CITIZENS   FOR  LIMITED  TAXATION  &  GOVERNMENT

 

CLT Update
Friday, December 28, 2001

Holiday catch-up


Initiatives to abolish the state income tax and dramatically restructure Massachusetts' bilingual education program are on their way to the ballot box next year.

Associated Press
Dec. 21. 2001
Tax and bilingual education initiatives headed to ballot box


The Legislature has until April 30 to act on the measures. If no action is taken, the petitioners will have to compile close to 10,000 new signatures.

The Boston Globe
Dec. 21, 2001
3 proposals on threshold of '02 ballot


The most pathetic aspect of the revolt brewing in the state House of Representatives against Speaker Thomas Finneran is how afraid members are to speak.

A Patriot Ledger editorial
Dec. 20, 2001
Questioning Finneran's autocracy


Finneran has repeatedly refused to say why he is preventing the election of a representative from the First Hampshire district.... He has even fought the local citizens in court, appealing a judge's recent order that the election be scheduled.

The Boston Globe
Dec. 21, 2001
Hampshire district's empty seat suits speaker


With nerves still raw over cuts enacted behind closed doors by a cadre of lawmakers, the House's chief budget writer says he is willing to consider making budget negotiations with the Senate public in the future.

Such a move would abandon Beacon Hill custom, which has shielded the high-stakes horsetrading from citizens and interest groups and given substantial power to those few lawmakers who shape the final budget.

The Boston Globe
Dec. 21, 2001
Budget chief eyes open talks


"It's common knowledge among the members that if the speaker doesn't like a bill, you're not going to see it," said Representative Douglas W. Petersen, a Marblehead Democrat who is vice-chairman of the House Committee on Taxation. "It speaks to a truncated system where members' desire to debate bills is thwarted. There isn't an open system."

The Boston Globe
Dec. 21, 2001
Bottled-up bills add to rebels' cause


"It's really pathetic in terms of what they don't do," said Richard Hogarty, senior fellow at the McCormack Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. "The current system as we see it has made a mockery of the committee system." ...

It's no coincidence that committees have become ineffective during a legislative year that has proven to be one of the least productive in more than a century. Nearly half, or 18, of the Legislature's 42 committees didn't report out a single bill that became law this year. Members of the two Ways and Means committees responsible for all the significant legislation merely rubber stamped the work of their chairman.

Associated Press
Dec. 22, 2001
Legislature's committee system 'dysfunctional'


Reports of House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran's demise, it seems, were more than a little premature....

When push came to shove this week, though, it was the putsch that got shoved. Mr. Bosley meekly decamped, declaring he would like to be speaker but would not challenge Mr. Finneran.

The collapse of the revolt was, sad to say, in character for an institution in which "go along to get along" is the rule....

A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Dec. 20, 2001
Finneran's wake?


House Speaker Tom Finneran began 2001 by engineering the elimination of term limits that would have required him to step down at the end of next year.

He ended the year by setting a special election to fill a House seat that has been vacant since June. By the time the election is held, the 40,000 residents of the 1st Hampshire District will have been without representation for 10 months.

... That ability to protect his members from having to make uncomfortable votes is also, we fear, what the reps like most about Finneran. Until that changes, Finneran will continue to rule the House.

A MetroWest Daily News editorial
Dec. 28, 2001
The year of King Finneran


Although discussion of a Finneran coup has died down over the holidays, the chairman of the Energy Committee said that Bosley's comments about Finneran had gone too far and that Bosley should be removed as chairman of Government Regulations....

Other committee chairmen did not go as far as suggesting that Bosley lose his chairmanship, but many have rallied around the speaker....

[Louis DiNatale, a pollster at the University of Massachusetts at Boston] added that since only a fraction of state legislators are opposed during elections, and since legislators are paid reasonably well and have status in their communities, most feel secure and do not want to rock the boat at the Statehouse.

The Lowell Sun
Dec. 27, 2001 
Despite criticism of Finneran,
Bosley thinks his legislative post secure


Hold onto your pocketbooks, folks, the Legislature is on another money-saving binge.

Problem is, some lawmakers' idea of belt-tightening is to try to borrow and spend their way to fiscal stability....

Such recklessness recalls the fiscal policies of the late 1980s, when the state responded to a deepening recession by going on a spending spree. Massachusetts' bond rating sank almost to junk bond status and the state had to float more than $1 billion in bonds to cover day-to-day operating costs. The "temporary" income tax hike to repay the debt has yet to be erased.

A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Dec. 21, 2001
Fiscal fantasy


Citing cash flow problems, state Treasurer Shannon P. O'Brien announced yesterday that the state will have to borrow about $600 million so that it can continue to keep government running over the next few months.

While such borrowing is common in many states, it's the first time Massachusetts has been forced to take out a short-term loan since 1996.

The Boston Globe
Dec. 28, 2001
Cash flow forces state to borrow


Associated Press
Friday, December 21. 2001

Tax and bilingual education initiatives
headed to ballot box

By Steve Leblanc

BOSTON (AP) Initiatives to abolish the state income tax and dramatically restructure Massachusetts' bilingual education program are on their way to the ballot box next year.

Several other ballot questions, including a proposal to ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption, failed to gather the necessary number of signatures, according to the Secretary of State's office.

A question that would define marriage in Massachusetts as a union between one woman and one man gathered more than enough signatures, but because the initiative would change the state constitution it cannot appear on the ballot until 2004.

The approval of just two questions for the 2002 ballot marks a dramatic drop from last year, when voters decided on eight ballot questions.

Voters approved the largest income tax cut in state history and a measure denying incarcerated felons voting rights and rejected a ban on greyhound dog racing and a call for universal health care.

The two questions headed for the 2002 ballot are already sparking debate.

Repealing the state income tax would leave more money in the hands of workers, according to former Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Carla Howell, who is pushing the initiative.

But critics say the question, which would cost the state about $9 billion a year, would make it difficult to pay for crucial programs like education and social services.

Debate is also focusing on the bilingual education question, which would move most students who are not native English speakers into regular classes after one year in "English-intensive" classes.

Opponents call the proposal an abandonment of the state's 30-year commitment to new immigrant students.

The attorney general's office had received 27 petitions by an August deadline.

But the requirement that activists gather more than 57,100 signatures proved too high a hurdle for most, including a proposed hike in the minimum wage and a plan to require companies to offer workers 12 weeks of paid family leave.

Backers of the surviving questions still must gather an additional 9,500 signatures before April.

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The Boston Globe
Friday, December 21, 2001

3 proposals on threshold of '02 ballot
By Nicole Usher
Globe Correspondent

Three proposed ballot initiatives advanced toward the November 2002 ballot yesterday after Secretary of State William F. Galvin certified the required signatures, paving the way for the Legislature to consider them in January.

The three initiatives, which needed more than 57,100 each to be certified, would amend the state Constitution to limit marriage to the union of a man and woman, create a law abolishing the state income tax, and replace bilingual education in public schools with an English immersion program. The three proposals were the only survivors among 24 originally offered.

"This is the required step before the initiatives reach the ballot, and gives the Legislature the opportunity to hold hearings and possibly take action on an issue," said Ron Unz, a California businessman and leader of the English immersion initiative.

The Legislature has until April 30 to act on the measures. If no action is taken, the petitioners will have to compile close to 10,000 new signatures.

But the so-called protection of marriage amendment must follow a slightly different path before it can reach the ballot. As a constitutional change, it must first be approved by at least a quarter of the members of the House and the Senate in two successive sessions.

The Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus plans to question the validity of some signatures obtained in support of the amendment and hopes to mount a challenge before the first week in January, the deadline.

"This is the worst time of the year to ask people to volunteer but we'll do our best," said Arlene Isaacson, a lead organizer for the caucus. "There are thousands of fraudulent signatures and it's a sin to let them get away with this."

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The Patriot Ledger
Thursday, December 20, 2001

OUR VIEW
Questioning Finneran's autocracy

The most pathetic aspect of the revolt brewing in the state House of Representatives against Speaker Thomas Finneran is how afraid members are to speak.

On the plus side, at least a few reps are willing to say publicly what most ordinary citizens probably think: That despite a history of despotic behavior and disdain for the voters on the part of the Legislature, Finneran and Co. reached new heights this session.

The majority of Democrats must know in their hearts that snubbing the voters' wishes on clean elections, failing to finish a budget on time while passing almost no significant legislation all year, and then ignoring protests as though the masses are ignorant serfs, are behaviors not suited to a democracy.

Apparently spinelessness is contagious under the golden dome.

Finneran runs the House like the Communist Party ran the Duma. He speaks - behind closed doors - and others listen. The rank and file put up with this system because, like party members in the old Soviet Union, if they defy the boss, they're sent to legislative siberia.

Rep. Frank Hynes of Marshfield had a typical response when asked about dissatisfaction in the ranks over Finneran's leadership. "I prefer not to comment. I do not feel this is something that should be played out in the press." Spoken like a true comrade.

Keeping the public in the dark, then, is the preferred policy in Finneran's House.

This week the speaker portrayed himself as the weary victim of a situation he could not control. It was 9-11 that caused the economic problems and the budget situation, and an unhappy public needs someone to blame.

That's hogwash, and Finneran knows it. It's insulting to Massachusetts voters to portray them as such dullards that they don't even remember the impasse over the budget and clean elections predated the Sept. 11 catastrophe by months.

Finneran dismisses talk of a revolt as involving just 10 to 20 members. But every opposition movement begins with a determined few.

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The Boston Globe
Friday, December 21, 2001

Hampshire district's empty seat suits speaker
By Frank Phillips
Globe Staff

If they were angry over budget cuts or any other issue this fall, the 40,000 citizens of Northampton, Hatfield, Southampton, and Westhampton could not call their state representative to complain.

That's because the man responsible for scheduling a special election to fill the seat - House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran - has refused to do so. That has left the liberal district without a member of the House of Representatives for seven months. With no plan to fill the seat, that delay appears to be a record.

Finneran has repeatedly refused to say why he is preventing the election of a representative from the First Hampshire district - one of the last remaining enclaves of '60s culture and political idealism in Massachusetts. He has even fought the local citizens in court, appealing a judge's recent order that the election be scheduled.

The speaker's actions have made him Public Enemy No. 1 in the so-called "Happy Valley" area, and last night residents gathered to strategize about how to raise a ruckus over their lack of a voice in the House. Among the plans: chartering a bus to bring the Western Massachusetts residents to Finneran's Mattapan legislative district, where they would distribute literature criticizing the speaker and protest.

"Everyone feels this is a slap, a slap that is not understandable," said Leslie Fraidstern of Northampton.

The Daily Hampshire Gazette has created a "Soundoff about the speaker" site on the Internet, and one woman even suggested the more western parts of Massachusetts should secede and take back the Quabbin Reservoir - Boston's primary water source.

As leader of the House, the speaker has the authority to set a date for a special election, and typically does so as a matter of routine shortly after a member of the House resigns and a seat becomes vacant.

But former House majority leader William P. Nagle Jr. of Northampton - once considerd the odds-on favorite to succeed the speaker - resigned June 4, and the seat has been vacant since. Nagle was thought to have been eased out by Finneran in what many House members saw as a power play devised by the speaker to eliminate a well-liked, liberal competitor.

"We've been disenfranchised," said Lisa Unger Baskin of Northampton.

Baskin suspects Finneran is stalling the election because Nagle's close friend and former aide, Peter Kocot, plans to run for the seat, and Finneran does not want to see Kocot - likely to become another anti-Finneran voice - in the House.

Finneran did not respond to a Globe request for a comment.

Northampton area voters are serious about their politics and take to heart the fact they have had no say in the House of Representatives as the Legislature made massive budget cuts and debated several policy issues. The voter turnout in the mostly rural district was 78 percent last year, far ahead of the state and national average.

In October, after three Northampton residents sued to force Finneran to schedule the election, Suffolk Superior Court Judge John C. Cratsley agreed with them, and ordered the speaker to set a date by Dec. 31.

The speaker appealed the decision, contending that the court lacked the authority to order him to take such action because of the doctrine of separation of powers.

The residents know that Finneran could keep the appeals going past the spring, when the issue would become almost moot. Statewide, legislative elections will be held next November, with primaries taking place in September. The winning candidate will be sworn in to the House in January 2003.

This week, fearing another 12 months without a representative, the three residents decided to withdraw their suit - hoping the move would be seen as a good-will gesture by the speaker, and spur him to set a date.

The plaintiffs' decision, said their attorney, Peter Vickery, was based in part on the insurgency that Finneran is now facing from some angry House members. Like the Northampton voters, the lawmakers feel disenfranchised. Their frustration boiled over during last month's budget process, but the issue has smoldered for some time.

"This case is a chance for him to show that he listens and learns and that he can adapt and survive," Vickery said. "So that's why we chose the time."

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The Boston Globe
Friday, December 21, 2001

Budget chief eyes open talks
By Globe Staff

With nerves still raw over cuts enacted behind closed doors by a cadre of lawmakers, the House's chief budget writer says he is willing to consider making budget negotiations with the Senate public in the future.

Such a move would abandon Beacon Hill custom, which has shielded the high-stakes horsetrading from citizens and interest groups and given substantial power to those few lawmakers who shape the final budget.

House Ways and Means Chairman John H. Rogers said yesterday that if House members feel strongly about abandoning closed-door talks, he would seriously consider it.

"Any way we can improve the process, I'm all for that," said Rogers, a Norwood Democrat.

Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham raised eyebrows last week by announcing that he now believes that the closed-door talks between House and Senate leaders do more harm than good. This year's budget was five months late and included $650 million in cuts that caught some legislators off guard.

House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran declined to comment on Birmingham's remark.

But Rogers, one of Finneran's top lieutenants, maintained that House leaders were careful to keep members informed as cuts were being considered.

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The Boston Globe
Friday, December 21, 2001

Bottled-up bills add to rebels' cause
By Rick Klein
Globe Staff

The Senate passed the measure unanimously, and 92 of 160 House members signed a letter supporting it. So forgive state Representative Carol A. Donovan for figuring the bill was a shoo-in to become law this year.

But the measure to require insurance companies to cover birth control pills has been stalled for two months in the House Ways and Means Committee, where House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran controls the votes. With the committee mum about why the bill is locked up, Donovan and other supporters say they can come to only one conclusion: Finneran doesn't want it to happen.

"It's stuck," said Donovan, a Woburn Democrat. "There's no reason whatsoever for this, with broad support in the House and passage by the Senate. But we can't even get a vote on it. They make you sweat blood."

While Finneran makes headlines with his bold power plays and punishments for political enemies, this more subtle exertion of legislative power often goes unnoticed by the public. Yet some House members say they have learned to expect this type of behavior under Finneran's rule.

"It's common knowledge among the members that if the speaker doesn't like a bill, you're not going to see it," said Representative Douglas W. Petersen, a Marblehead Democrat who is vice-chairman of the House Committee on Taxation. "It speaks to a truncated system where members' desire to debate bills is thwarted. There isn't an open system."

This practice, in use since long before Finneran's speakership, is one factor feeding the recent discontent among House members. Disgruntled representatives are working on a list of demands that will include opening the legislative process and conducting more debate on policy issues.

Finneran did not return calls for comment. His majority whip, Representative Lida E. Harkins of Needham, acknowledged that bills tend to bottleneck in some committees, but she said that committees must carefully examine bills before pushing them forward.

Harkins said opposition from House leaders does not stop most pieces of legislation from reaching the floor. She also noted that the Senate often fails to act on House-sponsored bills.

"I'm not suggesting that there may not have been times that things have been held up for the wrong reasons," Harkins said. But "I don't think there's a deliberate effort to keep a lot of controversial bills locked up. They should come out, and we should vote on them."

Harkins said that this year's all-consuming budget negotiations may have tied up some bills longer than is optimal. And she said the burden falls to rank-and-file members to free bills from committee if they feel strongly about them. (House members can force a bill out of committee with a majority vote, though such motions rarely succeed because so many members are wary of crossing leadership on procedural issues.)

Finneran's critics contend that the speaker manipulates the committee process to push through measures he favors and hold back those he opposes, even if a bill has demonstrable, widespread support. When items the speaker doesn't favor come out of committee, Finneran can set up roadblocks by sending them to other committees where his loyalists will do his bidding, Petersen said.

This year, for example, House members of the Joint Committee on Commerce and Labor referred a proposal to tie minimum wage increases to inflation off for study, but did not specify by whom, or when it would be completed. That's the easiest way to kill a measure in the Legislature.

While Finneran has not stated his position on the minimum wage bill, he has a reputation as a fiscal conservative.

The Senate, frustrated by that action, passed the proposal on its own a few weeks later. The bill was then referred to House Ways and Means, the budget-writing committee that Finneran keeps under tight control by appointing a majority of loyalists on the 31-member panel. The measure can stay there for as long as House leaders want it to, and many members feel powerless to do anything about it.

A similar fate has befallen bids to extend benefits to the gay partners of public employees. Domestic-partnership bills pass the Senate perennially but almost never come up in the House. The latest measure has been in the House Ways and Means Committee since September; Finneran and his Ways and Means Chairman, John H. Rogers of Norwood, publicly oppose the measure.

Harkins said that with the budget now completed, committees and the House as a whole will have a chance to take up more items.

"Do I feel that we should bottle up legislation that maybe one or two people disagree with? No," she said. "I think we'll have time to do some of these other things."

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Associated Press
Saturday, December 22, 2001

Legislature's committee system 'dysfunctional'
By Leslie Miller

BOSTON - Several years ago, Sen. Richard Moore filed a bill to establish a center to find ways to reduce fatal medical mistakes after Boston Globe columnist Betsy Lehman died from an accidental overdose while in the hospital receiving chemotherapy.

Lawmakers in New York and Florida heard about the Uxbridge Democrat's idea and passed laws establishing patient safety centers in their own states. Meanwhile, the bill languished in Massachusetts until this year when Moore was finally able to establish the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety. Although he's co-chairman of the Health Care Committee, he had to go through back channels - by attaching the bill to this year's budget.

"It's really pathetic in terms of what they don't do," said Richard Hogarty, senior fellow at the McCormack Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. "The current system as we see it has made a mockery of the committee system."

It's no coincidence that committees have become ineffective during a legislative year that has proven to be one of the least productive in more than a century. Nearly half, or 18, of the Legislature's 42 committees didn't report out a single bill that became law this year. Members of the two Ways and Means committees responsible for all the significant legislation merely rubber stamped the work of their chairman.

One quarter of the 204 bills that did pass were minor local issues like liquor licenses and land takings that went through the Joint Committee on Local Affairs and the House Steering Committee.

A bill to make sure the state is prepared for a bioterrorism attack went nowhere during a year when 3,000 suspected anthrax samples were sent to the state laboratory within a few weeks.

The only law that made it through the Education Committee was an adjustment to a vocational school's spending limit.

A bill to require insurance companies to pay for contraceptives has been stalled in the House Ways and Means Committee for two months, though it passed the Senate and 92 of 160 House members have gone on record saying they support it.

There's a simple remedy, said Charles Rasmussen, spokesman for House Speaker Thomas Finneran: the 92 members can vote to discharge the bill from committee.

"Ninety-two people signed off on it - so make the motion," Rasmussen said. "That's what it's for."

Lawmakers "work very hard on bills and they don't come out," said Rep. Daniel Bosley, a North Adams Democrat who co-chairs the Government Regulations Committee. "Sometimes you work on bills for years before they come up."

Bosley said changing the rules won't help. The Legislature's culture needs to change, he said.

"We need to get people more engaged up and down the line," he said.

One reason bills get bottled up in committee seems to be biennial sessions, the result of a rules change in 1996 that allows legislation to be carried into the next year. The Legislature meets all year for the first year and half a year in the second.

"The big problem with the two-year sessions is instead of procrastinating all year and dealing with it (legislation) in December, we procrastinate for a year and a half and deal with it in July," Moore said.

A pattern is developing in which the first year of a biennial session produces a budget months after it's due and a light amount of legislation.

Two years ago, the budget impasse between Finneran and Senate President Thomas Birmingham lasted until mid-October. That year, 181 laws were enacted - the fewest since 1858.

This year, the budget impasse lasted until Thanksgiving and only 204 mostly insignificant laws were enacted.

Moore said the committees do a good job reading and analyzing the bills, but many have to be sent to Ways and Means. The Ways and Means chairmen, though, are so consumed with the budget they can't focus on anything else, Moore said.

"The committee process needs to be honored in a greater degree," he said. "If the committee has taken the time, that ought to be an indication the bill has some merit and the folks in leadership should have priorities put on the schedule."

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The Telegram & Gazette
Worcester, Mass.
Thursday, December 20, 2001

Editorial
Finneran's wake?

Reports of House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran's demise, it seems, were more than a little premature.

A week ago, it appeared that a palace coup led by Rep. Daniel E. Bosley might be gaining recruits. The speaker's iron-fisted rule long has rankled the rank and file, and House liberals, stung by enforced spending restraint, appeared ready to join a rebellion.

When push came to shove this week, though, it was the putsch that got shoved. Mr. Bosley meekly decamped, declaring he would like to be speaker but would not challenge Mr. Finneran.

The collapse of the revolt was, sad to say, in character for an institution in which "go along to get along" is the rule. The House and Senate leadership's failure to finalize a budget five months into the fiscal year -- a fiasco even Mr. Finneran admitted to be embarrassed by -- produced hardly a peep of protest from the hapless House. And when Mr. Finneran took it upon himself to nullify the Clean Elections Law passed, 2-1, in 1998, the compliant House backed him 96-59.

And this is the same House that voted just 11 months ago to erase the term limits for the speaker's job. House members claim to be frustrated by Mr. Finneran, but it should not come as a surprise when the man they anointed Speaker for Life acts as if he were, well, Speaker for Life.

The short-lived speakership revolt, coupled with the budget fiasco, may at least have whetted the House's appetite for reforms aimed at opening up the lawmaking process.

The budget mess and the Bosley challenge even may have made an impact on the speaker himself. Meeting with the Telegram & Gazette editorial board last week, Mr. Finneran acknowledged his embarrassment over the way the budget was handled and said he would be open to suggestions for opening up the process.

Yet beginning with his initial moves to consolidate his power when he became speaker in 1996, Mr. Finneran has displayed little inclination toward power-sharing, keeping a tight rein even on the members of his inner leadership circle.

Earlier this year, proposals by the Coalition for Legislative Reform for making the lawmaking more open and less concentrated in the leadership fell on deaf ears. The recommendations were hardly radical: rigorous enforcement of the House's own rules, more rational scheduling of budget deliberations, outside monitoring of the process and so on.

Mr. Finneran responded with his own rules "reforms" that actually concentrated even more power in a few leadership positions. Loath to make waves, rank-and-file members went along with the changes -- and went one step farther, eliminating term limits for the speaker in the bargain.

Still, a fledgling reform movement may be forming.

While disavowing immediate speakership ambitions, Mr. Bosley promises to lead a campaign next month to reform the House rules and procedures. Among the Central Massachusetts lawmakers ready to sign on is Rep. Reed V. Hillman of Sturbridge, who would begin by opening up the budget conference committee, where this year's budget languished for months. (Sen. Richard T. Moore of Uxbridge is seeking a similar change in the Senate.)

In addition, Rep. Robert Hargraves of Groton has sponsored the "Government Accountability and Disclosure Act" that would make information on all spending items readily available, in comprehensible form, to lawmakers and residents alike.

A small band of lawmakers who dare to risk retribution from the leadership is powerless to bring about meaningful change. The rank and file must shift out of go-along-to-get-along mode and press for changes in a status quo that has tarnished the credibility of the institution in which they serve. Failing that, even the most sensible reform proposals are destined to languish and die.

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The MetroWest Daily News
Friday, December 28, 2001

Editorial
The year of King Finneran

House Speaker Tom Finneran began 2001 by engineering the elimination of term limits that would have required him to step down at the end of next year.

He ended the year by setting a special election to fill a House seat that has been vacant since June. By the time the election is held, the 40,000 residents of the 1st Hampshire District will have been without representation for 10 months.

The handling of the vacant seat was typical of Finneran's style. For seven months after Rep. William P. Nagle resigned to become a district court clerk-magistrate, Finneran refused to say why he hadn't scheduled a special election. He wouldn't meet with people from the district or return their phone calls. Finneran is a man whose faith in his own convictions is so strong he rarely sees the need to explain them to anyone.

Finneran's aides said this week Finneran delayed the election because redistricting might have required the district be split up - a consideration that didn't stop Finneran from scheduling an election after John Stefanini, D-Framingham, resigned a few weeks before Nagle to take a position on Finneran's staff. Others attribute the delay to personal pique over the defection of Nagle, a member of the House leadership, or to an effort to keep Northampton-area liberals from electing someone likely to resist Finneran's more conservative agenda.

As Finneran's delay grew from weeks to months, residents of the district sued the speaker, winning a district court ruling ordering him to schedule a special election. Finneran still resisted, appealing the ruling. One aide this week said Finneran refused to comply because he considered the ruling a breach of the constitutional separation of powers. No one tells Finneran what to do, including judges who dare to take literally the state constitution's guarantee that all citizens be represented in the Great and General Court.

There is a special irony in Finneran's defense of the separation of powers, since the speaker's budget includes the latest in a series of assaults on the independence of the judiciary. Finneran took away the power to hire court probation officers away from judges, giving it instead to a political ally. That battle will be rejoined in the weeks to come if the Supreme Judicial Court finds the backbone to order the Legislature to either fund or repeal the Clean Elections law.

Will the new year bring any changes in Finneran's autocratic rule? That appears unlikely: A "rebellion" raised by a handful of Democrats a couple of weeks ago fizzled after a few days. Perhaps the most we can hope for is some procedural vote that will force House members to take a stand on their leader.

Finneran, unfortunately, is likely to find a way to avoid such an up-or-down vote. That's his another part of his leadership style: Proposals don't come to the floor for a vote unless there's no doubt about the outcome. That ability to protect his members from having to make uncomfortable votes is also, we fear, what the reps like most about Finneran. Until that changes, Finneran will continue to rule the House.

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The Lowell Sun
Thursday, December 27, 2001

Despite criticism of Finneran,
Bosley thinks his legislative post secure

By Erik Arvidson
Sun Statehouse Bureau

BOSTON -- Rep. Daniel Bosley said yesterday that he was not concerned about grumbling within House Speaker Thomas Finneran's leadership team that Bosley should resign or be stripped of his chairmanship over his criticism of the speaker.

Although discussion of a Finneran coup has died down over the holidays, the chairman of the Energy Committee said that Bosley's comments about Finneran had gone too far and that Bosley should be removed as chairman of Government Regulations.

"I don't think the speaker will remove me as chairman," said Bosley, a North Adams Democrat. "Part of the problem is if we say anything that's contrary to the party line, we're viewed as disloyal. I don't see myself as disloyal. To say, 'Because I don't toe the line I should be removed,' that's taking it to the extreme."

Bosley insisted that he was "here for the long haul" and that he and a broad-based group of lawmakers would push ahead with reforms when the House reconvenes in January.

"It's kind of hard to remove me without everything people saying about (Finneran) seeming to be true," Bosley said. He added that there is a meeting between Finneran and committee chairmen today, but whether Bosley's comments of Finneran will be discussed remains to be seen.

As chairman of Government Regulations, Bosley makes $7,500 above a legislator's base salary of about $50,000. Although other committee chairmen earn $15,000 above the base pay, Government Regulations is considered one of the most coveted committee assignments, perhaps second to only the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

State Rep. John J. Binienda Sr., a Worcester Democrat who chairs the Energy Committee, said Bosley was "caught up in something he wishes he didn't get caught up in," and added that Finneran should reassign Bosley to a lower-level committee.

"It's a situation where if you are chairman of a committee, you and the speaker have to be one and the same," Binienda said. "You have to trust totally the judgment of the speaker, and because of this situation, I'm not sure that feeling exists between Dan and Tom."

Binienda has been loyal to Finneran and credits the speaker with "turning the Commonwealth around" and having the foresight to set aside money in a rainy-day fund while the state's economy was booming. The state is now drawing heavily from that rainy-day fund to avoid massive budget cuts.

Binienda said Finneran has "never ever tried to stifle committee chairmen from voicing their opinion," but it was necessary for Finneran and his leadership team to be on the same page.

Binienda added that he and Bosley entered the House at the same time, in January of 1987. "Dan and I are very close friends. He is an intelligent, articulate, outstanding legislator. I just know Dan wishes that it didn't happen the way it happened," Binienda said.

Other committee chairmen did not go as far as suggesting that Bosley lose his chairmanship, but many have rallied around the speaker.

Earlier this month, Bosley strongly criticized Finneran's leadership in the House and said he would like to be the next House speaker, but added he would not gather votes to oust Finneran in January.

Bosley said Finneran's methods are too autocratic, that there is too little debate in the committees, and that ordinary House members feel disgruntled that they can't make a difference. While Bosley said some of the blames rests with the legislative body as a whole, he added that Finneran needed to run a more open and democratic House.

Louis DiNatale, a pollster at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, said ordinary House members have no reason to stage a revolt against Finneran and that it would be difficult to remove him.

"The natural role of the speaker is to take the heat for the institution. He takes the unpopular positions that other legislators don't want to endorse, and all the hostility is directed at the speaker," DiNatale said.

The Massachusetts Legislature has more power and is more far-reaching than other state legislatures, DiNatale said. Any legislator who is not in leadership will find it difficult to get the perks and pet projects funded if they are not loyal to the speaker or Senate president, DiNatale said.

He added that since only a fraction of state legislators are opposed during elections, and since legislators are paid reasonably well and have status in their communities, most feel secure and do not want to rock the boat at the Statehouse.

"There are significant political benefits. Once people get them, they fight hard to hold onto them," DiNatale said.

DiNatale predicted that this unrest with Finneran will come to a head in January 2003, which is the next time Finneran will run for speaker. Whether a new speaker will take over depends on how deep and longlasting the discontent is. "I think Finneran should know that while this may not be the end, it may be the beginning of the end," DiNatale said.

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The Telegram & Gazette
Worcester, Mass.
Friday, December 21, 2001

Editorial
Fiscal fantasy

Hold onto your pocketbooks, folks, the Legislature is on another money-saving binge.

Problem is, some lawmakers' idea of belt-tightening is to try to borrow and spend their way to fiscal stability.

Faced with downsized revenue expectations this budget year, the Legislature recently passed a spending plan that avoids the most serious belt-tightening decisions by dipping deeply into the state's "rainy-day" funds. Under a House-Senate agreement, the drain won't end when the current economic slump ends but, inexplicably, will continue until the $1.2 billion reserve fund runs dry.

Massachusetts' response to the revenue crunch has alarmed Wall Street. On Wednesday, Moody's downgraded the outlook for Bay State general obligation bonds from "stable" to "negative." (The chaos on the Massachusetts Turnpike board triggered a similar downgrade of the authority's fiscal outlook earlier this month.)

Wall Street may be even more alarmed by the latest fiscal shuffle on Beacon Hill. An early-retirement package for state workers, billed as a money-saving measure by the legislative Public Service Committee, would allow 7,700 state workers to retire early with full benefits by adding, for pension purposes, five years to the worker's age or years of service.

The claim of $175 million in savings this year and next is disingenuous. The cost of replacing retiring employees would shrink the savings to as little as $95 million. Cash payments for unused vacation and sick time would reduce savings by another $15 million for each of the next three years.

Meanwhile, the influx of early retirees will put further strain on a pension system the state has been struggling to fully fund for years. One way or another, that money eventually will come out of taxpayers' pockets.

Nonetheless, the committee reported favorably on the early-out package and is pushing for enactment this year -- with only vague estimates of how much money it might save in the short term or how much it would cost long term.

Such recklessness recalls the fiscal policies of the late 1980s, when the state responded to a deepening recession by going on a spending spree. Massachusetts' bond rating sank almost to junk bond status and the state had to float more than $1 billion in bonds to cover day-to-day operating costs. The "temporary" income tax hike to repay the debt has yet to be erased.

The early-out plan now careering down the legislative fast track is the kind of "money-saving" measure Massachusetts can't afford.

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The Boston Globe
Friday, December 28, 2001

Cash flow forces state to borrow
By Rick Klein
Globe Staff

Citing cash flow problems, state Treasurer Shannon P. O'Brien announced yesterday that the state will have to borrow about $600 million so that it can continue to keep government running over the next few months.

While such borrowing is common in many states, it's the first time Massachusetts has been forced to take out a short-term loan since 1996.

The move is another indication that the economic picture has deteriorated, but officials say they're not overly concerned. The state still appears to be on track to bring in enough money to pay for its $22.6 billion budget by the time the fiscal year ends in June, said Jeff Stearns, O'Brien's deputy treasurer for debt management.

"It's not a good sign," he said of the borrowing. "But the other standpoint is, even if your budget is balanced, you still may have to borrow during the course of the year."

Much of the borrowing is necessary so that the state will be able to make its $1 billion quarterly aid payment to cities and towns Monday, the last day of 2001. Such payments weren't an issue in recent years, when the state was running a surplus, said Stephen P. Crosby, Acting Governor Jane Swift's secretary for administration and finance. "Our income is very, very close to our expenses, and we don't have a lot of slack," he said. "This is not deficit spending. It's just cash flow. We've fallen back to earth, and we have to learn to cope in a cash-tight environment."

State leaders expect to more than make back the borrowed money in the revenue-heavy months of January, April, May, and June. Last week, a major bond rating agency downgraded its outlook for the state to negative, but Stearns said bond raters are unlikely to care about a short-term cash shortfall unless it's ignored.

Crosby said that if the state appears likely to finish the fiscal year in the red, Swift may be forced to unilaterally enact budget cuts.

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