The City Council Gave Itself Election Day Off. Everyone Else, Please Report to Work.

On Oct. 21 the Boston City Council voted 10-3 to observe Election Day, Nov. 3, as a holiday for its own employees, and to urge the city and the state to make it official for everybody, according to the council's Legistar record. It passed the same day it was filed, no committee. Erin Murphy, Ed Flynn and John FitzGerald voted no.

Councilor Sharon Durkan voted yes and still admitted there are "optical challenges to us deciding on Election Day that our staff has the day off," Mass Daily News reported. That's the most honest thing anybody said.

Murphy said staff already have "complete flexibility on the days they work" and that "anyone in this building can walk downstairs right now and vote." Flynn made the sharper point: incumbents' staff get the day off while challengers don't have staff at all. "For incumbents, you can automatically have the day off," he said. He called the vote "disrespectful to the residents of the city."

Here's my read. Making voting easier is a fine idea. But if you're going to do it, do it for the bus driver and the nurse first, not the 13 offices that vote on it. A resolution doesn't change the city's holiday schedule, and Mass Daily News reported the Boston Public Schools calendar shows no closure that day.

What we still don't know: how many council offices will actually close, and whether the mayor or the State House picks up the bigger idea.