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BOSTON -- Citing needed support for health care reform, President Barack Obama said Thursday that Gov. Deval Patrick should have the power to appoint an interim senator to fill the late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat. Following up on his congressional address Wednesday night, Obama said he supports rewriting a 2004 election law to allow Patrick to appoint an interim senator to fill the seat. The move would require many Massachusetts lawmakers to reverse the stances they took five years ago, when they stripped Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of appointment power. Obama's Organizing for America committee said in an e-mail that...

State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill today launched a challenge to Governor Deval Patrick as an independent candidate, vowing to cast aside entrenched partisan differences and "make the government we have work." "I do not enter this race to run against any individual or party," Cahill said in a speech in a downtown hotel ballroom, standing before a black banner that proclaimed "Tim for Governor" in white letters. "Instead I run because I believe we need new leadership to make Massachusetts a vibrant place once again." He vowed to make the state a place "where jobs grow and the economy rebounds....

Last week the late Senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, suggested via letter to state Senate legislators and the Democrat Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, that the law be changed to allow swift replacement of representatives should a vacancy in the Senate occur. It appears that a dying man was seeking his last wish: to preserve the “continuity of representation” for his constituents in Massachusetts. At first glance, this attempt to preserve representation and to put the people of Massachusetts before all else is highly altruistic and admirable. Senator Kennedy even stressed the importance of the republican system...

Radio Host Howie Carr today revealed that Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick is holding a fundraiser on Cape Cod today at the residence of the Red Cross CEO today. Gov. Patrick will be speaking at Sen. Kennedy's "time" tonight.

Patrick to support change to succession law @ 1:02 pm by Hill Staff Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) further fired up the political chattering class Wednesday morning when he told a local radio station he would approve a plan to appoint an interim successor to the late-Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) until a special election could be held. "Massachusetts needs two voices," Patrick said during an interview with WBUR-FM radio, which was later picked up by The Associated Press. Currently, Massachusetts requires a special election to be held between 145 and 160 days after a Senate seat becomes vacant. The law...

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is supporting a change in state law that would allow him to appoint an interim successor to Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat while a special election is held.

There is no way, a freeloading governmental health plan, run by civil servants with little or no accountability can ever hope to compete against the profit driven private sector, who's very existence and survival is on the line daily, prompting a degree of responsibility, quality and customer satisfaction that assures fewer mistakes are made, and insuring by the very nature of capitalism, an ever expanding thirst for better, faster, and cheaper service....

The inspector general's office for the Social Security Administration is looking into the problem as part of its broader audit on stimulus spending. The Social Security Administration acknowledged the $425,000 glitch following a report that nearly two-dozen inmates in Massachusetts had wrongly received the $250 stimulus checks.

Hey, Deval, if you thought your recent poll numbers have been abysmal - and they have been - wait until after this latest pool-closing fiasco. You’ll be . . . drowning. Do you know what the governor calls a Herald plane hovering over his sparkling pool and cabana on his $1.7 million estate in Richmond on the second-hottest day of the year? “Every rich man’s nightmare.” The name of Deval’s Berkshires retreat, by the way, is Sweet P Farm. Now we know what the P stands for - pool. Talk about tone deaf - firing Dan Grabauskas, not firing Jim...

Politics: Should the election law in Massachusetts be changed to keep Ted Kennedy's seat filled and get ObamaCare passed? As in Minnesota and Illinois, the voters might lose again.Recognizing his own mortality and waging a valiant battle against brain cancer, Kennedy has written a letter to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, state Senate President Theresa Murray and state House Speaker Robert DeLeo asking them to change the law so his seat might be filled immediately until a special election could be held. His letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Boston Globe, does not specially mention his illness or...

Back when I was active in Massachusetts politics, one of my roles was as a coordinator working for Romney when he ran against Ted Kennedy for the Senate. My best friend at the time was an Irish-American, retired airline pilot who loved boating as much as I did, and who did boating stuff with me almost every day (as a college professor, I had summers off). One time I laid out the case for Romney over Kennedy to him, and he sadly agreed, but then said that he had to vote for Kennedy because “we owed it to him”. In...

Letter recognizes what we hesitate to say By Scot Lehigh Globe Columnist / August 20, 2009 It’s hard to read Ted Kennedy’s letter without shaking your head in sadness and in wonder.

Massachusetts Republicans spoke out today against a proposal by US Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, under which Kennedy's Senate seat would be filled by an appointment by Democratic Governor Deval Patrick until a special election could be held. House Minority Leader Brad Jones of Reading said the proposal was based not on "what's best for the whole Commonwealth but based on what's best for one political party." "The hypocrisy is astounding. If we had a Republican governor right now, would we be getting that same letter?" he said. “Everybody feels for Senator Kennedy, but the laws...

Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, terminally ill with brain cancer, has asked state legislative leaders to change the law and let Gov. Deval Patrick appoint a temporary replacement upon his death. Under current law, the seat would be empty until a special election could be held 145 to 160 days later. But Senator Kennedy, a 77-year-old Democrat, wrote in a letter to the governor that he wanted Massachusetts to have full representation in the Senate during that period. Although he did not mention it in the letter, it is becoming increasingly clear that Democratic votes will be crucial to...

A cancer-stricken Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has asked Massachusetts leaders to change state law to allow a speedy replacement if it becomes necessary for him to surrender his seat, fearing a months-long vacancy would deny Democrats a crucial vote on President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. In a note to Gov. Deval Patrick and other state leaders, Kennedy asked that lawmakers allow the governor to appoint an interim replacement pending election of a successor, to ensure there would not be a period with a vacancy. Currently, the law requires a special election to be held within five months. "It is...

Cancer-stricken Sen. Kennedy asks state leaders for speedy process to replace him in Congress BOSTON (AP) — A cancer-stricken Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has written a poignant letter to Massachusetts leaders asking that they change state law to allow a speedy replacement of him in Congress. The note to Gov. Deval Patrick and the state's Senate president and House speaker acknowledges the state changed its succession law in 2004 to require a special election to fill any vacancy. At the time, legislative Democrats were concerned Republican Gov. Mitt Romney would be able to fill any vacancy created as Sen. John...

Okay, at 19% it is technically still double digits, but given that the reviled, detested, and utterly evil George W. Bush had an all-time low approval rating of 20%, which was also the lowest figure for any president in history, Patrick is really plumbing the depths.

Republican Charles Baker says Gov. Deval Patrick and Beacon Hill Democrats have "turned a crisis into a calamity" and made the Massachusetts economy "a wreck" with excessive government spending and an unwise tax increase. In a video to supporters unveiled today, the former Harvard Pilgrim Health Care president says he has twice engineered economic turnarounds.

Governor Deval Patrick, fresh off signing a major tax increase and still battling through a historic budget crisis, has seen a huge drop in his standing among Massachusetts voters and faces a tough road to a second term, according to a new Boston Globe poll.

BOSTON – A crowd of hundreds of local Muslims inaugurated a large new mosque last week in Roxbury Crossing. The 68,000 sq foot Islamic Cultural Center in the heart of Boston, designed by Dr. Sami Angawi, and pioneered by board member Dr. Walid Fitaihi, Dr. Osama Kandeel and others, celebrated its inauguration with the historic attendance of the first Muslim in the United States Congress, Keith Ellison, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. This new Islamic cultural center in America is tremendously significant as it resides 5 minutes from the heart of downtown Boston and less than...