DEDHAM - A Massachusetts taxpayers group has tacked a
bull's-eye on state Rep. Maryanne Lewis, vowing to pile on cash and other resources to ensure "political extinction"
for the four-term incumbent seeking re-election.
Citizens for Limited Taxation announced plans to use its Joe
Six-PAC political action committee to target Lewis, a Dedham Democrat and House floor division leader who
recently voted for $1.2 billion in new taxes.
CLT, which bills itself as "The Voice of Massachusetts
Taxpayers," said it aims to put a scare into House Speaker Tom Finneran and other Beacon Hill leaders.
"Take her out and we send a powerful message to Finneran's
Flock," Chip Ford, executive director of CLT's Joe Six-PAC, wrote on the organization's Web site.
He intends to use his PAC to go after Finneran's Favorites,
like Lewis, with local newspaper ads. She and a few others will be targeted for political extinction.
CLT may use another fund, the Proposition 2½ PAC, to
support Lewis' opponents, Ford said. But the Joe Six-PAC, he said, is exclusively designed for "going on the attack."
"We can't change the world in the next election, but we've
got to start getting some respect for voters from the (legislators) who keep getting broomed in year after year. This
is a good place to start - and it will send a message," he said.
Ford said Lewis' voting record on taxes -- CLT gives her a 20
percent rating -- makes her a "perfect target." The $1.2 billion tax hike package she supported was the largest hike in state
history, and included taxes on nursing home beds and prescription drugs, fees and tolls
stacked on top of the nation's fifth-highest tax burden. She also voted to block a
voter-approved reduction of the state income tax to 5 percent.
"She's anti-taxpayer generally in all her votes," Ford said.
The announcement marks the latest volley at Lewis. She is
already besieged by Clean Elections Law advocates infuriated by her repeated votes to scuttle the voter-approved
campaign finance law.
She was also recently dealt a blow by the Massachusetts
AFL-CIO, which gave its statewide endorsement to Democratic challenger Robert Coughlin, although Lewis has
received endorsements from some local AFL-CIO affiliates.
Two Republicans, Dan Smith and Joe Pascarella, are also
running for the House seat. The district includes Dedham, Westwood and Walpole's Precinct 8.
Smith and Pascarella have blasted Lewis' record on taxes and
made opposition to new taxes central themes in their campaigns. Coughlin opposed the recent $1.2 billion tax hike and said
the only new tax he would have supported is on cigarettes.
CLT's Ford likens the 11th Norfolk race to a 1985 contest
between state Rep. Jack Murphy of Danvers and then-unknown Republican Peter Torkildsen. After Torkildsen
defeated Murphy, a seven-term incumbent and member of the House leadership, "we
suddenly had the Legislature's attention," Ford wrote on the CLT Web site. "After all, if
Murphy could be taken out, anyone could. Beacon Hill pols developed voter respect (fear),
and it lasted for quite a few years ... until the new breed forgot, or
never learned."
Lewis did not respond to an interview request yesterday. Her
campaign spokesman said she's not worried about CLT's efforts.
"On balance, I don't think this is a big surprise," Bill
Ryan said. "CLT has a very specific and narrow focus on Beacon Hill, and Maryanne Lewis disagrees with them. It's a choice
between a modest revenue adjustment vs. massive cuts in programs and quality issues that
she considered very important: education, health insurance, local aid. CLT does not support
those programs at all."
He added, "They are an organization that is headquartered
outside the district. Maryanne believes that this election will be decided by the voters who know the most about what she is
doing, and I think they will be reluctant to listen to an organization that takes positions
frequently at odds with her constituents."
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To: Letters to the Editor
The Neponset Valley Daily News
Submitted on July 9, 2002
Re: "Taxpayer group targets Lewis: Citizens for Limited
Taxation plans incumbent's 'extinction'" (July 9), by Peter Hartzel
In Peter Hartzel's report, "Taxpayer group targets Lewis:
Citizens for Limited Taxation plans incumbent's 'extinction'" (July 9), Bill Ryan, state Rep. Maryanne Lewis' campaign
spokesman, responded: "It's a choice between a modest revenue adjustment vs. massive cuts
in programs and quality issues that she considered very important: education, health
insurance, local aid. CLT does not support those programs at all."
He clearly does not understand Citizens for Limited
Taxation's goals and objectives, which should concern voters as to whether his boss does.
CLT has never opposed legitimate state spending, as Mr. Ryan
falsely asserts. There are many areas of government spending that are supported by CLT and taxpayers, and he has
named a few. But hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are still squandered on nothing
more than waste, inefficiencies, mismanagement, and political pork and perks. Those areas
have not been eliminated, or even addressed before massive tax hikes became the usual
Beacon Hill solution. If tax hikes become a substitute for honest fiscal management, they
never will be, and the pols will be back for more next year.
The state budget has doubled over the last dozen years. To
call the proposed $1.4 billion tax increase -- the largest tax increase in state history -- merely a "modest revenue
adjustment" qualifies Mr. Ryan as a shameless political operative who will attempt to "spin" anything.
The question is, will Rep. Lewis' constituents support this
cut in their paychecks and the nullification of the voters' initiative ballot question process, instead of demanding a
modest spending adjustment in a bloated state budget?
Chip Ford
Director of Operations
Citizens for Limited Taxation
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*** A CLT
BLAST FROM THE PAST ***
The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 27, 1997
Finneran plans bigger bonuses for four allies
By Frank Phillips
Globe Staff
Though even his close allies wince at the idea, House
Speaker Thomas M. Finneran is pressing ahead with plans to increase the leadership bonus paid to four political supporters
whose main job is to keep their fellow legislators informed of what is on the House calendar.
It is a task that legislators have been expected to handle
themselves for the last 200 years or so. No previous speaker has seen the need to create a "leadership" post to handle it.
Finneran says promoting four lawmakers to the new positions,
called "division chairmen," is necessary to help his leadership guide legislation through House floor debates and to push
leadership priorities.
And he plans to pay them handsomely -- up to $15,000 a year
in extra pay, more than twice the extra pay committee chairmen receive.
Although Finneran is an unapologetic advocate for the new
posts, his critics say the appointments are the latest evidence of a troubling trend in the House: Finneran's
extraordinary effort to gain two-fisted control over his members.
"This is just more consolidation of power," said Barbara
Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation and
Government. "You pass out goodies to your friends and they vote the way you want."
Since January, Finneran has created seven new leadership
posts -- including the division chairs -- paying at least $7,500 more than the $46,250 base annual legislative salary.
He has handed out the jobs to loyalists who backed him in
his bruising battle for the speakership last year. There are now 47 extra paying leadership positions in the
160-member House.
Now, Finneran -- in a move that is rankling some rank-and-file members and even a few of
his supporters -- is preparing to up the ante even further and sweeten the pot for
his four trusted allies, from the $625 extra a month they have made since the jobs were created in
January to as much $1,250 a month.
Finneran yesterday brushed aside criticism of his plans and
strongly denied it was an attempt to extend his control. He said the four division chairmen will fill a much needed gap
that occurs when a committee chairman takes the floor to push a certain bill.
Schedule looks light
He said that from his experience as a chairman, there was no
leadership presence among the rank and file helping explaining the rationale for the legislation.
"I didn't come up with this like a lightning bolt or that I
wanted to take care of four people who support me," Finneran said. "I want to develop a floor system that supports the
committee structure."
So far, there is little evidence the division chairman will
have much to do. Certainly, the demands have been light in the first three months of the current session.
The House has only had five daily calendars with a total of
36 items listed for consideration, most of them of little importance. And the workload for the rest of the year appears
unusually light.
After dealing with the budget and some other major issues,
the members are expected to take an extended summer break, perhaps returning in the fall. They must, by their own rules,
break for the year by Nov. 15. Next year, an election year, the session will end July 31.
Chairmen played key role
The four new chairmen are Democratic backers of Finneran who
played key roles last April when he allied his supporters with the Republican minority and won the
speakership, outflanking a larger Democratic bloc that had rallied around then-Majority
Leader Richard Voke.
They are: Rep. Kevin W. Fitzgerald of Jamaica Plain; Rep.
Robert Correia of Fall River; Rep. Thomas M. Petrolati of Ludlow; and Rep. Maryanne Lewis of
Dedham. None of them returned phone calls seeking comments on their new jobs.
In addition to keeping each of their division members
informed, the four meet as a committee to oversee any refurbishing of the House chambers or updating of computer
services.
House Republican leader David Peters -- whose party picked
up three extra paying posts under Finneran -- said the issue of creating the post of division chairmen and paying them
more is a "decoy" set up by the speaker to avoid scrutiny of other major rules changes he has
made, most particularly his consolidation of power under the rules committee.
"Those new floor leaders pale in comparison to what really
happened this year, which is the consolidation of unprecedented power in one man's hands," Peters said.
The Republican leaders said the media failed to focus
adequate attention in January on how Finneran pushed through a change in rules that allows him -- through the rules committee,
which he controls -- to limit debate, closely restrict amendments that can be offered during
floor debate, and generally control the flow of legislation.
Finneran said he plans to use the new powers of the rules
committee with discretion. "It is there to make sure we don't fall off the cliff," he said. "I don't apologize for it. It is
same system as in Congress. Judge me at the end of this two-year term."
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*** A CLT
BLAST FROM THE PAST ***
The Boston Globe
Thursday, July 3, 1997
Finneran quietly wins pay raises for his team
By Frank Phillips and Don Aucoin
Globe Staff
With no debate, no roll call vote, and few legislators even
aware that it was happening, House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran yesterday pushed through pay hikes of up to $15,000
-- retroactive for six months -- for 10 loyal members of his leadership team.
Finneran quietly tucked the pay raises into an $82 million
budget bill that was approved by the House at an informal session attended by 20 of the 160 members. Under House rules,
only noncontroversial items are supposed to be dealt with in such sessions.
As illustrated by the public firestorm three years ago when
the Legislature quietly voted to raise members' salaries, pay hikes do not fall into the noncontroversial category.
"This is bold and arrogant," said Christopher Hodgkins, a
Democrat from Lee and a frequent Finneran critic. "This is a case of their going to the trough -- not for their districts,
but for themselves."
Some groups that had unsuccessfully sought state funding for
their projects also expressed dismay at Finneran's move, which will cost taxpayers an extra $100,000 a year.
"It's ironic and an embarrassment that he would increase the
salaries of well-paid legislators when the money could be better used in getting people involved in the political
system," said Kevin Peterson, executive director of Part of the Solution, a minority-community voter
registration group that saw a $70,000 appropriation vanish.
The money, which would have expanded the Boston-based
group's work to Springfield and Worcester, was approved in the Senate but cut at the behest of the House.
But Finneran was unrepentant about the pay raises to the
lawmakers, who currently make a base salary of $46,200 per year, and said that he "showed some restraint" in not granting
a bigger raise to his friend Representative Angelo M. Scaccia (D-Readville), chairman of the
House Rules Committee. Finneran denied that the raises amounted to political payoffs to
loyalists. He insisted the pay hikes are a reward to his team for increasing the efficiency of the
House.
"I don't feel any sense of embarrassment or awkwardness,"
Finneran said. He contended that the four floor leaders -- who had been receiving an extra $7,500 since January when they
were appointed and will get another $7,500 under the pay-raise plan -- had been giving him
"extraordinary assistance" during House debates.
"Judge me on how well this place performs," Finneran told
reporters.
But Hodgkins and other critics say the House has run
smoothly for more than 200 years without the new positions and accuse Finneran of paying off loyalists and consolidating
power.
An extra $15,000 per year will flow to four Finneran
loyalists who since January have been acting as "division leaders," whose task is to keep Democratic members informed of
the wishes of leadership during floor votes. In addition, two committee chairmen will receive
$15,000 in raises, and two vice chairman of those same committees will see their pay jump
by $7,500. The two ranking Republicans on those committees will also get $7,500 a year
pay hikes.
Finneran praised the leadership role of Scaccia, whom he
retained even after the Readville Democrat last fall received the third-highest fine in the history of the State Ethics
Commission for accepting golf fees and dinners from lobbyists. Scaccia is appealing the ruling.
"He's actually worth more than that," Finneran said of the
extra $15,000 Scaccia will receive. "I've showed some restraint."
Finneran also brushed aside Hodgkins's charges, saying that
he and other critics are still bitter over the speaker's battle last year when he defeated former Majority Leader Richard
Voke.
Other members vehemently dispute that interpretation. What
angered them, they say, is that the pay hikes were slipped quietly into a so-called deficiency budget that was only
released by the House Ways and Means Committee at 7 p.m. Tuesday. At the close of a formal
session three hours earlier, Finneran announced from the speaker's podium the budget was
merely "a bill-paying exercise" and did not mention the controversial pay hikes.
Copies were made available to legislators only yesterday
morning in the chamber when the House convened for an informal sesion, but members were told that no amendment to the
deficiency budget could be offered.
Having obtained two additional extra-pay positions,
Republicans, whose votes were crucial to Finneran in winning the speakership last year, were mute on the issue. Minority
Leader David Peters of Charlton did not return a call seeking comment.
The division leaders, all Democrats, who will get pay hikes
are Representative Kevin W. Fitzgerald of Jamaica Plain, Representative Robert Correia of Fall River, Representative
Thomas M. Petrolati of Ludlow, and Representative Maryanne Lewis of
Dedham.
The other raises will go to Scaccia his extra pay will jump
from $7,500 a year to $15,000; and the vice chairman on the rules committee, Alvin Thompson of Cambridge, who will get
$7,500 a year extra.
In addition, a $15,000 raise went to the chairwoman of the
newly created committee on Longterm Debt and Capital Expenditures, Representative Patricia Walrath of Stow. That
panel's vice chairman, Representative Frank Hynes of Marshfield, will get $7,500 a year
extra pay.
The ranking Republican on the Rules committee, Ronald W.
Gauch of Shrewsbury, will get $7,500 extra pay; and the ranking GOP member of the long-term debt panel, Representative
Patrick C. Guerriero of Melrose, gets a $7,500 hike.
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