CLT Update: 03 Jun 01 - Legislature's "outside sections" scam rolls on, and on ...

CITIZENS FOR LIMITED TAXATION
and the
Citizens Economic Research Foundation

CLT UPDATE
Sunday, June 1, 2003

Legislature's "outside sections" scam rolls on, and on ...

Update on how many Massachusetts liberals really want to pay higher taxes:

As you know by now, the 2002 state income-tax forms allow concerned citizens to opt to pay their taxes at the old, higher 5.85 percent rate, rather than at the new 5.3 percent rate.

Considering that 41 percent of the electorate voted against cutting income taxes in a statewide referendum in 2000, it must be disappointing for liberals to realize that of the 2.1 million returns that have been processed so far, a mere 1,052 citizens have decided to pay their fair share - and more.

That works out to a steady one-20th of 1 percent - one in every 2,000 filers, in other words, who really want to pay higher taxes. Of course, most of those who have decided to pay higher taxes don't pay much anyway. The total added tax amounts to $124,077, which means the good liberals average about $20,000 a year.

The Boston Herald
Sunday, June 1, 2003
The Buzz: A duty-free approach

MassReform President Ian Bayne announced that Chip Ford has joined their coalition to stop the mandatory seat belt law up for a vote in the House today, and promised that the matter will become a major 2004 election issue.

“We are prepared to make this an election issue if the House decides to pass it into law today,” Bayne said....

News Release - MassReform
May 29, 2003
Chip Ford Joins Coalition to Stop Mandatory Seat Belt Law:
Seat Belts Will Become a Major 2004 Election Issue

Senator Robert L. Hedlund led the charge by securing passage of two budget provisions during the Senate budget debate to eliminate two proposed fees that would directly affect every homeowner and motorists across the Commonwealth. First. Senator Hedlund filed an amendment that led to the elimination of the proposed fee on homeowners insurance....

News Release - Senator Robert L. Hedlund
May 30, 2003
Sen. Hedlund secures victories for homeowners & motorists

In three quick days of budget debate, the state Senate voted to wipe out the Clean Elections law, ease MCAS requirements, ban smoking in workplaces statewide, and place a moratorium on charter schools -- all with little public warning or feedback on the controversial issues.

The Senate's insertion of major, nonfiscal policy changes into the budget has come under attack from critics who say the lawmakers are short-circuiting the democratic process and shutting out public input on important issues.

In some cases, the changes have been gaveled through on voice votes, so how each senator voted is not recorded.

"It eviscerates the democratic process," said Richard A. Hogarty, political science professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. "I can't say that strongly enough. It is a devious way, a Machiavellian way of subverting the American democratic process."

The Boston Globe
Saturday, May 31, 2003
Senate's budget votes seen skirting public input

In past years the Massachusetts House has grown notorious for midnight legislative shenanigans. This year, the Senate is leading the way in bad decisions and poor legislative process.

This week, the debate was supposed to be about enacting a budget, the Legislature's most important act. Considering the state's precarious finances and the impact the budget will have on vital services, important programs and the families and businesses of Massachusetts, the budget should more than fill a short week of legislative debate.

But instead of concentrating on the budget, the Senate has been making decisions about things that have little to do with state government's bottom line. What's worse, those decisions have been made with little public notice, little public debate and no roll call votes.

A MetroWest Daily News editoria;
Sunday, June 1, 2003
Senate's disappointing non-debate

We have always viewed the Clean Elections Law as a fatally flawed and largely ineffective attempt at campaign-financing reform. However, this law is not all that is at stake.

Also at risk is voters' right of initiative petition, a constitutional provision empowering the people to make law when lawmakers - out of self-interest, indifference or other motives - will not. Judiciously used, it is a valuable check on legislative authority.

The budget-amendment ploy gives the law short shrift in the Senate and enables the House to avoid even a pro forma debate, leaving the fate of the people's initiative in the hands of a few lawmakers in a conference committee.

A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Friday, May 30, 2003
Stealth burial
Clean Elections ploy puts initiative petition at risk

Beacon Hill lawmakers this week begin to confront harsh choices over competing budget plans that include massive changes in state government - ranging from cuts in medical care to millions of dollars in fee increases....

Although there are no new taxes in either budget, some lawmakers are almost certain to propose tax hikes later in the summer or fall.

The Boston Herald
Sunday, June 1, 2003
Health care, casinos, fees among budget's hot potatoes

Legislators who claim that residents who complain about taxes aren't willing to pay for services are wrong as well. Massachusetts residents pay through the nose for services, considerably more than those in most other states. They just think they are paying too much. They think state government is too big and costs too much. They are right.

The Massachusetts legislature ought to address that wrong as well in its budget deliberations.

If it does, the state will likely have to spend far less time chasing unscrupulous border jumpers.

An Eagle Tribune editorial
Saturday, May 31, 2003
Get the cheaters, but fix the taxes

Chip Ford's CLT Commentary

Last Wednesday, the day of the vote for primary enforcement of the state mandatory seat belt law, I read a news release issued by MassReform, titled "GOP group says governor is wrong on seat belts; Man who spearheaded "EnlistMitt" opposes him to stop seat belt law":

One year after spearheading a GOP movement that forced Gov. Swift out of office and embraced candidate Romney, MassReform President Ian Bayne is vowing to combat Governor Romney over the issue of seat belts.

"Governor Romney is dead wrong on the seat belt issue," said Bayne.

Bayne is preparing a campaign to be made up of not just Republicans, but anyone who disagrees that free citizens should be required to wear seat belts.

Bayne, who says that he is waiting on the Senate to act, has not ruled out a ballot question committee.

Romney told the Metro West Daily News that he would support the seat belt issue, debated today in the senate, on grounds that taxpayers will pay for damage to people who refuse to buckle up.

Bayne criticized the governor for embracing the seat belt issue on the premise that the government has a right to regulate what it may end up paying for through entitlement programs.

"Personal freedom is not the problem here, if the government is paying for the injuries of those who choose to engage in behavior that may place them in harm, I'd say that the government is the one that has some changing to do," Bayne said.

"Placing a price tag on freedom is not what this country is all about," he added.

This was my out, and in -- a way of having my cake and eat it too!

I recognize that a few CLT members don't see the mandatory seat belt law as a taxpayer issue, as I addressed earlier this week. But I also recognize that a vast majority of CLT activists want to keep fighting against it. Personally, after battling it for some 17-18 years now, I'm pretty tired of it myself ... but it continues as an erosion of personal liberty. When it arises year after year, and the media calls come into this historic spokesman, I cannot be silent.

Now we have someone who wants to pick up the baton; I've passed it on by simply making my expertise on the issue and national contacts available. What an opportunity! I leaped at it, contacted Ian Bayne, and passed that baton. Who says you can't please all of the people all of the time?

* * *

A CLT BLAST FROM THE PAST

House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran has failed for nearly a year to implement most of a series of major reform proposals aimed at cleaning up the "Animal House" atmosphere on Beacon Hill.

Released with fanfare on Dec. 29, 2000, the recommendations attempted to streamline the chaotic House budget process, which most agree is now even more secretive and inefficient than ever before.

"They have finally caught on to what I've always been afraid they would recognize -- they can get away with anything," said Citizens for Limited Taxation chief Barbara Anderson....

The bulk of the reforms offered by the MacQueen Commission -- named for former House clerk Robert MacQueen -- have languished, been partially implemented, or fallen victim to House-Senate bickering....

Legislative leaders have, at least, embarked on the commission's advice to crack down on the proliferation of "outside sections" -- policy items that are attached to the budget despite having nothing to do with state finances.

The Boston Herald
Wednesday, December 12, 2001
'Animal House' still lags in implementing reforms

Here we are, 18-months later, and nothing has changed; if anything it's only gotten worse, more blatant.

"The Best Legislature Money Can Buy" still sneaks in every contentious piece of legislation it can, in the dead of night, with no roll call vote, as an "outside section." Among other items the House buried all its proposed "fee" increases into its budget's "outside section" -- seventy-one pages with 465 items. The Senate Ways & Means budget document included 609 "outside section" items within 107 pages ... and more were added before they were done.

Much of what's included in these "outside sections" are proposed policies that, in any normal state -- even the majority which comfortably function with part-time citizen-legislators many of which have already wrapped up business and gone home -- are separate legislative issues that are debated and openly voted upon; they're not part of the budget process.

In the Peoples' Republic of Taxachusetts pretty much all "The Best Legislature Money Can Buy" does year in and year out is its constitutionally-mandated balanced state budget. It's either in there or it's not all that important. The budget is constitutionally required to be completed by the end of a fiscal year, June 30. Often our dysfunctional Legislature doesn't meet even that deadline, after the majority of state legislatures have gone home. A couple years ago it becoming the laughingstock of the country, completing its budget last in the nation -- in November.

Even with our legislators' alleged full-time status, still major non-budgetary legislation is tucked into the state budget to vote up or down, all or nothing. And once again "The Best Legislature Money Can Buy" is publicly hammered for it.

So what? Do legislators care?

Not so long as they can blame their leadership and still get themselves reelected.

Chip Ford

Republicans leading the charge for government reform in Massachusetts

May 29, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ian Bayne, 866-639-4671; 617-438-1944 cell

Chip Ford Joins Coalition to Stop Mandatory Seat Belt Law:
Seat Belts Will Become a Major 2004 Election Issue

(NATICK May 29, 2003) - MassReform President Ian Bayne announced that Chip Ford has joined their coalition to stop the mandatory seat belt law up for a vote in the House today, and promised that the matter will become a major 2004 election issue.

“We are prepared to make this an election issue if the House decides to pass it into law today,” Bayne said.

Ford, founder of Freedom First, along with WRKO’s Jerrry Williams was a leader of the 1986 statewide ballot referendum rejecting the state’s first mandatory seat belt law. Ford also organized and led the less successful ballot campaign to defeat the second law in 1994. Ford is director of operations for Citizens for Limited Taxation.

“Chip brings a great deal of experience to the table, and I look forward to working alongside him,” said Bayne.

“Ian represents the next generation of citizen-activist that’s sorely needed in this time of government growth and intrusion. He’s got the fire in his belly,” Ford said.

Bayne and Ford appeared separately on numerous broadcast talk shows around the state yesterday. Bayne announced his intention to build a coalition, and says that a referendum is highly probable in the event that the measure is passed today.

Ian Bayne, 29, was chairman of the 1,000 member state Republican Party chartered Massachusetts Republican Society PAC, the founding member of “Enlist Mitt” – the Romney draft effort, and a candidate for state GOP chairman in November of 2001 receiving 27% of the vote against Lt. Governor Kerry Healey. Bayne resides in Natick.

# # #

Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Massachusetts Senate
Senator Robert L. Hedlund

News Release
May 30, 2003
Contact: Bill Rivers, (617) 722-1646

Senator Hedlund secures victories for homeowners & motorists

Senator Robert L. Hedlund led the charge by securing passage of two budget provisions during the Senate budget debate to eliminate two proposed fees that would directly affect every homeowner and motorists across the Commonwealth. First. Senator Hedlund filed an amendment that led to the elimination of the proposed fee on homeowners insurance. Later in the budget debate. Hedlund scored a partial victory for Massachusetts motorists through passage of his amendment which would allow for refunds on the proposed fee.

In the Fiscal Year 2004 budget. the Senate initially proposed a $25 surcharge to homeowner's insurance policies that would generate $40 million to fund "grants" to certain municipalities for emergency first responder services. Senator Hedlund called identified this surcharge as a tax in disguise, and led an effort on behalf of homeowners to repeal this surcharge, and was ultimately successful.

In the midst of a recession is certainly not the time to further increase the cost of living for Massachusetts homeowners," said Senator Hedlund. "We should we seeking ways to make home ownership more affordable instead of the other way around."

The Senate also proposed a $30 fee for motorists to appeal speeding tickets in the FY 2004 budget. While Senator Hedlund's amendment to repeal this fee was defeated. he was able to score a partial victory for motorists. This victory came about through passage of an amendment that allows for a refund of the $30 fee if the appealing authority rules in favor of the motorist.

"While I am against the creation of this fee, I am glad that the Senate allowed for some fairness with its imposition." said Senator Hedlund.

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The Boston Globe
Saturday, May 31, 2003

Senate's budget votes seen skirting public input
By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff

In three quick days of budget debate, the state Senate voted to wipe out the Clean Elections law, ease MCAS requirements, ban smoking in workplaces statewide, and place a moratorium on charter schools -- all with little public warning or feedback on the controversial issues.

The Senate's insertion of major, nonfiscal policy changes into the budget has come under attack from critics who say the lawmakers are short-circuiting the democratic process and shutting out public input on important issues.

In some cases, the changes have been gaveled through on voice votes, so how each senator voted is not recorded.

"It eviscerates the democratic process," said Richard A. Hogarty, political science professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. "I can't say that strongly enough. It is a devious way, a Machiavellian way of subverting the American democratic process."

While the use of budget riders and amendments to make policy changes, modest and sweeping, is not new on Beacon Hill, legislative leaders had sought to curtail the practice in recent years.

But this year, some Senate members say privately that they are turning to the budget process to push through their legislative agenda out of frustration with House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran's refusal to move their bills out of committee.

"The committee structure benefits the House and they don't move major policy initiatives out of committee unless Finneran likes them," said one Senate leader who would speak about the subject only if his name was not used.

House members outnumber senators on the joint legislative committees, and senators grumble that Finneran uses that power to sharply restrict bills, other than those he favors, from getting to a full legislative debate and vote.

Still, the sudden frenzy of activity on controversial issues after months of legislative lethargy has sparked sharp criticism, including from some rank-and-file lawmakers and several special-interest and public-advocacy groups.

"Compression of time and content makes for a very bad way of making public policy," said state Representative Michael Festa, a Democrat from Melrose. "We ought to be concentrating our effort on the money aspect of things during budget debates and leave for a committee the deliberative process to affect substantive changes in public policy."

Tackling major issues through the budget is an obvious temptation to lawmakers, especially legislative leaders. They can very tightly control the voting process during the budget, and move measures very quickly, taking rapid votes and avoiding prolonged debate. And because the public is often not alert to issues they are taking up, lawmakers can often act without lobbying or pressure from the public or interest groups.

Some of the changes the Senate approved this week -- such as the gutting of Clean Elections, a law created by voters in 1998; a statewide smoking ban, which is highly controversial; and an amendment to block expansion of charter schools -- were done by voice vote, without a roll call, and legislators' positions were not recorded.

Another budget amendment approved by the Senate would make major changes to enviromental laws by creating some of the nation's toughest punishments against polluters.

Also, with virtually no debate, the Senate -- as did the House -- went along with a provision in the budget that wipes out another voter-approved initiative: the state's tobacco control program. Credited with sharply reducing smoking in Massachusetts, the program had been created in a 1992 referendum when voters backed a 25-cent tax on cigarettes to fund an anti-smoking campaign.

Senate President Robert E. Travaglini defended the Senate's extensive use of amendments and riders that were not related to fiscal issues.

"These are extraordinary times and unfortunately we have to engage in, sometimes, a policy and procedure that is unusual," Travaglini said. He said he has been assured by Senate lawyers that the amendments were within the rules and legally permissible.

The Senate yesterday ended its budget deliberations, approving by a 34-5 vote a $22.7 billion plan for the next fiscal year that contains no new taxes but would raise $500 million in fee increases. During the final day of debate, senators approved the creation of a prescription drug bulk-purchasing program for the uninsured

The Senate budget, along with all the policy changes, now goes to a budget conference, where, behind closed doors, House and Senate leaders will decide on a final compromise plan that will be sent back to their members for final approval. It then goes to Governor Mitt Romney, who can veto the items and sections that he opposes.

But now, with the House and Senate members having concluded their open budget deliberations, rank-and-file members -- and the public -- have very little control over what is finally approved. The rules for debate on the final budget sharply limit the discussion of the issues. They prohibit any amendments and require an up or down vote by the legislators.

Travaglini said he feels that the Senate acted appropriately because most of the initiatives that were added to the Senate budget have had previous public airings. The Senate leader particularly defended the move to gut the Clean Elections Law, saying the issue had been extensively debated and had been the subject of a referendum last November in which voters expressed opposition to using public funds for campaigns.

"This is not an issue that spawned overnight," Travaglini said of the Clean Elections debate.

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The MetroWest Daily News
Sunday, June 1, 2003

Editorial
Senate's disappointing non-debate

In past years the Massachusetts House has grown notorious for midnight legislative shenanigans. This year, the Senate is leading the way in bad decisions and poor legislative process.

This week, the debate was supposed to be about enacting a budget, the Legislature's most important act. Considering the state's precarious finances and the impact the budget will have on vital services, important programs and the families and businesses of Massachusetts, the budget should more than fill a short week of legislative debate.

But instead of concentrating on the budget, the Senate has been making decisions about things that have little to do with state government's bottom line. What's worse, those decisions have been made with little public notice, little public debate and no roll call votes. To give just three examples:

l Voters enacted the Clean Elections Law in 1998 and incumbent politicians have been trying to get rid of it ever since. But if the Senate knew it had the votes to repeal it, why not do it after public hearings, an open debate and a recorded vote? Instead, senators repealed it as part of the budget debate on a quick, voice vote. If the repeal comes out of the conference committee (a near-certainty), House members won't have to vote on it at all, and five years of trying to reform the state's campaign spending system will have been flushed away in a most cowardly, undemocratic fashion.

l Charter schools have been a key element in the state's 10-year-old education reform effort, winning enthusiastic supporters -- especially among students and their parents -- and vehement opponents. You'd think changing direction on education reform would be worth more than a few minutes of the Senate's time, but instead senators slammed the door on new or expanded charter schools late Thursday, without a debate and without a recorded vote.

l The persecution of smokers has been growing for more than a decade, as businesses and local boards of health imposed one smoking ban after another. While we sympathize with the poor smokers huddled on the sidewalks in the cold and rain, there is logic behind considering uniform, statewide rules on smoking in bars and restaurants. But smoking bans have nothing to do with the budget, and the total prohibition on smoking in all workplaces in Massachusetts deserves more careful consideration than the few minutes the Senate gave it before gavelling it through late Thursday night.

We don't expect to agree with every decision made by the state Senate. But issues that have no impact on state finances shouldn't be tacked onto the budget in the first place. The people who elected the Legislature have a right to expect important issues to be debated openly, considered thoroughly and decided on a roll call vote. This week, the Senate let those voters down.

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The Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Friday, May 30, 2003

Editorial
Stealth burial
Clean Elections ploy puts initiative petition at risk

The Massachusetts Legislature, which strangled the Clean Elections Law in its crib last year, now is preparing a stealth burial of the voter-enacted statute.

Unwilling to debate the measure on its merits, or to be held accountable for nullifying a law endorsed by 1.1 million voters, the Senate leadership has placed Clean Elections repeal on the agenda as one of more than 600 amendments to the Senate budget.

That is a shame. A measure duly voted into law by the people deserves better than to be vacated in the frenzy of budget deliberations.

We have always viewed the Clean Elections Law as a fatally flawed and largely ineffective attempt at campaign-financing reform. However, this law is not all that is at stake.

Also at risk is voters' right of initiative petition, a constitutional provision empowering the people to make law when lawmakers - out of self-interest, indifference or other motives - will not. Judiciously used, it is a valuable check on legislative authority.

The budget-amendment ploy gives the law short shrift in the Senate and enables the House to avoid even a pro forma debate, leaving the fate of the people's initiative in the hands of a few lawmakers in a conference committee.

Proposals to repeal the Clean Elections Law already are being considered by the Joint Election Laws Committee. That process, followed by debate and roll calls in the House and Senate, is the proper way to go.

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The Boston Herald
Sunday, June 1, 2003

Health care, casinos, fees among budget's hot potatoes
by Joe Battenfeld

Beacon Hill lawmakers this week begin to confront harsh choices over competing budget plans that include massive changes in state government - ranging from cuts in medical care to millions of dollars in fee increases.

After passing different versions of a $22.5 billion budget, House and Senate lawmakers now start the hard part - figuring out a way to agree on a final plan without angering voters and jeopardizing their own jobs come Election Day.

Sources said senators are also slated to take up casino gambling and slot machine bills later this week, even though the House has rejected those proposals.

The House this week debates another controversial idea - allowing cities such as Boston to raise local taxes and fees.

Tomorrow, lawmakers hold hearings on Gov. Mitt Romney's attempt to ram through his government reorganization plan - including eliminating UMass President William M. Bulger's job - through a constitutional procedure.

Lawmakers have less than two months to take a vote on the Romney plan.

The biggest unresolved budget issues center on health care to the elderly and government restructuring.

The Senate's budget restores Medicaid benefits for 36,000 people that the House refused to cover.

The Senate also used $175 million in reserves to fund its budget - an idea House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran (D-Mattapan) has staunchly opposed.

Then there is the thorny question of new taxes.

Although there are no new taxes in either budget, some lawmakers are almost certain to propose tax hikes later in the summer or fall.

"The governor has made clear he will veto any attempt to raise taxes," Romney spokeswoman Shawn Feddeman said.

Despite the differences, House and Senate leaders say they're determined to avoid the stalemates of past years that dragged the negotiating process into the fall. Lawmakers are planning to put a final budget on Romney's desk by mid-June, before the July 1 deadline.

Finneran and new Senate President Robert E. Travaglini (D-East Boston) will resolve many issues behind closed doors.

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The Lawrence Eagle Tribune
Saturday, May 31, 2003

Editorial
Get the cheaters, but fix the taxes

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Yet that appears to be the illogic used by border jumpers. They are the people who live in Massachusetts but rent post office boxes in New Hampshire so they can duck what they consider high sales and auto excise taxes, plus get a break on their auto insurance.

Thus it is entirely appropriate for the Massachusetts Legislature, as proposed in the current Senate budget, to direct the state Department of Revenue and Department of Motor Vehicles to share information that will make it easier to crack down on those who are committing that kind of fraud.

While nobody knows the exact extent of the problem, an investigation by The Eagle-Tribune last fall showed thousands of post office boxes being rented in New Hampshire border towns, two to five times more than the number in nearby Massachusetts communities.

The best estimate by the state is that these scofflaws are costing the rest of us about $50 million a year in taxes and fees.

But if all the Legislature does is go after those who are avoiding taxes, it will have failed to address the second wrong in this equation: People are faking New Hampshire residency because the tax and fee burden in Massachusetts is out of all proportion to the services received.

Legislators who claim that residents who complain about taxes aren't willing to pay for services are wrong as well. Massachusetts residents pay through the nose for services, considerably more than those in most other states. They just think they are paying too much. They think state government is too big and costs too much. They are right.

The Massachusetts legislature ought to address that wrong as well in its budget deliberations.

If it does, the state will likely have to spend far less time chasing unscrupulous border jumpers.

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