Featuring: Karen Spilka, Karen Mauney-Brodek, Kate Guedj, Kim Roy, Bruce Stebbins, Georgia Lee, Ben Taylor, John Linehan, and more.

Shannon O’Brien fought in court to win her old job back as chair of the Cannabis Control Commission.

Now, only nine months after O’Brien finally prevailed, she’s being forced out again — this time because of legislation. And I’m hearing she isn’t the only one on the way out.

You might remember the drama surrounding the agency overseeing one of the state’s newest billion-dollar industries: O’Brien clashed with state Treasurer Deb Goldberg, who first appointed O’Brien to the post, over a former Goldberg aide who once oversaw the CCC staff. The clash became public, and ugly, as Goldberg suspended O’Brien in 2023 and then fired her the following year.

Although O’Brien was able to return, a bigger shakeup is currently in the works. That’s because one of the many changes included in an industry reform bill that Governor Maura Healey signed last month reduces the commission to three members from five, and gives Healey sole authority to select them.

A power play by the governor? More like a headache. Who wants responsibility for an agency known for dysfunction? Plus legislative leaders gave her just one month to find and vet candidates. Not what she needs in an election year.

Simple math indicates not everyone is returning. No one expects O’Brien to be invited back, given the headlines that trailed her during her dispute with Goldberg. Odds seem good that commission members Kim Roy and Bruce Stebbins could be out as well. The most likely returnee? The newest commissioner, Carrie Benedon. She just joined from Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office in November — and then promptly went back there after the reform law was signed disbanding the old commission.

Many in the cannabis industry hope Roy can stay, givenher advocacy for improved testing protocols and other reforms, particularly after O’Brien regained thechair role. (Roy was picked bya Republican, then-governor Charlie Baker, who recruited her from the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office in 2021.)

Healey’s team is providing no clues about who the governor is considering. All her spokeswoman would say is that Healey will have names to announce by the new law’s deadline on Tuesday.

Beyond the slugfest between two prominent Democrats — O’Brien was the party’s first female nominee for governor in 2002, while Goldberg has been state treasurer since 2015— this has consequences for everyone in the state, not just those with a doobie or two.

The new commissioners, lucky them, will take the helm of an industry in turmoil.

State voters kicked off a gold rush when they approved a ballot question legalizing recreational marijuana in 2016. But the market is now oversaturated: too many sellers, too much weed. Prices have dropped faster than a quarter-pound bag in the past six years. Retailers are struggling; many are closing. Then there’s the specter of another ballot question, one that would make recreational pot illegal again, slated to go to voters this fall.

The industry is now embedded into the state’s economy. Cannabis companies generated nearly $1.7 billion in revenue last year and now support around 20,000 jobs — more people, itturns out, than the state’s three brick-and-mortar casinos. An analysis by think tank MassBudget shows cannabis contributed $310 million in state tax revenue and another $36 million in local taxes last year.

To underscore just what’s at stake, I checked in with Erin Gorman Kirk, Connecticut’s Cannabis Ombudsman (no pun intended). Kirk says she doesn’t know Roy but has followed her work. And Kirk wrote a passionate note to Healey on Wednesday, imploring the governor to bring Roy back, citing her focus on testing integrity and her knowledge and industry relationships.

The CCC’s makeup, she wrote, is a “regional public health matter of the first order.” The new law creates the opportunity for a reset, Kirk added, but Roy’s expertise is invaluable in addressing testing fraud and other still-unresolved crises.

Upon her return to the 140-person agency, O’Brien gaveRoy more free rein to push improvements to the CCC’s secret shopper program for compliance checks. And they advanced a red-tape reductioneffort to cut bureaucracy, among other reforms.

O’Brien says she’s proud of what she has accomplished with Roy since they reunited at the CCC, including finally getting long-awaited rules for cannabis cafes over the finish line. And Roy, in a brief statement, said it would be an honor to continue serving on the CCC, because “there is still a great deal of work ahead.”

No kidding.

For years, Campbell, Goldberg, and Healey all played roles in appointing CCC members but none had full responsibility. Now, there’s no question who will ultimately be accountable for any problems at the CCC: the governor. The industry is hoping Healey is up for the challenge.

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“We couldn’t have a party in the park, so we brought the park into the house,” said Georgia Lee, whose Milton home was transformed Wednesday night into a botanical wonderland for a fundraiser for the Emerald Necklace Conservancy. The nonprofit had to pivot on short notice after the city of Boston in March denied the group a permit for its annual “Party in the Park” fundraiser, where ladies lunch in fancy hats.

Why? The city had its reasons, and we have our theories: Payback after the Conservancy sued Mayor Michelle Wu and the city of Boston to block Wu’s redevelopment of White Stadium in Franklin Park.

Born out of necessity was “Sparkle for the Park,” a cocktail party with a harpist and hors d’oeuvres for more than 200 guests, including former Globe publisher Ben Taylor and his wife Kate, and retired Zoo New England CEO John Linehan. Conservancy president Karen Mauney-Brodek said her group raised more than $250,000, money that will support 1,100 acres of trees and parkland from the Back Bay Fens to Franklin Park.

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When Brandeis University opened its doors in 1948, Dorothy “Dot” Richards longed to attend. Her family could not afford to send her, but she never stopped thinking about Brandeis. When it was time for daughter Karen to go to college, Richards pushed her to apply to Brandeis.

Today Karen Richards Sachs is a Brandeis trustee living in Los Angeles, and during this weekend’s commencement she and her husband David Sachs will donate $25 million to the school, its largest-ever alumni donation, in honor of Dot Richards. The money will be used to enhance student living, and help fund a new campus commons hub known as “The Dot.”

Richards Sachs said Brandeis loomed large for her mother because “it was this notion in her head of a place where all kinds of different students from all kinds of different backgrounds, with no quotas, no limits, could be taught by the highest caliber of instructors.” Asked how her mother would have felt about the gift, Richards Sachs said, “my mother would be kvelling – bursting with pride.”

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The Boston Foundation released an unusual statement this week, stepping into the brewing controversy over the Southern Policy Law Center, a renowned nonprofit whose mission is to combat hate crimes. Big money managers Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab have said they will no longer let their donor-advised funds contribute to the SPLC, after the Department of Justice last month filed federal fraud charges against the organization.

The Boston Foundation also directs grant money to the SPLC, through its own donor-advised fund program, and chief philanthropy officer Kate Guedj said she’s been flooded with messages from concerned donors and investment advisors who want to know if that will continue. It will, she said. An indictment is not a conviction, Guedj wrote “but there’s something more fundamental at stake, and it has to do with what we believe philanthropy is for.”

The DOJ investigation, she adds, fits into a broader pattern of targeting progressive groups, and the evidence “does not support pausing grants to an organization that has been a cornerstone of civil rights work in this country for more than half a century.”

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The two Spirit Airlines planes that have been squatting at Gates 37 and 38 of Terminal B at Logan International Airport are finally gone. The bright yellow Airbus 320 jets were flown away on Wednesday. Spirit Airlines shut down on May 2, not only leaving passengers stranded but leaving its aircraft marooned as well. According to multiple reports, Nomadic Aviation Group – known as the Repo Man for planes – was hired to pick up the fleet and fly it back to storage facilities in Arizona. Many planes were leased, so they will eventually be returned to their owners; others will be stripped for parts. Back at Logan, no word on who gets to occupy the coveted gates that Spirit gave up, but for the time being any airline is free to use them.

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Our colleague Chris Van Buskirk took a closer look this week at the Supreme Judicial Court’s role in the ballot-question process, as it weighs the fate of four questions that could go before voters in November. One of those, an initiative to reduce the state’s income tax to 4 percent from 5 percent, has divided the business community. A legislative compromise could prevent it from moving forward, if a deal can be reached by July, but that seems unlikely right now.

I asked Senate President Karen Spilka about this on Tuesday, after she spoke against the income tax cut during an Associated Industries of Massachusetts speech. Spilka said she was hopeful about the legal challenge, which revolves around whether the summary of the question prepared by the attorney general’s office is complete enough. (Spilka says it’s not.)

So, no sign of a compromise in the works? It doesn’t seem so. When I asked if she would be open to a deal if the SJC gives the ballot question the green light, Spilka told me: “Talk to me when that – if that happens.”

Meanwhile, antagonists Pioneer Institute and the Massachusetts Teachers Association aren’t waiting. Pioneer, a big tax-cut supporter, issued a “bulletin” on Thursday saying the fears that the tax-cut would cut more than $5 billion from the state budget are overblown, because of the positive impact it could have on the economy, stoking tax revenue. Also that day, the teachers union that helped bankroll the millionaires tax question in 2022 announced it just set aside $2 million for the upcoming campaign against the tax cut.

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Hold on to your Coolattas, everyone. Dunkin’ is back in the news because its parent company is eyeing an IPO, which would mean New England’s favorite coffee shop chain would be publicly traded, yet again. Few local executives have been through more IPOs than Panera CEO Paul Carbone.

Can you guess which consumer company he did NOT help take public during his career? Take our quiz here.

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Today’s edition was edited by Greg Huang and Tim Logan, and produced by Diamond Naga Siu.

Have a question for the team? Email us at powerplay@globe.com.

Delivered Tuesday and Friday.

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Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto. Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com.