Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. on April 1. Five Democrats are on the ballot in the primary to replace former state Rep. Carlos Henriquez at the State House. Listed below are the locations of their election night parties.

EVANDRO C. CARVALHO: Restaurante Cesaria, 266 Bowdoin St

KAREN A. CHARLES-PETERSON: Blarney Stone, 1505 Dorchester Ave

JENNIFER ANNE JOHNSON: Shanti, 1111 Dorchester Ave

BARRY LAWTON: Dublin House, 7 Stoughton St

ROY OWENS: Unavailable

Four of the five candidates on next Tuesday’s ballot in the Fifth Suffolk District appeared before a crowd at First Parish Church on Sunday afternoon. Shown, l-r, Evandro Carvalho, Karen Charles Peterson, Jennifer Johnson and Barry Lawton. Links to profiles on each candidate are available below.

Voters in the Fifth Suffolk House District had a chance this week to see the candidates hoping to succeed former state Rep. Carlos Henriquez up close. Four of the five Democrats on the April 1 primary ballot appeared before a crowd of 50 people at First Parish Church on a Sunday afternoon, offering answers to questions about charter schools, constituent services, and how to handle gun violence, particularly in Bowdoin-Geneva.  Read more

“Charlotte for Mayor” didn’t work out. Could “Charlotte for Treasurer” or "Charlotte for Lt. Governor" happen any differently?  Read more

State Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz and state Rep. Russell Holmes, two lawmakers who represent parts of Dorchester and Mattapan, were unsuccessful this week in pushing a compromise that would lift the cap on charter schools.

Chang-Diaz’s office announced the compromise on Saturday, days after the Education Committee had given itself a one-week extension to March 25 to put together a bill. But March 25 came and went with no action on legislation.  Read more

The Boston political operative who ran former City Councillor Mike Ross's campaign last year is taking a job with Putnam Partners, a Democratic media consulting firm in Washington, D.C. Cayce McCabe, who jumped to the Ross campaign after running state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry's First Suffolk District campaign in 2013, is signing on as a senior associate.

McCabe announced the move in a mass email. McCabe will keep advising a candidate, Evandro Carvahlo, who is running to replace former state Rep. Carlos Henriquez, through the April 1 primary election and April 29 election.  Read more

The debate over lifting the charter school cap will stretch into next week as the Legislature’s Education Committee continues to seek a compromise. Charter school advocates have ratcheted up pressure on lawmakers, including state Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, co-chair of the Committee on Education, calling on them to release a bill lifting the cap. Separately, public school parents who oppose charter schools sent a petition to the committee this week, demanding that the cap stay in place.

In a meeting at the State House on Tuesday, the committee gave itself an extension to kick out a bill.  Read more

Forry-Dorcena families at St. Patrick's Day Breakfast: The group gathered for a photo after the event. Photo © Don West

I don’t typically write about events involving my wife, state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry. But Sunday’s St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast in South Boston, it seems to me, merits some comment from this space.

I’ll leave it to other journalists – those unencumbered by a certificate of marriage – to weigh in on my spouse’s performance. Instead, here are some observations from the “green room” offered up in the spirit of historic preservation.  Read more

Sen. Forry with Governor Patrick: The governor quipped: “Have a good look everybody. This is what a Forry and a Patrick looks like these days." Photo © Don WestLinda Dorcena Forry took the microphone on Sunday morning and looked out into the crowd at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center where some 700 residents from Dorchester, South Boston, and Mattapan were dining on eggs, hash, and sausages.

“Last year I got eight seconds,” she quipped.

This year, it was two hours and a half. She is the First Suffolk District’s state senator now, instead of a candidate, and with the position comes the job of hosting the annual St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, where politicians traditionally have traded light barbs with one another.  Read more

The state’s political elite paused for a group selfie, turned the probation department hiring scandal into a laugh line, and took pokes at Republicans Charlie Baker and Scott Brown during the annual St. Patrick’s Day political breakfast Sunday morning.

Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry opened the proceedings at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center by dedicating the event to former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, urging participants to make him laugh amid reports over the weekend that he’s battling advanced form of cancer.  Read more

With the press on from charter school advocates to lift or eliminate the cap on charter enrollment in poorly performing school districts, the battle brewing over the issue in the Legislature appears to have as much, if not more, to do with the distribution of state education aid than the merits of charter schools.  Read more