CLT
UPDATE
Thursday, September 30, 2004
"I could not help it - it's my nature"
"Why did you do it? You promised not to sting me! Now we are both going to drown!" The scorpion replies, "I'm sorry, Sir, but I could not help it - it's my
nature."
The Scorpion And The Frog
Ęsop's Fables
New House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi was short on specifics as he took office yesterday, but there was no mistaking one item he left dangling - the possibility of tax hikes....
Raising the spectre of new or increased taxes, he said: "When it comes to finding ways to provide more cost-effective services, or identifying and addressing unmet needs, everything will be on the table....
Some lawmakers fear that handing GOP Gov. Mitt Romney a platform to hammer Democrats next month as free-spending liberals who want to raise taxes could spell disaster as incumbent representatives defend their seats.
"Romney must have been drooling on that," said one worried lawmaker. "You take Finneran out of the way for the November elections and then they drop taxes right back onto the table."
The Boston Herald
Thursday, September 30, 2004
New boss hikes tax expectations:
'Everything will be on the table' in Legislature
Romney and DiMasi greeted each other warmly at the ceremony to elect the new speaker, but a sharp partisan current ran through the day's events.
With just five weeks left before election day, Democratic legislative and party leaders say they will meet over the next few days to lay plans to raise more money and devise a media strategy to blunt Romney's well-financed effort to seat more Republicans in the Legislature....
Even as the state cut roughly $3 billion in programs and services to close budget deficits during the recent fiscal crisis, Finneran, backed by Romney in 2003 and 2004, insisted that tax increases were "off the table." Finneran shepherded a $1.2 billion increase through the House in 2002, but he argued that there was no appetite for further hikes.
DiMasi seemed to reject that philosophy yesterday. "When it comes to finding ways to provide more cost-effective services or identifying and addressing unmet needs, everything will be on the table," he said.
Romney insisted that the "door to taxes" is closed, but said he welcomed the call for reform. "I certainly hope he means every possible reform is on the table," he said. "We're not going down the [road] to 'Taxachusetts' again."
The Boston Globe
Thursday, September 30, 2004
DiMasi vows tough fight against GOP
There's a reason Republican strategists are chortling about the political status quo, nary a dime's worth of difference between the new speaker and the old. This is, of course, their fondest hope....
In fact, the North End Democrat's reputation as a political insider and deal-maker can be a real plus for Democrats if he puts his considerable skills to work promoting a reform agenda.
Instead of being an albatross around Democratic candidates' necks this fall, DiMasi can make the case that sending Democratic legislators to the State House will give him the solid team he needs to keep the House on the reform track....
Or, alternatively, delight the scribes on Morrissey Boulevard with a focus on stem-cell research and tax "fairness," assure labor unions they have a friend in you, build the human service leviathan and pay for it on the backs of employers. In other words, Sal, do exactly what Gov. Mitt Romney and the Republican Party hope you will do. Make their job easy and become the poster boy for all that is wrong with one-party rule on Beacon Hill.
A Boston Herald editorial
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Reformer or not depends on DiMasi
As House members today execute the deal struck over the weekend to elect Rep. Salvatore F. DiMasi as their speaker, DiMasi's former rival, Rep. John Rogers, said the agreement between the men did not include the resurrection of a term limit for the powerful post.
Rogers, who will move from chairman of Ways and Means to majority leader in January, said he offered DiMasi "unconditional support" Friday night as they sat in DiMasi's North End dining room.
"There are no strings attached," Rogers (D-Norwood) said yesterday. "On the way out the door, I specifically said, 'I'm not asking for a term limit. You're my speaker. I don't believe in term limits, and you stay as long as you want.' So he's there as long as he wants, and I'll support him as long as he chooses to stay there."
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
DiMasi will make self at home in the House:
Ex-rival: No term limit
For years the House has been chafing under the iron hand of Tom Finneran, whose tight management style usurped the power and prerogative of the rank and file. To know what the House was going to do, nine times out of 10, all you needed to find out was what Tom Finneran wanted.
Now, that wasn't always a bad thing.... But it made things frustrating indeed for the average state rep, who thought that winning election to the Legislature should actually mean having a little influence over public policy instead of being reduced to impotent fuming over what Speaker Finneran was doing in your name.
Why, some reformers got so fed up that they even contemplated running for speaker themselves in the last month or so. But because discretion is the better part of legislative valor -- and because it often leads to bigger offices, choicer committee assignments, and more aides -- now they've cast their lot with DiMasi instead....
"Sal is saying all the right things," this person reported. Such as? "He is going to be inclusive, we are going to have debates. He is saying he is not going to be Tom Finneran."
Now, that's one impressive sell, because to buy it, you also have to buy this notion: Not only will the new speaker not be Tom Finneran, he will no longer be Sal DiMasi either.
Which is another way of saying, let's not forget who DiMasi actually is: the ultimate old boy insider....
So has the old legislative leopard really changed his spots?
Call me a skeptic, but despite DiMasi's charm offensive, I'll believe it when I see it.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Old boy Sal
By Scot Lehigh
Sure, Finneran provided cover for some House members who were able to blame him for unpopular votes, such as freezing the income tax rollback in 2002 -- a move this page applauded. But for every House member who was comforted by a patriarchal speaker, many others bristled.
His refusal to enforce the Clean Elections Law nearly precipitated a constitutional crisis with the judicial branch, and his condescension toward the voters who passed the reform by ballot initiative -- implying they were too addled to know what they were voting for and needed to be asked again -- soured his eventual victory at the
polls.
A Boston Globe editorial
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Finneran's legacy
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
We know that new House Speaker Sal DiMasi was
personally anointed by former Speaker Tom Finneran, and now we learn
that DiMasi's closest challenger for Finneran's scepter, Rep. John
Rogers, has determined that there will be no restrictions put on DiMasi,
"no strings attached" -- that Rogers' liege lord will serve at
his pleasure for as long as he
deigns.
"There are no strings attached," Rogers (D-Norwood)
said yesterday. "On the way out the door, I specifically said, 'I'm not asking for a term limit. You're my speaker. I don't believe in term limits, and you stay as long as you want.' So he's there as long as he wants, and I'll support him as long as he chooses to stay there."
Finneran handpicked his successor in the usual
backroom deal, Rogers rubber-stamped the ascension and decreed
"You are my master for as long as you so choose."
Nobody else in the House was consulted. Still, every
Democrat but one, Rep. Cory Atkins of Concord, thought this arrangement
was just fine and voted to endorse and ratify it.
Smartly this time, Republican House members didn't
jump on the bandwagon. Instead this time they nominated and voted for
their minority leader, Rep. Brad Jones. This has saved them from having
to again defend for years their votes elevating another Democrat to
tyrant-for-life.
Rep. Sal DiMasi no sooner had ascended the throne of
Speaker-for-Life than tax increases again were resurrected as a threat
upon his subjects. This was
the last thing Democrat incumbents facing challengers for their seats
needed to hear. After a short-lived delusion that eliminating Finneran
would kill the momentum of the statewide Republican reform wave, they
now must answer for more business-as-usual under another consummate
Beacon Hill insider, but one who's already considering tax hikes.
They should have seen it coming, but most Beacon Hill pols
don't think independently or that far ahead; they just go with the flow day by
day and hope they can hang on.
Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh recognized it and summed it up
succinctly:
"Sal is saying all the right things," this person reported. Such as? "He is going to be inclusive, we are going to have debates. He is saying he is not going to be Tom Finneran."
Now, that's one impressive sell, because to buy it, you also have to buy this notion: Not only will the new speaker not be Tom Finneran, he will no longer be Sal DiMasi either.
Has the Boston Globe ever demonstrated its
hypocrisy more baldly, shamelessly or blatantly than it did yesterday in
its daily editorial rant for higher taxes?
In just two contiguous paragraphs the socialist
elites saw no contradiction in pontificating: "... such as freezing the income tax rollback in 2002 -- a move this page
applauded ... condescension toward the voters who passed the [Clean
Elections] reform by ballot initiative -- implying they were too addled to know what they were voting for
..."
Boston Globe management had better quickly call in
the shrinks: Schizophrenia is sweeping the editorial board. Or maybe
they've simply adopted their consistency from John Kerry.
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Chip
Ford |
The Scorpion And The Frog
Ęsop's Fables
One day a scorpion was walking along the riverbank trying to find a way to get across the river that separated him from his desired location when he came across a frog sitting alongside the riverbank. The scorpion walked up to the frog and asked the frog if he would take him across the river.
The frog quickly replied, "No, I would not give you a ride." The scorpion then asked him why.
The frog replied, "Because Mr. Scorpion if I gave you a ride on my back you would sting me and I would drown." Quickly the scorpion replied, "But Mr. Frog, if I stung you then you would drown and if you drown then I would drown also."
The frog thought for a moment and then said, "I guess you're right, then I will give you a ride." The scorpion jumps on the frog's back and they start crossing the river.
Half way across the river the frog suddenly feels a sharp pain in his back, as the scorpion stings him. The frog immediately starts to panic as he feels the venom race through his veins and he quickly begins to become paralyzed. Just as he is taking his last breath and about to go down, the frog looks at the scorpion and asks "Why did you do it? You promised not to sting me! Now we are both going to drown!"
The scorpion replies, "I'm sorry, Sir, but I could not help it - it's my
nature."
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The Boston Herald
Thursday, September 30, 2004
New boss hikes tax expectations:
'Everything will be on the table' in Legislature
By Ann E. Donlan
New House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi was short on specifics as he took office yesterday, but there was no mistaking one item he left dangling - the possibility of tax hikes.
DiMasi - replacing outgoing Speaker Thomas M. Finneran - said he is "ready, willing and able to hit the ground running," but did not list priorities for the new legislative session in January.
Raising the spectre of new or increased taxes, he said: "When it comes to finding ways to provide more cost-effective services, or identifying and addressing unmet needs, everything will be on the table.
"If we approach our task hampered by preconceptions and biases, we will not have the freedom to implement the best solutions or embrace new ideas,'
DiMasi, 59, told his House colleagues. "That is a recipe for failure. This House will not go down that path."
Some lawmakers fear that handing GOP Gov. Mitt Romney a platform to hammer Democrats next month as free-spending liberals who want to raise taxes could spell disaster as incumbent representatives defend their seats.
"Romney must have been drooling on that," said one worried lawmaker. "You take Finneran out of the way for the November elections and then they drop taxes right back onto the table."
Pressed after the pomp and circumstance, DiMasi would not clarify his stance on tax increases. "I'm not about to speak for all the members right now," he told reporters.
A host of state pols and VIPs showed up at the State House yesterday to watch the transfer of power from Finneran to
DiMasi, and there was plenty of buzz about politics.
Former U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy swerved when asked whether he would rule out a run for governor in 2006.
"This is a day for Sal DiMasi," Kennedy said. "And we should all just be here celebrating his terrific ascension to the
speakership, and that's all I really have to say."
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, September 30, 2004
DiMasi vows tough fight against GOP
By Frank Phillips and Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff
Jumping quickly into partisan politics, Salvatore F. DiMasi, the newly installed House speaker, accused Governor Mitt Romney yesterday of trying to usurp the mantle of reform and vowed to fight the governor's aggressive attempt to defeat Democratic candidates in the legislative elections.
"All this recent talk of reform gets me a little angry, because we've been doing it here in the House of Representatives," DiMasi told a Democratic legislative caucus, referring to Romney's campaign theme that Democrats are blocking his efforts to "clean up" Beacon Hill and "reform" state government. DiMasi listed issues he said Democrats could claim as their own, including reforms of education, the unemployment insurance system, and several state agencies.
"We're not going to take a back seat to anyone when it comes to saying the good that we have done, reforming the things that are necessary to make the lives of the people of this Commonwealth better," the 59-year-old North End Democrat told his applauding Democratic colleagues before heading to the House floor to be elected speaker. "We will not take a step back."
Romney and DiMasi greeted each other warmly at the ceremony to elect the new speaker, but a sharp partisan current ran through the day's events.
With just five weeks left before election day, Democratic legislative and party leaders say they will meet over the next few days to lay plans to raise more money and devise a media strategy to blunt Romney's well-financed effort to seat more Republicans in the Legislature.
Romney and the state GOP have raised more than $3 million, and for the first time the party will fund a statewide television ad campaign featuring a governor seeking to influence legislative elections.
Democratic Party strategists said yesterday that DiMasi and Senate President Robert E. Travaglini want to develop an aggressive plan to foil the governor's campaign by marshalling Democratic forces, pulling resources and funds from unchallenged legislators with hefty campaign accounts, labor unions, and the state's congressional delegation.
DiMasi's sharp remarks to the Democratic caucus were delivered a few hours before a much less partisan speech during his installation as the 84th speaker of the Massachusetts House. The ceremony is customarily a nonpartisan event, but Romney's campaign efforts have strained relations between Democratic legislators and the governor, creating a palpable tension in the House chamber when DiMasi gave his speech.
DiMasi gave Romney a hug on the podium as the ceremonies began, but then delivered a thinly disguised jab. "Dave Flynn, meet Mitt Romney," DiMasi cracked, as the dean of the House, Representative David Flynn, turned the gavel over. The audience laughed at the subtle reference to Romney's infrequent interaction with the legislators. The smiling governor shook Flynn's hand.
Later, the Republican governor said that he always senses a chilly reception when he enters the House. One of his top aides said the reception yesterday was particularly cold.
"I think people are used to walking into office, instead of running for office, and we're causing a lot of folks to have to run for office, so I'm sure that's going to affect the temperature," Romney joked with reporters.
"We're going to keep battling for reform," the governor said, adding that he was working to build a "second party" in the Bay State. "Some people aren't going to like that. Some people don't like tough challenges."
DiMasi's claim to reform and Romney's quick response highlights the importance of the issue in the elections. Romney says that the Democrats on Beacon Hill have blocked efforts to cut the income tax rate, combine the state's two highway agencies, and empower principals and school administrators to fire teachers and improve education. Democrats, on the other hand, say that they have passed bills to save the fund that provides unemployment insurance to jobless workers and reformed the Turnpike Authority without combining it with the state Highway Department.
DiMasi is taking over from Thomas M. Finneran, who has kept a low profile in the last month, even as individual lawmakers began to gear up reelection efforts. Finneran is leaving to become president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council.
"I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that every single ... incumbent Democrat is reelected and to elect new Democrats, so that we can still work and keep the same principles that we all believe in here in the Legislature," DiMasi told his colleagues in the party session. "That is my promise to you."
Later, as he stood before the entire House, Romney, Travaglini, and other state and local dignitaries to officially be elected to the
speakership, DiMasi struck a different tone. He mentioned reform in those remarks as well, wrapped in less partisan language.
After being elected speaker with every Democratic vote save one -- Representative Cory Atkins of Concord voted present -- DiMasi described himself as "open-minded and open-hearted" and pledged to "work in collaboration with each of you as we confront the demands of governing."
"I promise this: All members of this House will be empowered in our legislative process," he said, sparking a round of applause from the lawmakers.
DiMasi told reporters yesterday that he would not change the House leadership team until after he's been reelected to his position in January. House Ways and Means Committee chairman John H. Rogers is expected to keep his post for the rest of the year and then become House majority leader, the number two spot in the chamber. Rogers, his major rival for the
speakership, nominated DiMasi in a sign of party unity.
Eight years ago, the more conservative Finneran seized the speakership by cobbling together both Republican and Democratic votes. Yesterday all 22 Republican representatives voted for minority leader Bradley H. Jones Jr. In remarks following
DiMasi's, Jones urged the new speaker to "learn how you can include all of us and all of our ideas in the process."
DiMasi's acceptance speech included ample evidence of his liberal philosophy. He pointed out that he grew up in a North End tenement without central heat and had to take his showers at a public bath house two blocks away. Growing up in poverty, he said, he "learned a lot about the importance of community, the moral obligation we share to look out for each other in good times and in bad."
"If a neighbor was sick, you took care of him. If a neighbor was out of work, you brought food to his family," DiMasi said. "These are the values I learned in the narrow streets of the North End growing up. This is why I entered public life, to continue that tradition and to help people."
Even as the state cut roughly $3 billion in programs and services to close budget deficits during the recent fiscal crisis, Finneran, backed by Romney in 2003 and 2004, insisted that tax increases were "off the table." Finneran shepherded a $1.2 billion increase through the House in 2002, but he argued that there was no appetite for further hikes.
DiMasi seemed to reject that philosophy yesterday. "When it comes to finding ways to provide more cost-effective services or identifying and addressing unmet needs, everything will be on the table," he said.
Romney insisted that the "door to taxes" is closed, but said he welcomed the call for reform. "I certainly hope he means every possible reform is on the table," he said. "We're not going down the [road] to 'Taxachusetts' again."
Before DiMasi took the gavel, the audience gave a standing ovation to Finneran. By the time DiMasi finished his address, Finneran's name had been wiped off the door of the speaker's suite, replaced by the black stenciled name of Salvatore F.
DiMasi.
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The Boston Herald
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
A Boston Herald editorial
Reformer or not depends on DiMasi
There's a reason Republican strategists are chortling about the political status quo, nary a dime's worth of difference between the new speaker and the old. This is, of course, their fondest hope.
Like former Senate President William Bulger before him, Tom Finneran made for a neat little political foil for Republicans to use on the campaign trail. But there's no reason for incoming House Speaker Sal DiMasi to play into Republican hands by fitting all too easily into this anti-reform caricature.
In fact, the North End Democrat's reputation as a political insider and deal-maker can be a real plus for Democrats if he puts his considerable skills to work promoting a reform agenda.
Instead of being an albatross around Democratic candidates' necks this fall, DiMasi can make the case that sending Democratic legislators to the State House will give him the solid team he needs to keep the House on the reform track.
So surprise us, Sal, with a real reform agenda:
Choose a Ways and Means Committee chairman who'll rule out new taxes and set a course to resolving the state's enduring structural deficit.
Put unemployment insurance reform at the top of your agenda, labor union opposition be damned.
Propose abolishing the caps on the growth of charter schools.
Advocate raising the passing score on the MCAS tests and more accountability for teachers.
Push the immediate sale of the Hynes Convention Center and lead the charge on undoing the anti-privatization Pacheco law.
Fight for state employee pension reform and a competitive auto insurance market.
Kill the Turnpike Authority.
Fulfill the voters' mandate to rollback the income tax to 5 percent.
Squash speculation that voters won't get a chance to weigh in on a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage.
Or, alternatively, delight the scribes on Morrissey Boulevard with a focus on stem-cell research and tax "fairness," assure labor unions they have a friend in you, build the human service leviathan and pay for it on the backs of employers. In other words, Sal, do exactly what Gov. Mitt Romney and the Republican Party hope you will do. Make their job easy and become the poster boy for all that is wrong with one-party rule on Beacon Hill.
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The Boston Herald
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
DiMasi will make self at home in the House:
Ex-rival: No term limit
By Ann E. Donlan
As House members today execute the deal struck over the weekend to elect Rep. Salvatore F. DiMasi as their speaker, DiMasi's former rival, Rep. John Rogers, said the agreement between the men did not include the resurrection of a term limit for the powerful post.
Rogers, who will move from chairman of Ways and Means to majority leader in January, said he offered DiMasi "unconditional support" Friday night as they sat in DiMasi's North End dining room.
"There are no strings attached," Rogers (D-Norwood) said yesterday. "On the way out the door, I specifically said, 'I'm not asking for a term limit. You're my speaker. I don't believe in term limits, and you stay as long as you want.' So he's there as long as he wants, and I'll support him as long as he chooses to stay there."
DiMasi (D-North End), 59, did not return a phone call yesterday.
But Rogers, 39, acknowledged that in early talks between the two legislative leaders in August, a fellow lawmaker he would not name suggested that, to avoid a damaging battle for the gavel, the victor agree to a term limit and allow the runner-up to choose the Ways and Means chairman.
"Both Sal and I poked holes in that," Rogers said.
In January 2001, Thomas M. Finneran was crowned "Speaker for Life" after House members agreed to lift an eight-year term limit. But Finneran's reign came to an end at 5 p.m. yesterday and he will cast his last vote today for
DiMasi, his loyal lieutenant.
House members gave Finneran an emotional farewell yesterday and an extended standing ovation that ended with the gift of an engraved gavel. Finneran - who would not rule out running for mayor of Boston or governor - is remaining on the November ballot even though he begins his new job Monday as president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council.
Rep. Peter J. Larkin (D-Pittsfield) also had his eyes on the lucrative Massachusetts Biotechnology Council position, but was outgunned by his House boss.
"I have had discussions with the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council with regard to possibility of future employment with the council," Larkin wrote in his June 3 disclosure to the State Ethics Commission.
Finneran filed a similar disclosure last month, which is required under state law to avoid appearance of a conflict of interest.
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The Boston Globe
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Old boy Sal
By Scot Lehigh, Globe Columnist
When I bumped into Sal DiMasi a while back, the potentate of Prince Street flashed his 100-watt grin and posed this question: Can't you ever write anything nice about me?
On a day when DiMasi will celebrate his victory in a bloodless behind-the-scenes battle by becoming speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, that seems only fair.
So how about this? Sal DiMasi is one charming rascal. So charming that he seems to be possessed of the talent that made The Shadow such a wily adversary: The ability to cloud men's minds. How else to explain the way DiMasi has gulled the State House reformers into believing that he will, at 59, morph into a speaker committed to an open, inclusive legislative process?
For years the House has been chafing under the iron hand of Tom Finneran, whose tight management style usurped the power and prerogative of the rank and file. To know what the House was going to do, nine times out of 10, all you needed to find out was what Tom Finneran wanted.
Now, that wasn't always a bad thing. Finneran was an exceedingly bright fellow, a fiscal disciplinarian with enough of an independent streak not to fold like a cheap lawn chair under the demands of the Democratic Party's various interest groups. But it made things frustrating indeed for the average state rep, who thought that winning election to the Legislature should actually mean having a little influence over public policy instead of being reduced to impotent fuming over what Speaker Finneran was doing in your name.
Why, some reformers got so fed up that they even contemplated running for speaker themselves in the last month or so. But because discretion is the better part of legislative valor -- and because it often leads to bigger offices, choicer committee assignments, and more aides -- now they've cast their lot with DiMasi instead.
As one representative explains, there were 30 to 35 members willing to stick together and vote for a reformer, but as their various possible candidates opted out, the group decided it was better to throw in with the more liberal DiMasi than run the chance that John Rogers, the conservative Ways and Means chairman, might become speaker.
"Sal is saying all the right things," this person reported. Such as? "He is going to be inclusive, we are going to have debates. He is saying he is not going to be Tom Finneran."
Now, that's one impressive sell, because to buy it, you also have to buy this notion: Not only will the new speaker not be Tom Finneran, he will no longer be Sal DiMasi either.
Which is another way of saying, let's not forget who DiMasi actually is: the ultimate old boy insider. Back in 1990, when The Boston Globe did a Spotlight Team investigation of politically connected attorneys whose State House influence often seemed to tip the scales of state-court justice in favor of their clients, DiMasi was prominent on the list. In 1999, the Spotlight Team documented DiMasi's behind-the-scenes effort to strip affordable housing resale restrictions from a North End condo complex where his brother owned a unit. And, of course, he has been a principal force blocking any attempt to reform the gold-plated Boston Municipal Court.
As for open debate? Well, back in 2001, when some representatives tried to honor the will of the voters by voting to keep funding for the Clean Elections Law, it was DiMasi who led the retaliatory charge against them. A day after warning the dissidents that "you're not out of the woods," he pushed through an amendment slashing funding for programs and projects -- community policing, teen counseling, swimming pool repairs and the like -- in the districts of six representatives who had fought the leadership's Clean Elections coup de grace. That bit of bullying was reversed only after members complained vociferously to Finneran.
When I asked Finneran about it back then, the speaker contended that he had been so embarrassed by DiMasi's behavior that he had sent a message "that that was never to occur again."
Did Finneran really reprimand DiMasi, or was it merely a case of being shocked,
shocked to find his leadership team engaging in strong-arm tactics? Hard to say. But this much is certain: DiMasi's bully-boy conduct hardly revealed him as the sort of open, easygoing figure he has promised to be as speaker.
So has the old legislative leopard really changed his spots?
Call me a skeptic, but despite DiMasi's charm offensive, I'll believe it when I see it.
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The Boston Globe
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
A Boston Globe editorial
Finneran's legacy
For a serious student of American politics, Thomas Finneran didn't seem that interested in running a democracy.
Finneran, who stepped down yesterday after four terms as speaker, operated the House with a strong hand not seen since the days of the "Iron Duke," Speaker John F. Thompson. He brooked little dissent, ruled by fiat, and punished those who crossed him.
To this day he denies that debate was stifled under his reign. But he drove out some of the best minds in the Legislature, including key committee chairmen like John McDonough, now at Brandeis University, and David Cohen, now mayor of Newton. Both had voted for the House majority leader, Richard
Voke, Finneran's rival in the bruising 1996 speaker's fight, and were slowly marginalized as Finneran consolidated his team.
Sure, Finneran provided cover for some House members who were able to blame him for unpopular votes, such as freezing the income tax rollback in 2002 -- a move this page applauded. But for every House member who was comforted by a patriarchal speaker, many others bristled.
His refusal to enforce the Clean Elections Law nearly precipitated a constitutional crisis with the judicial branch, and his condescension toward the voters who passed the reform by ballot initiative -- implying they were too addled to know what they were voting for and needed to be asked again -- soured his eventual victory at the polls.
For all that, Finneran in person could be exhilarating -- smart, strategic, quick with a laugh even at his own expense, and willing to expend political capital when he thought the cause was just. His principled opposition to capital punishment helped keep Massachusetts in the abolitionist camp, where it belongs.
He was a forceful advocate of housing and early-childhood education, but Finneran's enduring legacy is in the unsexy area of fiscal realism, especially his insistence on maintaining a healthy reserve fund. He was the cautious ant to the extravagant grasshoppers in his own party. The wisdom of his approach became clear in the 2002 fiscal crisis, when a $2 billion shortfall was eased by tapping the reserves. "I cringe to think what might have been required without it," he said yesterday.
He engineered a way out of that crisis that saved face for everyone by sparing no one. Few would doubt that he was the most powerful Democrat in state government despite his formal standing below other electoral offices.
Finneran sincerely cares about the House as an institution and frets over its poor image in the public's mind. Most voters who dismiss the Legislature as full of crooks or bums actually speak well of their own representatives. The sad irony is that Finneran couldn't see how allowing individual members more voice would also have helped the reputation of the House he loved.
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