bus maintenance facility in the fiscal 2018 calculation, but backtracked after coming under fire from union officials for sidestepping the contract commitment."
- "MBTA hopes to expand bus garages — a first step toward more frequent service," by Adam Vaccaro, Boston Globe: "Among the most pressing issues for the MBTA is somewhere most riders will never visit — nine decrepit, overcrowded bus garages. If the agency is ever going to expand its fleet of 1,000 buses, it will need a lot more space to put them. Spread across the region, the garages were the focus of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's governing board on Monday. Officials outlined plans to update facilities so they can charge electric buses and adopt improvements to working conditions that mechanics have long complained about."
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| DAY IN COURT |
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- "Supreme Court Won't Take Up Appeal In Mass. Texting Suicide Case," WBUR: "The Supreme Court will not take up the appeal filed by Michelle Carter, the Plainville woman convicted of involuntary manslaughter for encouraging her boyfriend to kill himself. Carter's attorneys asked the court to consider whether her conviction violates her free speech rights under the First Amendment, and her due process rights. In 2017, Carter was sentenced to 15 months in jail after she was convicted in the death of Conrad Roy. In September, she asked for early release and was denied."
- "Group plans to appeal Mass. judge's decision that rejected a right to medically-assisted death," by Danny McDonald, Boston Globe: "An advocacy group pushing to legalize medically-assisted suicide in Massachusetts said Monday that it will appeal a recent court decision, which said patients do not have a right to end their lives with the help of their doctors. Compassion & Choices, which advocates for better end-of-life care options, had filed suit in 2016, arguing that patients should be allowed to obtain lethal doses of medication from their doctors and choose when they die in order to avoid needless suffering."
- "Harvard professor Larry Lessig sues The New York Times over 'clickbait defamation,'" by Nikolas DeCosta-Klipa, Boston.com: "Larry Lessig says he loves The New York Times. He's also suing the newspaper. In a Medium post Monday, the Harvard Law School professor and longtime internet and political activist announced a lawsuit against the Times, accusing the outlet of "clickbait defamation" over a Sept. 14 story about his defense of Joi Ito, the former MIT Media Lab director who resigned over ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein."
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| WARREN REPORT |
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- "'I thought a woman could win; he disagreed': Warren-Bernie feud escalates," by Alex Thompson, POLITICO: "Elizabeth Warren stood by news reports that Bernie Sanders told her last year that he thought Democrats would lose in 2020 if they nominated a woman to challenge Donald Trump — an account Sanders denied earlier in the day. In an extraordinary statement issued the night before the final debate before the Iowa caucuses, Warren asserted that Sanders made the remarks during a private meeting in December of 2018 to discuss the 2020 election. "Among the topics that came up was what would happen if Democrats nominated a female candidate. I thought a woman could win; he disagreed," she said in the statement."
-- "Bloomberg's campaign snowballs to 1,000 staffers and counting," by Sally Goldenberg and Christopher Cadelago, POLITICO: Mike Bloomberg's presidential campaign has brought on more than 700 staffers spread out across 33 states, with a growing number of organizers joining his ranks in states that vote on Super Tuesday, aides told POLITICO. All told, the former New York mayor's operation totals more than 1,000 people, a figure that includes hundreds of staffers who work out of his Manhattan headquarters.
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| MARKEYCHUSETTS |
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- "Sen. Markey: `We need to have' debate on US war powers," by Tony Dobrowolski, The Berkshire Eagle: "With tensions between the U.S. and Iran continuing to simmer, Sen. Edward Markey said he's been lobbying his colleagues in the Senate to repeal a resolution that allows the president to declare war without seeking Congressional approval. The Massachusetts Democrat said he was referring to the measure that Congress approved in 2002 that granted then-President George W. Bush the legal authority to wage war against Saddam Hussein and the government of Iraq."
- "Ed Markey is calling for a 'new Four Freedoms,'" by Nikolas DeCosta-Klipa, Boston.com: "Sen. Ed Markey called for a "new Four Freedoms" on Sunday, riffing on the values first laid out by President Franklin Roosevelt nearly eight decades ago. In his 1941 State of the Union address, Roosevelt called for a world in which all people enjoyed four "essential" freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. During a rally Sunday afternoon in Pittsfield hosted by the Four Freedoms Coalition, Markey proposed applying those original freedoms to " a new vision that will address today's challenges and move our country from peril to progress."
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| ABOVE THE FOLD |
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— Herald: "BIDEN'S BACK," — Globe: "Cora's role in cheating scandal detailed," "Warren: Sanders said woman can't win." |
| MEANWHILE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE |
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- "The weird world of the dark horse presidential candidate," by Billy Baker, Boston Globe: "Lorenz Kraus began his speech by declaring that the reason he was running for President of the United States was to dissolve the presidency. From there he moved on to his platform, a plan to divide the US into four separate countries in a crusade to break the control of the Deep State, British agents, Rhodes Scholars, and the Jews. When he arrived at the point in his speech where he called President Trump a four-letter word, Mark Stewart Greenstein -- one of his opponents in the New Hampshire primary, who had just moments before addressed this small crowd of undergrads -- shot up from his seat in the back of the audience and began screaming at him."
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| THE LOCAL ANGLE |
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- "Lime bikes are leaving Boston, but staying in Quincy. For now." by Mary Whitfill, The Patriot Ledger: "Bright-green rentable bikes will soon disappear from the streets of Greater Boston, but they're sticking around in Quincy. At least for now. The dockless bike-sharing company Lime Bikes has been operating in Boston since April 2018 and came to Quincy a few months later. But the program announced last week that it won't be renewing its contract with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, which means the bikes will soon vanish from some suburbs around Boston."
TRANSITIONS - Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and 2018 candidate for lieutenant governor Jimmy Tingle join the North South Rail Link Working Group. (h/t John Businger).
- Leslie Sandberg is leaving her role as senior adviser to state Sen. Julian Cyr to open a strategic communications firm. Link.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY - to Yael Sheinfeld, communications director for Jake Auchincloss for Congress; and University of Cincinnati pitcher Nick Murray, who turns 21 today.
DID THE HOME TEAM WIN? Yes and no! The Celtics beat the Bulls 113-101. The Flyers beat the Bruins 6-5.
FOR YOUR COMMUTE: DEVAL IN GOOD TIME - Deval Patrick joins the Horse Race podcast to talk about his 2020 presidential campaign and look back at his two terms as governor of Massachusetts. Subscribe and listen on iTunes and Sound Cloud.
Want to make an impact? POLITICO Massachusetts has a variety of solutions available for partners looking to reach and activate the most influential people in the Bay State. Have a petition you want signed? A cause you're promoting? Seeking to increase brand awareness among this key audience? Share your message with our influential readers to foster engagement and drive action. Contact Jesse Shapiro to find out how: jshapiro@politico.com.
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POLITICO Pro's Top 10 Policy Storylines of 2020. Nothing gets done in an election year, right? NONSENSE! We are preparing to cover an intensive year of market-moving legislation, regulation, court cases and executive orders. Check out POLITICO Pro's top ten storylines for 2020.
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