CLT
UPDATE
Monday, July 7, 2003
Memo to legislators on veto
overrides ...
and a "delicious" life indeed
Congratulations on getting the budget done on time; we know it has been a difficult year.
We support the Governor's efforts to reform state government in general; our specific focus at this time is on these vetoes. Having just celebrated Independence Day 3002, we begin with ...
CLT Memo to the Legislature
Monday, July 7, 2003
Re: Vetoes
When it considers vetoes from Governor Romney this week, the Legislature will have a chance to uphold its own integrity. It needs to sustain the veto of a bill that would allow the House speaker and the Senate president to give pay increases unilaterally to favored members....
It is another outrageous power grab by a man who is already setting new standards of autocratic rule. Romney was right to veto it....
Another veto is also worth sustaining. The state budget is replete with increases in fees that raise hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, most of them regrettable but necessary because the Legislature and Governor Romney refuse to raise taxes. But one of the fees - a 65 cent surcharge on pharmacy prescriptions - should not become law....
There are better, more equitable ways to raise the money. A small increase in the income tax, from its present 5.3 to 5.6 percent, would generate far more money and spread the burden beyond a single industry or group of consumers.
A Boston Globe editorial
Monday, July 7, 2003
Two vetoes to sustain
In many ways, the underlying debate is about whether to raise taxes - and whether the votes would be there this fall if a tax bill were brought forward.
State House News Service
Weekly Roundup - Week of June 30, 2003
The Massachusetts Teachers Association is launching a large lobbying effort urging legislators to override vetoes to several areas of education.
State House News Service
Advances - Week of July 7, 2003
Unlike previous budgets, the state's new $22 billion-plus spending plan doesn't include new taxes, but it'll cost more to register your boat, play golf at state courses or replace a lost driver's license.
Those are a few of the $400 million in new fees and fee increases needed to keep the state in the black.
Critics say the fee hikes amount to higher taxes by another name.
"When you add them to the fifth highest tax burden in the country, it's sort of adding insult to injury," said
Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation....
"Like everybody else, I'm celebrating what we should be taking for granted, that the budget's done on time," said Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation. "I guess it's a sad state of affairs, but we are very appreciative of them doing their job."
The Patriot Ledger
Saturday, July 5, 2003
Budget: No new taxes, but new and higher fees
The Legislature shouldn't let Menino get away with using this blatant scare tactic to sell them on overriding the veto. The reality is that the mayor has plenty of fiscal maneuvering room to easily absorb the vetoed funds without making any further service reductions....
But unless legislative leaders use an equally harsh tone about Menino's truly unnecessary threatened cuts, they will quickly slip off their already shaky moral high ground.
As for Menino, he should reread that children's tale about the boy who cried wolf. The next time the city has a real cash crunch, there may be no one in the State House who will believe him.
A Boston Herald editorial
Monday, July 7, 2003
Menino cries wolf on cuts
Tom Finneran's reputation as a responsible steward of the state's fiscal affairs is on the line this week as he considers which and how many budget veto overrides to bring before the House....
In an interview, Secretary of Administration and Finance Eric Kriss, said, "We have been living on borrowed time. If we don't reduce this reliance on non-recurring revenue very soon, we are going to have a fiscal crisis without end." ...
He's right. And Finneran knows it. This is not the time for the speaker to abandon his responsible fiscal course.
A Boston Herald editorial
Monday, July 7, 2003
Finneran's legacy at risk with vetoes
In one of his first acts upon taking office, Romney instituted a tough new "blind review" process that forces judicial candidates to be considered strictly on their merits and qualifications.
The paperwork mistake could topple Natick District Court Clerk Magistrate Brian J. Kearney, the husband of ex-Rep. Maryanne Lewis, a onetime close ally of Finneran's.
Kearney's appointment was seen as a consolation prize for Lewis, who was tossed out of office last year - especially since the Joint Bar Committee on Judicial Appointments deemed Kearney "not qualified."
The Boston Herald
Monday, July 7, 2003
Bench mess in Swift's wake
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
This morning I had one of those "oh oh"
moments when I read the Boston Globe editorial, "Two vetoes to
sustain," after we had just last night e-mailed out copies of our
memo to every state rep and senator, the governor's office and the media
statewide (Chip Faulkner is at the State House as I write, dropping them
off at the offices of each state rep and senator). The Boston Globe
editorial elite and CLT are in agreement ... what did we miss? What are
we doing wrong!
Then I read their bottom line: "A small increase in the income tax, from its present 5.3 to 5.6 percent, would generate far more money and spread the burden
..." Whew, I almost thought we'd have to reconsider our position,
retract our memo to the Legislature, disavow our news release! I should
have known better: the Globe doesn't mention the state budget without
calling for higher taxes.
This is the week that will pit reformer Governor Mitt
Romney against the entrenched status quo in the Legislature and set the
path of the Commonwealth for the foreseeable future. Can and will
"The Best Legislature Money Can Buy" continue with
devil-may-care business-as-usual despite the will of the majority of
citizenry, skate with impunity; or can the governor ultimately rein them
in?
Will Imperious Maximus, aka House Speaker Tom
Finneran, achieve ultimate power over all of state government and his
"staff," or will his flock resist his blatant expansion of
power at their expense, develop some backbone in time to save themselves
from his jowls and their constituents' righteous opprobrium?
It's another historic week in Massachusetts. Stay
tuned.
And in yet another example of "what goes around
comes around" if only you're patient, the husband of Finneran
Favorite Maryanne Lewis could be about to lose his consolation prize,
compensation for the former-state rep's sell-out of her constituents to
instead grovel in the graces of Caligula, the House speaker. You'll
recall that CLT made an all-out
effort to unseat former-Rep. Lewis in the last election, running an
issue ad in her local newspaper the day before her primary that
reportedly tipped the balance. As Howie Carr has often said, she
abruptly retired due to illness: the voters got sick of her. Upon our
success, her husband, Brian Kearney, was
quickly appointed clerk magistrate of Natick District Court.
(See also: "Reaction to CLT's issue ads,"
Sep. 17, 2002; "Voters take out key Finneran Favorite,"
Sep. 18, 2002 and; "'Anatomy' of Rep. Maryanne Lewis' defeat,"
Sep. 19, 2002.)
Now we've learned that his appointment may well be
rescinded over a bureaucratic faux pas, that both he and his wife may
soon be exiled to the dreaded private sector.
Isn't life sometimes ... indeed
"delicious"!
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Chip
Ford |
– CLT MEMO –
To: Members of the General Court
July 7, 2003
Re: Vetoes
Congratulations on getting the budget done on time; we know it has been a difficult year.
We support the Governor's efforts to reform state government in general; our specific focus at this time is on these vetoes. Having just celebrated Independence Day
2003, we begin with:
1. The veto of the bill to give Speaker Finneran unilateral power to give taxpayer dollars to favored legislators, those whom Rep. Mark Howland was quoted as calling "his staff."
"State Rep. Mark Howland, D-Freetown, said he supported the pay raises and he would support overriding the governor's veto.
"'The pay raises merely give the House leader the same power the governor already has,' he said....
"'The administrative branch has the power to set its staff. This was to give the legislative branch the same power,' he said.
"The New Bedford Standard-Times
June 28 - Romney vetoes raise bill
By the Associated Press and by Jack Spillane
Speaker Finneran already has the power to set his staff: his secretary, his receptionist, his chief of staff, his director of constituent services, his issues staff, his spokesman. Therefore Rep Howland can only be referring to leadership legislators. We would like to think of legislators as our state representatives, not Speaker Finneran's staff. We hope you see yourselves in the same democratic light.
2. The veto of the tax on prescription drugs. Is this some new variation on
regressivity: "Blessed are they who tax the sick"? Many legislators who voted for the budget last year admitted when asked that they hadn't known this tax was in the package. Now you know that someone wants to make the cost of prescription drugs even higher by adding 65¢ to the cost of each prescription that will be passed on, one way or another, to the consumer. Please sustain the Governor's veto of this new tax on people who are ill.
Too bad there is no opportunity at this time to repeal the equally appalling Swift tax on self-payers in nursing home beds. ("Blessed are they who tax the dying"?) We expect that the opportunity to rip off the federal government on Medicaid with these health taxes will be short-lived, as the feds are beginning to object to this ploy in other states.
3. We anticipate a veto of the Overlay exclusion from Proposition 2½, i.e, a property tax increase that is contained in the municipal relief package. In twenty-three years, the Legislature has not created spending exclusions from Prop 2½, and local voters can already choose to raise their property taxes using existing override provisions. We hope you will vote to sustain this veto and protect the people's law.
4. Congratulations on the Human Services reorganization. On the new budget cuts: We hope that wise management under the new system will preserve services while cutting the fat that – to quote Congressman Barney Frank when he was a state representative (never a "staff") – "is marbled throughout the budget meat." Resisting new taxes is how we taxpayers keep on the heat that melts out the fat. When the fiscal crisis is over, we hope to see a more streamlined, efficient state government of which we, and our representatives (not the Speaker's "staff"), can be proud.
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The Boston Globe
Monday, July 7, 2003
A Boston Globe editorial
Two vetoes to sustain
When it considers vetoes from Governor Romney this week, the Legislature will have a chance to uphold its own integrity. It needs to sustain the veto of a bill that would allow the House speaker and the Senate president to give pay increases unilaterally to favored members.
As it is, Massachusetts far exceeds other states in the number of legislators who receive augmented pay, and the amount paid out consolidates the power of the presiding officers in a way that is sometimes comical - as when mere vote counters are included. But at least the current system requires such raises to be doled out through a statute.
Earlier this year, House Speaker Thomas Finneran proposed that some raises be processed through internal rules changes, cutting out both the governor and the voters, who can seek repeal of statutes.
It is another outrageous power grab by a man who is already setting new standards of autocratic rule. Romney was right to veto it.
The measure passed the Legislature comfortably but barely had the two-thirds support in the House needed to override a veto. The veto must be sustained if the General Court wants any claim to its role as a legislative body rather than two fiefdoms.
Another veto is also worth sustaining. The state budget is replete with increases in fees that raise hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, most of them regrettable but necessary because the Legislature and Governor Romney refuse to raise taxes. But one of the fees - a 65 cent surcharge on pharmacy prescriptions - should not become law.
Prescription drugs are a necessity of life for thousands of people, many on limited incomes. While 65 cents is a small amount, people with multiple prescriptions could easily find their drug bills increasing by many dollars a month. The governor has wisely vetoed the fee, contained in this year's budget, and the Legislature should uphold his action.
Pharmacies would be especially hard hit by the fee because it would be retroactive to July 1, 2002, when an earlier version of the law took effect. A successful court challenge overturned the 2002 law, but the Legislature, in the vetoed budget item, insists that pharmacies absorb a $36 million retroactive payment to the state. It is unfair to single out the industry for this extra expense.
The state needs every bit of revenue to meet its obligations this year, and because of a quirk in the Medicaid system, the pharmacy fee would earn the state a dollar-for-dollar federal reimbursement. There are better, more equitable ways to raise the money. A small increase in the income tax, from its present 5.3 to 5.6 percent, would generate far more money and spread the burden beyond a single industry or group of consumers.
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State House News Service
Weekly Roundup - Week of June 30, 2003
By Craig Sandler
[Excerpt]
In many ways, the underlying debate is about whether to raise taxes - and whether the votes would be there this fall if a tax bill were brought forward. Even here, the politics are tricky because the public mood is nuanced. As word of the layoffs and program cancellations hit home at the city and town level, some constituents have become more pro-tax than their lawmakers. In the aggregate, budget cutting moves people into the "yes" camp on raising their own taxes. At the same time, legislators know what an ominous - or impressive - percentage of their voters were ready to repeal the income tax last year.
In the end, both sides claimed to be on the side of virtue, and will continue to do so. But their success, and claim on power, depends on divining, as well as defining what the people want. Services or stable tax rates? Compassion or aggressive management? The answer, of course, is that the people want everything; the truth is they can't have it. The next question becomes, what do they want more of? Partly it depends on how well the politician couches his or her priorities, and whether the media plays the message as the politician intends. But in large part, it's a guessing game. So it was this week.
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State House News Service
Advances - Week of July 7, 2003
[Excerpt]
The Massachusetts Teachers Association is launching a large lobbying effort urging legislators to override vetoes to several areas of education. Vetoes to local aid, full-day kindergarten grants, early literacy grants, MCAS special education appeals, and English immersion have the MTA on a frantic campaign to ensure the branches include those items on the list of those to be debated.
Three days before he acted on the state budget, Gov. Romney vetoed another bill that hits legislative leaders closer to home. The bill would have allowed legislative leaders to determine the level of premium pay for assistant leaders and committee heads. Romney insists that legislative pay must be set by statute. The governor has also said that if his veto is overridden, a court suit would be in order to test the constitutionality of the House and Senate action.
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The Patriot Ledger
Saturday, July 5, 2003
Budget: No new taxes, but new and higher fees
By Tom Benner
Patriot Ledger State House Bureau
Unlike previous budgets, the state's new $22 billion-plus spending plan doesn't include new taxes, but it'll cost more to register your boat, play golf at state courses or replace a lost driver's license.
Those are a few of the $400 million in new fees and fee increases needed to keep the state in the black.
Critics say the fee hikes amount to higher taxes by another name.
"When you add them to the fifth highest tax burden in the country, it's sort of adding insult to injury," said
Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation.
The nontax revenue "enhancers," as they are called on Beacon Hill, don't stop there. State employees will kick in more for their health insurance. And Medicaid recipients are required to make co-payments for some services.
Medicaid costs are taking up an increasingly larger part of the budget, up from 22 percent to 29 percent in three years. That forces cuts in other areas, including public health prevention programs, higher education, local aid and human services.
"This is an absolutely unsustainable state of affairs, to have Medicaid growing at this rate," said Michael
Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. "No state has really been able to address this. The answer has to be either the federal government taking over a larger responsibility, which it isn't about to do, or states curtailing benefits."
One in six Massachusetts residents relies on Medicaid as the primary health insurance, mostly elderly people in nursing homes, the disabled and the poor.
The budget for fiscal 2003-2004, which took effect Tuesday, also includes some bureaucratic restructuring.
For example, the Metropolitan District Commission, long criticized as a patronage haven, is being dissolved. Other state agencies will run parks and recreational facilities.
Sixteen health and human services agencies will be merged into four groups, creating a more streamlined system for those seeking help.
"It's going to save us a lot of money down the road, and it's going to provide families with one door to go to instead of 16 different agencies to get services," said Sen. Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, the Senate's chief budget writer.
Some nonmonetary policy changes were tacked onto the budget. For example, the voter-approved Clean Elections Law is repealed under the new budget. The public campaign finance system took its last gasp at midnight Tuesday.
To boost lottery ticket sales - which raise money for cities and towns - the budget includes $5 million for the Braintree-based Lottery to advertise big jackpots. It's the first time in nearly a decade that the Lottery will be allowed to advertise.
And no spending plan would be complete without a few budget-balancing gimmicks. This budget shortchanges the amount of money the state puts into its pension fund, instead transferring two state assets - the Boston Common Parking Garage and the Hynes Convention Center - to the pension fund for possible sale.
Some spending on South Shore recreational facilities in the Legislature's draft of the budget has been wiped out by Gov. Mitt Romney's vetoes.
For example, Romney cut funds for the Blue Hills Trailside Museum in Milton from $219,000 to zero. He cut funds for the state-run Ponkapoag Golf Course in Canton by $250,000, to $850,000. And money for the Talking Information Center, a Marshfield-based reading service for the blind, was cut in half to $250,000.
South Shore representatives say they will seek to reverse those cuts when the House takes up budget overrides next week. Any overrides of gubernatorial vetoes must originate in the House, then move to the Senate. Legislators have the remainder of the calendar year to override any of the $201 million in budget vetoes announced Monday by Romney.
The other big difference between the new budget and those of previous years is that the budget was in place on time for the new fiscal year, which began Tuesday. Some past budgets weren't on the books until after Thanksgiving.
"Like everybody else, I'm celebrating what we should be taking for granted, that the budget's done on time," said Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation. "I guess it's a sad state of affairs, but we are very appreciative of them doing their job."
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The Boston Herald
Monday, July 7, 2003
A Boston Herald editorial
Menino cries wolf on cuts
Mayor Tom Menino is floating the possibility of further cuts to schools in the wake of Gov. Mitt Romney's veto of an additional $10 million in local aid to Boston.
The Legislature shouldn't let Menino get away with using this blatant scare tactic to sell them on overriding the veto. The reality is that the mayor has plenty of fiscal maneuvering room to easily absorb the vetoed funds without making any further service reductions.
Since Boston will lose far less in local aid than the $100 million the mayor based his budget on - $46 million if Romney's veto is sustained - the mayor was able to submit a "restoration budget" to the Boston City Council in June, undoing many of his proposed service and personnel cuts.
According to the Boston Municipal Research Bureau's June report, the city prudently didn't propose to spend every dime of the more generous local aid package and left itself $10 million worth of wiggle room.
The bureau also points out that it's very likely the city's legal requirement to maintain 5 percent, or some $50 million, of its property tax levy in an overlay account to pay for abatements will be reduced to 4 percent under pending legislation. This also frees up $10 million.
So Boston will have at least two $10 million cushions it can fall back on to make up for the vetoed funds without making a single additional cut.
Senate President Robert Travaglini has called Romney's veto of a total of $201 million, including the local aid cuts, "morally offensive." His Ways and Means Committee chief chimed in, too, calling the cuts "morally reprehensible."
There is nothing immoral about a governor taking his constitutional obligation to balance the budget seriously. And the rhetorical broadsides are a disappointing departure from what had been a largely bipartisan approach to tackling the state's fiscal mess.
But unless legislative leaders use an equally harsh tone about Menino's truly unnecessary threatened cuts, they will quickly slip off their already shaky moral high ground.
As for Menino, he should reread that children's tale about the boy who cried wolf. The next time the city has a real cash crunch, there may be no one in the State House who will believe him.
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The Boston Herald
Monday, July 7, 2003
A Boston Herald editorial
Finneran's legacy at risk with vetoes
Tom Finneran's reputation as a responsible steward of the state's fiscal affairs is on the line this week as he considers which and how many budget veto overrides to bring before the House.
The dollar amount of the vetoes in question is relatively small potatoes. Gov. Mitt Romney's veto of $201 million brings the budget into balance, which is not only an important fiscal principle but also a constitutional obligation.
How the state ended up some $200 million in the red after months of fiscal wrangling really is beside the point. The administration points the finger of blame at the Legislature and the Legislature points right back. The bottom line is the governor and legislative leaders have made an admirable and largely cooperative effort to balance the budget. Both sides made some accounting mistakes and now those should be rectified.
But Finneran knows as well as anyone that the $201 million worth of vetoes cannot be viewed in isolation. They set the stage for the rest of this fiscal year but also for fiscal 2005, when a burgeoning structural budget deficit threatens the ability of state government to deliver vital services.
The persistent structural budget gap is a result of the state filling the budget hole with one-time revenue instead of more cuts in spending. Practices like the transfer of state assets to the pension fund are not really smoke and mirrors but you can only do them once. The government services one-time revenue pays for, however, don't disappear when the funding source runs dry.
In an interview, Secretary of Administration and Finance Eric Kriss, said, "We have been living on borrowed time. If we don't reduce this reliance on non-recurring revenue very soon, we are going to have a fiscal crisis without end."
Kriss pegs the structural imbalance in the range of "hundreds of millions of dollars" and plans to release a more precise figure today.
Kriss won't say what "hypothetical" action the governor will take if the Legislature does override a large portion of his vetoes. But further unilateral cuts by Romney later in the fiscal year will only be more painful than what he has proposed now.
As for the optimistic view that the economy is turning around and the state revenue picture looks less bleak, Kriss points out that hitting a "really conservative revenue estimate" that was reduced several times over the last year "is not a cause for celebration."
He's right. And Finneran knows it. This is not the time for the speaker to abandon his responsible fiscal course.
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The Boston Herald
Monday, July 7, 2003
Bench mess in Swift's wake
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
Dozens of former acting Gov. Jane Swift's lame-duck judicial appointees may be serving illegally - and could be forced to face Gov. Mitt Romney's harsh new anti-patronage standards - after Swift failed to fill out the proper paperwork, the Herald has learned.
The list, which was obtained by the Herald, reads like a rogue's gallery of the politically wired pals of Swift and House Speaker Thomas Finneran - including Boston Housing Court Judge Steven D. Pierce, Swift's former chief legal counsel; and Superior Court Judge Kenneth J. Fishman, the ex-lawyer for mobster Stephen "The Rifleman"
Flemmi.
All 26 judges, clerks and administrators - and possibly many more - were rushed through in the dying days of Swift's administration, with each receiving a rubber-stamp from the Governor's Council.
But Swift never signed the so-called commission papers - leaving open the question of whether the appointees were officially seated, State House sources said.
Under the state constitution, judicial appointments are only considered valid when three criteria have been met - appointment by a legitimate authority, a signed commission paper and a sworn oath.
Secretary of State William Galvin recently notified Romney that Swift hadn't signed the 26 commissions - setting off a flurry of administrative investigation, a source said.
As the Romney team scrambles to determine whether the paperwork glitch was meaningful or a technicality, Swift and Galvin pointed the finger at each another.
Swift spokesman Jason Kauppi accused Galvin of dilly-dallying until late February before asking her to sign 10 commissions.
Because she was by then a "private citizen," Swift refused to apply an official gubernatorial signature, Kauppi said.
"It's very clear what the governor's intent was," Kauppi said. "It's a matter of whether bureaucratic paper-pushers are really going to foul up the works here."
Galvin insisted the commissions are merely ceremonial and that the oath cards are the critical hurdle. All 26 signed oaths are on file - meaning the appointments are "perfectly legal," he said.
But Galvin said Swift oversaw a badly managed transition process, and he accused her of being overly sensitive to Romney's early firings - later sheepishly reversed - of a batch of board appointments.
Former Govs. Paul Cellucci and William Weld both signed judicial paperwork after they left office, Galvin said.
"The problem has been a reluctance on her part," Galvin said. "We think she's mistaken."
Romney's advisers are mulling whether to petition Attorney General Thomas Reilly or the state Supreme Judicial Court for a ruling on the legitimacy of the appointments.
If the appointments are deemed invalid, a "de facto" mechanism in the law will prevent the signature debacle from invalidating cases over which the judges and clerks have presided.
But some of the appointees, who coasted into position by virtue of their political connections, could lose their sinecures if they're forced to re-apply to the Romney administration.
In one of his first acts upon taking office, Romney instituted a tough new "blind review" process that forces judicial candidates to be considered strictly on their merits and qualifications.
The paperwork mistake could topple Natick District Court Clerk Magistrate Brian J. Kearney, the husband of ex-Rep. Maryanne Lewis, a onetime close ally of Finneran's.
Kearney's appointment was seen as a consolation prize for Lewis, who was tossed out of office last year - especially since the Joint Bar Committee on Judicial Appointments deemed Kearney "not qualified."
Other notables include Cambridge District Court Judge Michael J.
Pomarole, the ex-chairman of the Parole Board, and Suffolk Juvenile Court Judge Terry M. Craven, the father of a top Finneran aide.
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