GBH Daily: Mitt & Ted: Back when politicians really debated

☀️Sunny and cool, with highs in the 60s. Sunset is at 6:15 p.m.

When a Massachusetts therapy patient leaves the state — on a temporary trip or as a permanent move — they cross an invisible barrier that sometimes makes it impossible for them to keep telehealth therapy appointments.

Right now, Massachusetts requires mental health professionals to be licensed in whatever state their client is physically in at the time of the appointment. That’s not the case everywhere: 44 states are part of PsyPact, an agreement that allows telehealth appointments as long as both the therapist and the client are in a participating state. Massachusetts and New York are the only two East Coast states not part of the compact.

Gwyneth Packard of Falmouth told CAI’s Gilda Geist it’s an issue she’s run into with both her children: one was looking for a therapist who could accommodate a job that required a lot of travel, and the other had to stop seeing a therapist when they left home for college.

“The therapist, who had been a really tough find — it had taken us a while to find somebody who really worked well and was making great progress — apologized and said that she was not going to be able to see my kid when they crossed the state line,” Packard said. Read more about efforts to bring PsyPact to Massachusetts here.

Four Things to Know

1. No no-confidence vote in Lawrence: The Lawrence City Council delayed a vote of no confidence in Mayor Brian DePeña last night, sending the issue to a committee instead of voting on it directly. DePeña is facing criminal charges in both federal and state courts. He’s accused of COVID pandemic relief fraud in federal court and of illegally recording employees in state court.

DePeña has said he will stay in the mayor’s office while the cases make their way through the legal process, and the city council does not have the authority to make him leave. “The Council must concentrate on the actions that are legally and institutionally available to us: exercising oversight, strengthening internal controls, obtaining independent professional assessments, maintaining transparency and publicly addressing our confidence in Mayor Brian DePeña’s leadership,” City Council President Jeovanny Rodriguez said before the vote.

2. Allston’s post office letdown: The U.S. Postal Service shut down Allston’s dedicated post office in 2019, because its building had structural issues, and promised to build a new one. It still hasn’t fulfilled that promise and last week announced it was calling off the reopening plans. 

“Newton, which is about the same population, has 10 post offices,” Boston City Councilor Liz Breadon said yesterday at a rally calling for USPS officials to reverse course and give Allston its own post office again. “What’s wrong with that picture?”

3. Seeing tiny ocean creatures: Houshuo Jiang, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, built a microscope capable of capturing nanoplankton and other tiny ocean creatures as they move through water in a lab.

It helped him study how eastern oysters feed during their larval stage. “They generate currents, like water current,” said Jiang. “This water current bring the algae particles towards these places. Then they capture them and put them into their mouths.” You can see the images in action here. 

4. Studying Black Christianity: The Museum of African American History in Boston and on Nantucket is getting $2.5 million from the Lilly Endowment, a foundation that supports organizations working in community development, education and religion, especially Christianity. They’ll use that money to study and educate people about the role of Black churches in Massachusetts.

“What we are looking at is the evolution of thought and of ideas about religion, about their freedom to practice, that was very unique to the Black experience and is reflected in their activities and their formation of churches, communities and even how it impacts their activism in the quest to abolish slavery in this country,” said Noelle Trent, the museum’s president and CEO.

Back when politicians really debated

By Ian Coss, host of The Big Dig

Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised, but as of now I’m not holding my breath for any inspiring debates this campaign season. And when I say inspiring, I’m talking about a true clash of political titans, full of rhetorical traps and substantive debate. Because believe me, there have been debates like that in our past, debates that altered the course of history. In Season Four of The Big Dig podcast, we tell the story of one such debate.

The campaign we’re talking about is the 1994 Senate race between Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney. Yes, that Mitt Romney. This was his big political debut.

Early on, Romney looked like a strong challenger. He was young, good-looking, with a successful business career and a sharp mind. And so the Kennedy team was anxious about doing any debates at all. They feared it could be a repeat of the infamous 1960 presidential debate, when the handsome John F. Kennedy beat the sweating Richard Nixon on looks alone.

Except this time, it would be the opposite: an aging Kennedy with white hair and a wrinkled forehead.

As the two campaigns negotiated the terms for a debate, the Kennedy camp insisted on using the widest possible podiums, to hide the fact that their candidate was struggling with his weight. They also insisted on cranking the AC, so that Kennedy wouldn’t visibly sweat.

Romney was fine with all that, but he had a condition of his own. He wanted a true “Lincoln-Douglas” style debate, a nod to the legendary sparring matches between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas over slavery.

In this kind of debate, the candidates get to ask their own questions, respond at length and parry back and forth. It’s not a parade of sound bites; it’s a test of intellect. Romney, the whip-smart consultant, thought he could take the elder Kennedy to school. But on October 25th, 1994, when the two men met on stage at Boston’s Faneuil Hall, it did not go quite the way Mitt Romney expected.

You can hear that story in Part 2 of “Mitt & Ted, a healthcare story,” out now wherever you listen. And you can get early access to the whole series by joining our membership program, The HOV Lane.