Charlie Baker is the Governor of Massachusetts, a position he has held since 2015. Baker is ardently pro-Israel, has supported the construction of a massive new women's prison in MA, and has opposed equal rights for immigrants living in Massachusetts.
Throughout his time as Governor, Charlie Baker has been an ardent supporter of Israel. In May 2021, as Israel undertook a brutal aerial bombing campaign against Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, Baker declared "I Stand With Israel." Baker has also met with (then) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and has expressed support for Israeli companies operating in the Boston area.
In 2018, Baker signed a law which provided $250,000 in Massachusetts state funding to the New England-Israel Business Council. Two years earlier, in 2016, the New England-Israel Business Council paid for Governor Baker to participate in an "Economic Development Mission" to Israel (i.e. a propaganda junket), eliciting charges of a conflict of interest when Baker decided to allocate public funding to the New England-Israel Business Council two years later.
In January 2021, Governor Baker introduced a $50 million plan to build a new women's prison in Massachusetts. The plan was fiercely opposed by Black and Brown community members including the group Families for Justice as Healing and the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. These and other opponents of the plan demanded that state resources be used to actually support Black and Brown community members, not to lock them up.
Governor Baker has been a consistent opponent of equal rights for immigrants living in Massachusetts. Baker has stated repeatedly that he would use his veto-power as Governor to strike down any measure allowing immigrants to obtain MA drivers' licenses regardless of citizenship status. Immigrants in MA and their supporters had advocated for years to make drivers' licenses available to all MA residents regardless of citizenship status, and one measure to do so long had the support of a majority of MA legislators, however, given Baker's stated intention to use his veto to strike licenses for all MA residents down, this measure could not become law until it obtained a two-thirds, veto-proof majority in the legislature (which it finally did in May of 2022).
Master entity: State of Mass.
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In 2018, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed a law which provided $250,000 in Massachusetts state funding to the New England-Israel Business Council. Two years earlier, in 2016, the New England-Israel Business Council paid for Governor Baker to participate in an "Economic Development Mission" to Israel (ie a propaganda junket), eliciting charges of a conflict of interest when Baker decided to allocate public funding to the New England-Israel Business Council two years later.
Governor Charlie Baker has abstained from taking a stand on Enbridge's compressor site in Weymouth, MA, despite fierce resistance by the community, which amounts to tacitly supporting it.
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker was amongst the attendees of a 2018 ceremony for the launch of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory at the Kostas Research Institute.