better day to have it than the day after election day when there is a ton of stuff to discuss welcome well thank you monica glad to be here always and did you when yesterday i did when i felt very nice actually so you do check that and you know check the blank to see how you know so i think seventy five eighty percent people filled in and that's good it is a message people should know yeah i know if it goes intended message by leaving it blank yeah  bit and people there's there's a percentage of people who just stop you know they don't go all the way down the ballot the minute they don't they don't fill in the ones that are not contested they don't bother ok so that's twenty twenty five percent of the people so there's sort of a ceiling as to how h you can go if you're not contested but i always look to see to make sure i'm pretty high in the on that close to the ceiling so that when you pass muster i was i was comfortable yesterday ok well we had a complete turnaround in our governor's office the republicans are now in charge well a republican is now in charge charlie baker won and i want to ask you a of course your thoughts on this you didn't vote for charlie baker did you well it's interesting i mean i think you know we'll have to find out i think it may turn out that it works well for some things i i'm i'm very hopeful over the coming year that we will make some progress on  the reducing the prison population i think we're you know i'm not one who believes that we are sending low level innocent people to jail we're not doing that but i do think we're sending people for too long and the result is there's just too many people in prison and i think that's something republican governor may be responsive to so i'm actually hopeful and charlie because the things you said on that have been kind of encouraging and other people are kind of reading at the same way so this might the stars might align this year for some big progress in the criminal justice or so that's one area that i that i've been personally focused on as in my role as judiciary chair and i'm hopeful make some good progress on that's interesting i mean the same about charlie baker that his managerial abilities yep that was the message he sent during the campaign i will be an effective manager and indeed i know people that i know someone who worked at harvard tell them who was very impressed by him and charlie dacre evidently sent center around every month a newsletter to employees that was very well written that was very concise that told them what was going on it was not a lot of  muckety muck and this person who worked there was so impressed by this now if charlie baker indeed works his managerial manage magic on beacon hill that could have a great effect right we'll see we'll see i think i think manager leadership is very important the governor's office and i think charlie baker will will attend to detail and i think that matters and i think i think the governor has a great power to change the direction of government improve the tone of government by making the right kinds of appointments by sending the right kind of message and i'm hopeful charlie baker will do the right kinds of things in that category what has he done so far it's been two days what did he do today i did well you know he doesn't take office for another couple of months i understand that that you know they held that he said i didn't know him around i didn't see him right so he doesn't he won't be working up there until january for well i think we'll go through a transition process and i'll probably  sure where the transition team will be headquartered i gather is met with the governor and he did that yesterday and i know that the governor's staff and senior managers are all preparing for a transition process and i'm sure they'll build the good transition process they'll hand and things off well yeah because this is very close this is very close very close just as a democratic state you can't assume anything right you can assume anything that's definitely true and certainly this worked in this case you know it's quite a night i guess you know with people going back one way and then the other way and then the other way is so that their careers a lot of ups and downs for both camps it was it was it was fun to kind of watch that going on while i was on the edge of my seat with the main governor's race yeah and he did a very good candidate michaud did who is excellent but there was an independent there that kind of up now so what did you do for mark martha coakley by the end of the race what were you how you working for her my the truth is my i didn't do all that much but i did do some canvassing and you know about it this proved to me one thing that you need a really good message you know charlie bakers i'll be a good manager resonated i don't know why but it did i'm just saying that his message resonated all right martha coakley i never could figure out what she was saying and what she was you know talking about yeah it wasn't i hear you i hear you know i mean i was sort of the point that people have to sort of get something take away something and that there's some truth in what you say when do you think people lock in like you know i think i think in this race you had a lot of time for people to to make some decisions and so there's there are people that walk in very early in this you know people locked in on the day they were born and then there are people that you know lock in a little later in this people who lock in late in the race and i think that varies and from race to race certainly in this race i think there were people to change their minds on the day i i think it went down to the wire in terms of people's perceptions and i think that that show there was always a decent undecided chunk until the end so that's how it election a couple couple million which is sort of in the fifty percent ballpark you know it's not seventy five percent like presidential election you know it does go higher but for midterm it was  or not i think was pretty good in the city so she won oh yeah she won handily in the city no doubt sixty percent sixty five percent of ironic that she won in and she wanted wall fam one of the bellwether communities yeah what about that that's interesting that well i think the i think those are both anticipated and you know when i was talking to people that a couple days before the election people were talking that they might the republicans might pick up maybe two or three more seats than that but some of the closer races did was i was worried for dick that he was facing a pretty strong candidate and in fact and it's a very conservative district also that he represents so he's been one of the most conservative democrats and somebody ran to the right of him and beat him in that up in the newburyport way has had a close race but she came out pretty strong strong she once she won and then in the you know very fine gold had run for state senate a skinny state treasurer so he's leaving his senate seat because he and he lost that race and so he's to go back to private life but barbara little yann who is a former state representative ran for that seat and won in a pretty close race so it was a question mark that could have been in the pre publication and then also there was a race who is the senate chair ways and means retired after many thirty some years of service very very big contribution he has made his seat was very closely contested in the end the democrat won that by  hair as well so there were three more seats that people thought wow that you know they might actually pick up but in fact they did not there were no well there was there were no charlie baker coattails well i don't know whether there were there weren't but there certainly see the wisdom of having a two party system there absolutely i mean i i have a democrat and i'm proud to be a democrat and serve my district but but having having more you know a little diversity is not a bad thing it actually kind of it increases the value of everybody's vote democrat and republican when there's a little more balance in the process because if the people sort of know it's all going to go overall i don't mind that there's a more balance i would say that during this campaign season a real star or just and that would be mr martin from salem yeah he really showed himself to be a star i think i mean the thing that nailed it for me was when the glover in the story of how he had won all these medals in iraq and hadn't even told this parents yeah which was i don't admirable that's says something very nice about his character i said yeah i was very impressed with him i had the opportunity to meet him at a gathering here in beaumont a few weeks ago and you know i really like i impressed so you think he might be going places well you know so that's good to be helpful for yeah times of yeah future of politics yeah i'd say that we're all sitting here feeling desperate about you know i think i think ok go on about it the republicans have taken over how how do i make myself feel better about that look the bottom line is you have divided government and you had you have that before the election you have that after the election i don't think it's going to change the world dramatically to have the balance shift as it has in congress i think that's not a sea change but you know an adjustment in the middle because go back the other way in two years is certainly on the senate side a difference it makes a difference without a doubt but only makes a difference known how it does it absolutely does but at the end of the day we have a democratic president they don't have a they don't have enough to beat a filibuster in the senate they don't have enough to override veto so the ability people the democrats and republicans are still going to have to work together if anything's going to get done and that's going to remain as difficult as it ever was yeah how do they get around  well you know i hope that over time we get a new generation of leaders on both parties who do better job working together and i think i think you talk about a seth moulton original candidate that's what you're talking about yeah but when are they going to start to more hilly yes she seems like she will be very good yeah yeah and so it's all a constitutional officers are our women are attorney general auditor treasurer yeah well not secretary of state not governor but now so three out of the big five and nationally interesting women now granted few of them were conservatives but that's interesting i always feel better with a woman even  she's a conservative well then maybe that's naive of me but i was yeah you know she'll do the right thing ultimately but maybe not i don't know but i will always feel better about it  i don't know about this climate change denier who's now the head of the environmental him off and that's not it it's a disaster and i think is a good as gum so that it all but but again the president still the president the president to speak out more present as two years left a can do whatever he wants like you know speak out like don't let them run roughshod over you and i sometimes feel a little i don't i think the president's pretty good at worry sometimes that he just lets fox news run roughshod over him but i kid you just can't control what everybody says in the world and you can spend it if it's going to much time trying you you're really talking there talk hello it didn't come on well if you're out there trying to get on the show try again try one more time it may have been him i mean we might we might be able to do it  talk to me about the national scene now in terms of what happens now now they all just start running again yes she will have to run again in what two years yeah wow she's got one of the safest district in the country yet katherine is one of the people who will not have to spend her entire life raising money getting ready for the next race she she's got a great  how do you get into the seats if you're somebody that wants to run i mean well it's more like you get in and then you make it for yourself yeah i mean ed markey as the dean of the massachusetts delegation  elected to office and the go well i'm here now i'm not going to do anything else i'm not going to run for anything else i'm just going to use this is my job for the next twenty years how can you do that i'm not saying you that i'm saying that there are you can't get into elected office and just think well i'm here now you've got to always be sharp and looking out doing doing things for men you know what would you do what have you done for us lately and that's that's fine that's the way it should be and so you've always got to be yeah you always got to keep working working yeah and so this guy that lost in the senate dennis that district and a tough tough situation how will you make your job sharp how do you make your job well i think it's about focus and it's about jews choosing the issues that you think you can make a difference on and making a difference on those issues and so in this coming year i'm focused on the criminal justice reform focused on protecting our from sea level rise i represent some of the lowest lying districts in the state  education funding and i want to do something on the non competes issues so i have about a half a dozen major issues that are core for me and and that's about i think also it's very important to try to communicate with your constituents about the things that they're concerned about and so we were listed with this very carefully you know through the web and you know to terms of what people are responding to us an e mail so that we're make sure that we people are we're informing the people about the things they want to be informed about and you're always  yeah and moving on things yeah what what is the big hot issue now for people well you know the past few weeks people obviously been focused on the election so the volume of communication that we receive in the office bowl in the subject line the last one he sent out yeah i haven't checked on the response on that one yeah ok but but the things that people typically are most interested in are the things that are immediately relevant to the district so pro the seventy three bus service silver maple for those of us bright in the i ninety interchange people people are there's lots of things that we're doing from a state level that will affect directly people's lives and those are the things that people pay the most attention to in my experience you know and that's a very quantified statement those are the things that people open they read and they reply to me about and so so i'm very attentive to those issues now it looks like a propeller wrote our favorite subject is now mean just going to put you at some odds with your constituents i'm sure well you know i represent it's internet i think when you when you present it as infrastructure i think people will get that it's got to be done but here's the here's the real there's the key thing yeah this is a district in this is by the numbers where people don't drive anywhere near as much as they do in some other places if you live in belmont watertown boston cambridge yes you know the average household in some of these districts drives ten to twenty maybe twenty miles a day yeah you go out tomorrow people are driving one hundred miles a day and so it's the gas tax is just a very very different thing when you're when you're in some of the western or more suburban parts of the state ok so so that's what we're up against me from my district you know i do support an increased gas tax i always have been and i still think it should be higher not to not to be cavalier about it all at this that i just know we need to make those investments in transportation and that is the right way to fund book but if you go out tomorrow or in a western mass that's anathema because of those because they do that they drive so much that gas tax is going to make a big dent in the pocketbook that's really interesting and i was very disappointed that the bottle bill last so badly i just shows the big lobbyists with their big money industries to defeat this run the ads to deceive that you know i think that's an issue where people talk about it as a policy matter but at the end of the day this is something that everybody understands and the question is do you want to go to the grocery store with all that stuff and put it through the machines or do you want to put it out to the street and i think people made a decision you know you can talk about the ads you can talk about the money you talk about a lobbyist but i think that's a very that's something that everybody knows exactly what it means and they made the choice ok well listen so what do you have coming up in the next month i got a lot of preparation to do getting getting ready for the next year we're working on our office systems and we're working on issues and so i'm actually extremely busy and working very hard t and if you want to get in touch with you it's wolfram's for will brownsburg or g mail dot com or you can get on the web to will brownsburg or dot com or you can call them my cell phone i'm very easy to find and you're one of those people that picks it up i do i do me monica and thanks for another edition of office hours live will be back next month to discuss the issues of the day thank you for joining us