Sen. Markey Meets with Braintree Officials

Students in Braintree, across Massachusetts and the country will soon begin new testing procedures through the Common Core standards, which will require more computers.

Here in Braintree it has become a "capacity issue," Superintendent Dr. Maureen Murray told Sen. Edward Markey Thursday morning at Town Hall. 


"I'm very sensitive to what you're saying," Markey said, mentioning that a bill of his authorized the E-Rate program, providing a discount to many schools and districts – including Braintree – to help with telecommunications and Internet access.

"I will remember this conversation," Markey said. "The fact that this is Braintree says something, it's not Chelsea."

Markey came to Braintree Thursday as part of a trip around the state to familiarize himself with local issues and meet local officials. Mayor Joseph Sullivan hosted the Senator, a former Congressman from Malden who won election to Secretary of State John Kerry's seat earlier this year, and invited members of the Town Council and his department heads to join the conversation.

For about 30 minutes those gathered talked about the sequester cuts, education and public safety funding, an effort to maintain tamper-resistant packing on generic drugs, the "big bonanza" of natural gas, political gridlock and how a tax included in Obamacare on "cadillac" health plans could affect town workers.

"We may find ourself in a penalty situation," Town Solicitor Carolyn Murray said of the health care regulations. 

The town should not be penalized, she said, for agreeing to strong health care plans for its employees.

That provision of the Affordable Care Act does not go into effect until 2018, giving Congress time to tweak the law, Markey said. "We should be talking about how we are going to refine it."

The topic gave Markey one of several opportunities to criticize Tea Party politicians – he called out Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, by name – for their far-right views that include efforts to repeal Obamacare.

"But that's not going to end," Markey said.

Peter Morin, Sullivan's chief of staff and operations, asked Markey when Washington would stop lurching from "manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis."

"How does that dynamic change?" Morin said.

Markey said elected officials should be able to find common ground, but that it is increasingly difficult with the political system as is. Mitch McConnell, for instance, is the Republican Party's Senate Minority Leader and a traditional conservative voice, but he faces a challenge in his next primary against a Tea Party candidate who bashes him for working with Democrats.

The conversation also honed in a couple local issues that Markey said he would try to help with, including a request before the Interior Department for funding for the Old Thayer Library.

He also said he would work to keep exports of natural gas from overly diminishing the country's relatively inexpensive supply and driving back up electricity prices in places like Braintree where the natural gas boon has kept prices lower.

The Senator said he would help Braintree and every other community in Massachusetts as much as "humanly possible."