ROMNEY ELECTED GOVERNOR
In a state renowned for its liberal politicians, Republican businessman Mitt Romney was elected governor in November of 2002, garnering 50 percent of the state’s vote to Democrat Shannon O’Brien’s 45 percent.
Although both candidates promised to revive Massachusetts’s slumping economy, Romney, who earned international repute for heading the 2000 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, touted his managerial skills and vowed to fix “the mess” on Beacon Hill. Political analysts speculated that Romney debated his way to victory over O’Brien, who was state treasurer at the time.
Romney is the third in a string of Republican governors, beginning when Bill Weld took office in 1991 and followed by Paul Cellucci in 1997. Widely thought to have presidential ambitions, Romney announced in December that he would not seek re-election as Massachusetts Governor in 2006 after serving two terms.
CITYWIDE SMOKING BAN, MAY 2003
In an effort to protect city workers from the hazard of secondhand smoke, officials from the Boston Public Health Commission announced January 2003 that Boston workplaces – including bars and restaurants – would be smoke-free by May 5, 2003. The law also stated that business owners were required to post “No Smoking” signs on their premises.
By the May deadline, 77 Massachusetts communities also adopted the ban, while others ordered partial bans – mirroring earlier legislation in California and New York.
According to the law, which was approved by Boston officials in December 2002, business owners could face $100, $500 and $1,000 fines for their first, second and third offences, respectively, for allowing for refusing to enforce the new law.
Four years earlier, city officials implemented smoking limitations that restricted smoking only to bar areas in restaurants, lounges and nightclubs.
FACEBOOK.COM LAUNCHES
On March 21, 2004, thefacebook.com made its debut on BU’s campus, offering new technological means of networking, researching and procrastinating. Although BU was one of the first 10 schools to begin a network on the site, Facebook has since expanded to more than 7.5 million members at 2,100 colleges and 22,000 high schools, according to the website. The site also notes that it is the seventh most visited website in the United States.
Administrators and law officials have also noticed the website’s success. Pennsylvania State University police recently said they used members’ profiles to identify and prosecute students who rushed onto the football field following an Oct. 8, 2005 game. At Northern Kentucky University, school administrators said they used Facebook photos to punish underage students for drinking in dormitories.
On April 12, 2006, BU users saw the site expand to the mobile world, allowing members to use various website features on their cell phones, including messaging, poking, wall posting and looking at user profiles.
GAY MARRIAGE LEGALIZED
After months of debate, more than 1,000 homosexual couples across Massachusetts lined up to receive marriage licenses on May 17, 2004, the first day the state recognized same-sex marriages.
Groups opposing the matrimony have called for a 2008 ballot question that could ban gay marriage, including the non-profit group the Massachusetts Family Institute.
As Massachusetts is still the only state to recognize homosexual matrimony, out-of-state couples flooded Massachusetts towns to receive marriage licenses. In response, Gov. Mitt Romney has enforced a 1913 statute that forbade Massachusetts officials from granting couples marriage licenses that would be considered void in their home states – a law perceived to have been written to target interracial couples. On March 30, 2006, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled to uphold the law in a 5-1 vote.
RED SOX WIN THE WORLD SERIES; BPD ADMITS RESPONSIBILITY FOR SNELGROVE DEATH
Although the Boston Red Sox fell prey to the New York Yankees in a seven-game championship series in 2003, the Sox returned a year later to win four consecutive games against their archrivals in an unprecedented comeback.
After advancing to the World Series St. Louis – where the Sox swept Cardinals – on Oct. 27, 2004, the Sox clinched their first title since 1918, breaking the 86-year-old “curse of the Bambino.”
Both series were marred by dangerous riots outside Fenway Park and in Kenmore Square, where police said between 60,000 to 80,000 fans congregated to celebrate the victories. To quell the rioting after the Yankees series, police used crowd-control weapons that were considered to be non-fatal. However, a pepper-pellet bullet struck Emerson College junior Victoria Snelgrove in the eye, an injury that killed her the following day. The accident led to police investigations and, months later, tougher penalties for college students who commit crimes off campus.
KERRY LOSES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
After a surprise win in the primaries for the Democratic nomination, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry was unable to clinch the presidential victory against incumbent President George W. Bush on Nov. 2, 2004.
Although the nation saw another close contest — following the 2000 election that triggered legal battles and immortalized the phrase “hanging chad” — Florida was again a key state in the election, although Ohio, with its 20 electoral votes going to Bush, was the deciding factor in the race.
Kerry, a Boston resident who was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984, won Massachusetts with a 60 percent majority, campaigning for an alternative to the Bush Administration’s operation in Iraq. Bush’s platform included the need for heightened security and low taxes.
Kerry continues to serve as the junior senator of Massachusetts and has not commented on a presidential bid in 2008.
BUMC GRANTED APPROVAL FOR BIOLAB CONSTRUCTION
On Feb. 2, 2006 three years after being selected as one of two institutions to build Level 4 Biosafety laboratories, the Boston University Medical Campus was granted clearance to build in Roxbury by the National Institute of Health, as well as $128 million to help fund construction.
The laboratory, which will be one of four Level 4 labs in the nation, will house some of the world’s deadliest diseases and pathogens, such as Ebola, anthrax and the plague, to aid researchers working to create cures and vaccines.
Although BU officials have said dangerous viruses could not escape the high-security laboratory, BUMC officials were criticized in May 2004 after three BUMC researchers were found to be infected with tularemia, and campus officials did not report the cases to public authorities for two weeks.
Of the four BSL-4 laboratories in the United States, the BUMC’s lab will be situated in the most densely populated location, with 17,000 people per square mile. Although Roxbury residents and opponents of the lab have protested its construction since 2003, BUMC officials project that construction will be completed by the summer of 2008.