PM Issues Committee chair Jonathan Cohn penned an editorial in CommonWealth about the new Senate Ways & Means chair:

OVER THE PAST few legislative sessions, progressives have looked to the Massachusetts Senate as a beacon of progressive policymaking. Across a range of issues, the Senate has been willing to pass bold and expansive bills that end up watered down—or dead on arrival—in the more conservative, top-down House.

However, Senate President Karen Spilka’s choice of Sen. Michael Rodrigues to chair the powerful Senate Ways & Means Committee should give progressives everywhere pause. Although the Westport Democrat describes himself as part of the “boring middle,” much of Rodrigues’s record locates him squarely on the right.