The Lit Drop

Giovanna Negretti spoke with the Dorchester Reporter this week about stepping down from Oiste. She also dispelled rumors that she would mount a run against state Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz -- for now. As first reported by AP on Sunday, Negretti's leaving after 10 years at the helm of the organization.

Is City Councillor At-Large Stephen Murphy mulling a campaign for state treasurer? Sources tell the State House News Service the answer is yes.

The news comes after Norfolk County Treasurer Joseph Connolly dropped out of the race, citing health problems. Steve Grossman, a former national and state Democratic Party chair, is currently the only declared candidate. Treasurer Timothy Cahill is an unenrolled candidate for governor.  Read more

The two new City Councillors At-Large, Felix Arroyo and Ayanna Pressley, are bringing some new (and some not so new) faces with them to City Hall.

Not unlike Arroyo, Pressley is bringing on people from the campaign trail:

-- James Chisholm, who headed her campaign, is her chief of staff, overseeing the staff, policy and communications. He has worked with Pressley in U.S. Sen. John Kerry's office, where he wrote speeches and was a deputy press secretary. He has also written for ESPN.com. He lives in Allston-Brighton.  Read more

UPDATE: The make-up of each committee is posted below.

The City Council's two new at-large councillors are getting two new committees to work with:

-- Ayanna Pressley, the council's first African-American woman, is chairing the Committee on Women and Healthy Communities. The committee will cover city programs on youth, families and new Bostonians.  Read more

Mayor Thomas Menino will be meeting up with U.S. Sen.-elect Scott Brown on Tuesday, their schedules show.

Both will meet at the Parkman House on Beacon St., next to the State House, at 9 a.m. A press availability will follow.

At noon, Brown meets with African-American pastors in a closed-press affair at the Roxbury Presbyterian Church on Warren St. A press availability will follow at 1 p.m.

Hours before polls opened across the state, Attorney General Martha Coakley joined campaign supporters to raise a glass of beer at the Eire Pub in Adams Corner.

"We're going to have a win tomorrow," she said in a toast to her husband and volunteers, many of whom assembled inside and outside the bar on Monday night and broke into chants of "Martha! Martha!"  Read more

Add City Councillor John Tobin to the list of Democrats upset with the way Attorney General Martha Coakley has run her U.S. Senate campaign.  Read more

On the eve of Election Day, U.S. Senate candidate Martha Coakley is returning tonight to the Eire Pub on Adams St.

Coakley, the Democratic nominee and state attorney general, previously made a trip to the historic bellwether bar on the eve of the Democratic primary in December. She will be there at 7 p.m., according to her schedule.

State Sen. Scott Brown, a Wrentham Republican hoping for an upset, made his own visit on Dec. 23.

Two former presidents, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, have also dropped by in the past.

(Here's a 2004 Dorchester Reporter editorial on Reagan's 1983 visit. And here's a Kevin Cullen article from 2004 about the bar.)

The state Supreme Judicial Court on Monday took away former House Speaker Thomas Finneran's law license, citing his pleading guilty to obstruction of justice charges in 2007.  Read more

For those curious about what the new office layout is: Newcomer Felix Arroyo is getting outgoing City Councillor At-Large Sam Yoon's office, while Ayanna Pressley moves into District 9 Councillor Mark Ciommo's office. Ciommo is moving into soon-to-be-former City Councillor At-Large Flaherty's office. Yoon and Flaherty's offices flank City Council President Michael Ross's office.

Political Wire posts the Congressional primary calendar for 2010. Sept. 14 is the day for Massachusetts voters.

The Bay State shares the day with Delaware, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont. and Wisconsin.

Two of his campaign staffers will be joining Felix Arroyo, the incoming city councillor at-large, at City Hall when his term starts on Jan. 4.  Read more

The two top candidates in the race to replace the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy will be hitting Dorchester in the coming days.

Congressman Michael Capuano (D-Somerville) will be holding one of his "Open Mike" events at the McKeon Post at 4 Hill Top St.

The 3:30 p.m. event on Thursday (Dec. 3) will focus on veterans' issues. Capuano's father was a Purple Heart veteran of World War II. His mother grew up in the St. Gregory's area.

Attorney General Martha Coakley, the frontrunner and a former Dorchester resident, appears the day before the Dec. 8 Democratic primary.

The election eve rally is scheduled for 6 p.m. at IBEW Local 103, at 256 Freeport St.

Also running in Democratic primary are businessmen Stephen Pagliuca, the co-owner of the Boston Celtics, and Alan Khazei, co-founder of CityYear.

Quite a few people are looking at U.S. Congressman Michael Capuano's seat should he win the U.S. Senate race. Add state Rep. Marie St. Fleur to that list of people.

Outgoing City Councillor At-Large Sam Yoon says he has the votes to pull his proposal to set mayoral term limits out of a City Council committee, setting up a clash with a fellow Dorchester councillor.  Read more