Council holding hearing on scuttling special election
The Boston City Council plans on holding a hearing next week on whether or not to override a potential special election for mayor.
The legislation, from City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, would specifically eliminate the possibility of a special election for Boston mayor in 2021. As a home-rule petition, it would need the sign-off of the council, Mayor Martin Walsh, the Legislature and the governor to go into effect.
If Walsh, President Biden’s nominee for Labor secretary, is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, departs before March 5, the city charter requires the city to hold a special election three months from the date he leaves — which is still to be determined.
“I would like to vote on this as quickly as possible,” Arroyo told the Herald on Friday.
He argues that this is necessary to stop from holding multiple elections in a short timeframe in the middle of a deadly pandemic.
“What we’re really debating here is if we’re going to put the city in danger,” Arroyo said. Of a special election, he added, “This would be an awful thing to have happen to the city.”
The city council scheduled a government operations hearing for 3 p.m. Tuesday. Arroyo said he hopes to hear from Secretary of State William Galvin’s office and the city’s elections department in the hearing.
City Councilor Lydia Edwards, who chairs government operations, said in a statement that she’d been consulting state ethics laws.
“As chair of the committee that will be hearing this proposal, it is my responsibility to move it forward deliberately and in a way that can’t be questioned later,” Edwards said in a statement. “How we plan and conduct this hearing is as important as what we will be discussing during the hearing itself. My goal has always been to have a hearing, review this proposal and have a finished product ready for a council vote in a timely manner.”
Biden picked his friend Walsh as nominee for Labor earlier this month, heating up a mayoral race that already had drawn two challengers. City Councilors Andrea Campbell and Michelle Wu already were running, and at least two others, Kim Janey and Annissa Essaibi-George, now are strongly considering runs. Janey, the city council president, would become acting mayor when Walsh leaves.
If there is a special election, she’d be in the acting mayor role — which has more limited powers than an elected mayor does — until right after that special election. If there is no special election, she’s acting mayor until the November general election sorts the matter out.
Earlier in the month, when Arroyo introduced the petition, other councilors said they worried about the council appearing to help one candidate or another by changing the law.
Arroyo pushed back on that on Friday, saying, “Ultimately, that’s all speculation. The truth is that a special election hurts Bostonians.”