No special mayoral election
Baker signs bill to just use later vote
Boston will not have a special election for mayor.
Gov. Charlie Baker on Friday signed the bill to override a possible special election that would be triggered by Mayor Martin Walsh’s departure.
It remains uncertain when Walsh, President Biden’s pick for Labor secretary, will be confirmed by the U.S. Senate and depart. But if it’s before March 5 — next Friday — the city’s governing charter would have required a special election in three months to fill Walsh’s term, which runs through the end of the year.
With Baker’s pen turning this bill into law, that now won’t happen even if Walsh leaves in the next week. City Council President Kim Janey, who will become acting mayor, will now continue in that limited interim position through the
November general mayoral election.
City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, the author of the bill, has said it doesn’t make sense for the city to jam another election cycle into the middle of a pandemic in a year just a few months before a scheduled election.
This legislation moved with unusual speed for the type of bill it is. It’s what’s called a home-rule petition, meaning it needs the approval of the City Council, the signature of the mayor, the approval of both houses of the Legislature and the signature of the governor. It’s common for home-rule petitions, which are essentially municipalities asking for permission to change how they govern, to become mired on Beacon Hill and never actually turn into law.
The council passed this petition Feb. 3, a month after Biden tapped Walsh for the Labor post, by a unanimous vote, though there was some turbulence over the conflictof-interest law. The House and Senate approved it this week.
This sets in stone the timeline for the Boston mayoral race, which will have a preliminary election in September before the November general election. There are already four people in the race: state Rep. Jon Santiago and City Councilors Andrea Campbell, Annissa Essaibi-George and Michelle Wu.
The outgoing city economic development chief John Barros, who this week resigned effective Friday, also appears to be moving toward a run, and state Sen. Nick Collins and Janey also are considering campaigns.