CLT
UPDATE
Friday, June 10, 2005
Lies, lying, and liars exposed
This year, 2005, is an auspicious one in the history
of taxation in Massachusetts. It has now been 30 years since the
Legislature raised the state income tax above 5 percent....
But the happiness could not, would not, last. Crisis loomed again and
the Legislature was forced into action. Something had to be done ... for
the children! ... my God, the children!
So in 1989 the Legislature increased the tax rate to 5.95 percent.
Again, this was to be a temporary measure to get the state through a
difficult stretch. Soon, our elected representatives promised, the rate
would be rolled back to its permanent level of 5 percent.
Despite that promise, despite a voter referendum in 2000 that passed
59-41 ordering a rollback of the tax, the rate has not been 5 percent
since....
The fact is that state spending has increased every year at rates well
above inflation. Until Gov. Mitt Romney was able to tap the brakes a
bit, the state budget since the late 1990s has been increasing at about
$1 billion per year. In April, tax revenues hit an all-time record of
$2.024 billion. State reserve accounts have swollen to $1.2 billion....
The very idea of lowering taxes makes legislators queasy. Handing out
your money to others gives politicians power. Less money means less
power.
The Salem News
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
Little hope for tax rollback anytime soon
By Ken Johnson
Revenue Commissioner Alan LeBovidge today announced revenue
collections for May totaled $1.327 billion, an increase of $122 million or 10.1
percent over last May. Year-to-date revenue collections totaled $15.258 billion,
an increase of $1.077 billion or 7.6 percent....
"We are still benefiting from stronger than expected income tax payments with
returns," LeBovidge said. "The year-to-date surplus of $377 million is almost
entirely accounted for by the income tax."
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Department of Revenue
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
May revenues total $1.327 billion
Massachusetts is a world leader in health care and medical
research, but the uninsured and rapidly rising health care costs remain a major
problem....
In particular, increases in health care spending at the local level have put
tremendous pressure on municipal budgets, and in some cases represent the
primary reason why some cities and towns pursue overrides of Proposition 2½.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Reforming health care is a necessity
By Robert E. Travaglini and Charles D. Baker
Armed with stories about alleged voter fraud, lawmakers and
advocates pushed Tuesday to change state laws to prevent groups from paying
people to collect the signatures needed to get questions on the ballot ...
Massachusetts is one 24 states where citizens can place an initiative petition
on the ballot by collecting enough valid signatures. Three percent of the voters
who cast votes in the previous gubernatorial election must sign a petition to
advance to the ballot. Last year, 65,825 signatures were required....
Committee members, all of whom say they have collected signatures for their own
campaigns, say people shouldn't have to be paid for a cause they believe in.
Rep. Patrick Natale (D-Woburn) called it ludicrous to pay someone to collect
signatures.
"If your initiative is so important that you believe it should be on the ballot,
you shouldn't have a problem finding volunteers to get signatures," Natale said.
Opponents of the legislation say the process works well as it is now and
shouldn't be tampered with in ways that could discourage people from generating
an initiative petition.
"I don't think you need to devise a law to deal with one or two instances" of
voter fraud, said Chip Faulkner, associate director of Citizens for
Limited Taxation, a group that has sponsored several ballot initiatives.
Faulkner said the only time CLT paid for signature gatherers was in 1999 in the
wake of a court ruling that said any petition with extra or stray marks on it
would be thrown out. He said voter fraud is an "aberration" that happens very
seldom.
Committee co-chairman Sen. Edward Augustus (D-Worcester) said he believes there
is a clear problem that needs to be addressed. "You say aberration, I say it's
something that's gone on and may need to be corrected," he said to Faulkner.
State House News Service
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Bill would outlaw paid signature gatherers
Former House speaker Thomas M. Finneran vowed yesterday to
beat a federal indictment accusing him of lying about redrawing the state's
legislative districts to benefit incumbents and dilute black and Hispanic voter
power.
"I plan on showing up in court next week and entering a firmly stated 'not
guilty' on all charges," said Finneran, who called his 26 years of public
service "unblemished" and highlighted by "unquestioned integrity." ...
"What's important is when someone raises his hand to tell the truth, he tells
the truth," [U.S. Attorney Michael] Sullivan said, brushing off some
legislators' criticism of the charges as a political power play by an ambitious
Republican U.S. attorney against a powerful Democrat....
If convicted on all counts, Finneran would face 16 to 21 months under federal
sentencing guidelines. But U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns could
impose up to five years for perjury and 10 years for obstruction of justice.
Finneran also could have his license to practice law revoked.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Finneran vows: I’ll beat federal rap
Thank you for not winking back, for not sharing that smirking
nod so common in the corridors of power, for not going along with the gag that's
been perpetuated for too long by too many politicians who believe they can say
whatever it is they please, the public be damned.
Thank you, in other words, for indicting Tom Finneran, for finally drawing a
much-needed line, for making sure that untruths have consequences....
Should Finneran go to jail? That's not the point. The point is to challenge him
and countless other government officials like him when they don't honor the most
basic social contract: the truth. It's a shame that Mike Sullivan is proving to
be such an anomaly for doing just that.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Demanding the truth
By Brian McGrory
A federal grand jury's perjury indictment against former
House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran sends a stark and vital message to elected
officials and candidates: It is no trivial matter to lie under oath.
The indictment sought by U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan is not only a blow to
Finneran. It is a jolt to the culture of lying and truth-stretching that has
been too characteristic of our politics.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, June 9, 2005
Truth be told, indictment justified
By Wayne Woodlief
Yet in the aftermath of his indictment Monday on charges of
perjury and obstruction of justice, some wonder whether the very traits that
propelled Finneran's rise to power -- a self-confidence bordering on the
cocksure, a reflexive refusal to yield on points large or small, an eager
appetite for political combat -- may have worked together to hasten his fall....
Barbara Anderson, head of Citizens for Limited Taxation,
considered Finneran to have "a very thin skin stretched over a very big ego"
from the day in 1991 when he ignored her outstretched hand and stalked away from
her after the two did battle over Proposition 2½, the tax-limiting measure that
was her brainchild. Nonetheless, Anderson said, she now views Finneran as "a
tragic figure who had tremendous potential for leadership but instead he got
lost in his own hubris."
The Boston Globe
Thursday, June 9, 2005
Finneran's gathering storm
Ex-speaker's strongest traits may have hastened his fall
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
It's been a busy week, so where do I start trying to
catch up?
Ken Johnson's column is the best place. It reminded
us that the latest "temporary" income tax increase promise now brings
the total of broken promises and lies up to encompassing 27 of the past
30 years of the state income tax! It took CLT to finally break the
stranglehold of the "Dukakis Surtax" too, in 1986. Were it not for CLT,
we'd still be paying "7 ½% surtax" -- with
the 1989 "temporary" tax hike piled on top of it -- and the state budget
would now be even larger along with the state's "structural
deficit."
Twenty-seven years of lies and broken promises out of
the last thirty, and legislators dare wonder why citizens hold them in
such low esteem, why we have become so cynical. How much more
"out-of-touch" can they be?
So the lies and broken promises continue, despite the
Department of Revenue's report on last month's revenue take, "of $122
million or 10.1 percent over last May." This is on top of April's
revenue figures, for which the DOR reported: "Revenue collections for
April totaled $2.024 billion, the largest single monthly total ever in
the Commonwealth" (See:
CLT
Update, May 3, 2005, "IF NOT NOW, WHEN?"). After last
month's DOR release, perpetual opponents of the voters' income tax
rollback chimed in on cue insisting that we must wait and watch.
We've waited. We've watched. Now we want the
tax rollback. No more excuses, no more procrastination, no more spending
the surplus, engorging the state budget to create the next
"fiscal crisis" -- as the "wait and watch" wing did with billion-dollar
annual surpluses during the Roaring '90s. No more lies.
"Should Finneran go to jail? That's not the point.
The point is to challenge him and countless other government officials
like him when they don't honor the most basic social contract: the
truth," wrote Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory.
"The indictment sought by U.S. Attorney Michael J.
Sullivan is not only a blow to Finneran. It is a jolt to the culture of
lying and truth-stretching that has been too characteristic of our
politics," wrote Boston Herald columnist Wayne Woodlief.
Stop the lies and the lying. We're sick
to death of it.
Keep promises, like the rest of us do.
Roll back the income tax as the voters demanded in
2000.
There is no longer any excuse not to, not even any
cover. At last, the Beacon Hill culture of lies, lying, and liars has
been exposed.
*
*
*
Correction: The State House News Service
reported (Jun. 7, "Bill would outlaw paid signature gatherers"):
"Faulkner said the only time CLT paid for signature
gatherers was in 1999 in the wake of a court ruling that said any
petition with extra or stray marks on it would be thrown out."
CLT has never paid any petitioner to
collect even a single signature during any of its petition
drives.
While testifying before the committee, Chip Faulkner
referred to then-Governor Paul Cellucci's ballot committee,
the "Tax Rollback Committee," which in 2000 hired paid petitioners to
assure that our joint effort collected more than enough
signatures. This followed the ordeal CLT went through in 1998-99, when
the teachers union for months challenged each of the 65,045 signatures
we had collected, and
got our petition knocked off the ballot for subsequently falling 26
signatures short under the state court's new "stray marks" ruling. (Click
here for a brief history)
We've estimated that now more than twice the
constitutionally-required number of signatures are necessary to survive
the "stray marks" court ruling and the ensuing and now inevitable
signature challenges by well-funded special interests. You'll
remember that not even one petition question appeared on the last
statewide ballot (2004), and that was not by coincidence. Following Sen.
Stanley Rosenberg's proposed constitutional amendment (still
very much alive), this latest "reform" is just one more attempt to
drive another stake firmly through the heart of Massachusetts' 87-year
old constitutional initiative and referendum process, by any means
whatsoever.
 |
|
Chip Ford |
The Salem News
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
(This column originally appeared in the Eagle-Tribune)
Little hope for tax rollback anytime soon
By Ken Johnson
This year, 2005, is an auspicious one in the history of taxation in
Massachusetts. It has now been 30 years since the Legislature raised the
state income tax above 5 percent.
It would be a temporary measure, the solons of 1975 said, just to get us
through a brief economic crisis. It lasted until 1985 when the occupants
of the asylum on Beacon Hill could no longer pretend the Reagan economic
boom wasn’t happening.
Ah, those were the salad days, that brief, shining time from 1986 to
1988 that the taxpayers of Massachusetts once again enjoyed their
permanent state tax rate of 5 percent. People across the land were heard
laughing and singing each April 15 as they mailed their checks to
Boston. Well, maybe not singing.
But the happiness could not, would not, last. Crisis loomed again and
the Legislature was forced into action. Something had to be done ... for
the children! ... my God, the children!
So in 1989 the Legislature increased the tax rate to 5.95 percent.
Again, this was to be a temporary measure to get the state through a
difficult stretch. Soon, our elected representatives promised, the rate
would be rolled back to its permanent level of 5 percent.
Despite that promise, despite a voter referendum in 2000 that passed
59-41 ordering a rollback of the tax, the rate has not been 5 percent
since.
To summarize 30 years of tax history:
"Permanent" rate of 5 percent – 3 years.
"Temporary" rates or more than 5 percent – 27 years.
If you listen to legislators, they’ll tell you we just can’t afford to
lower taxes any more. They’ll claim they’ve kept their promise anyway
because you’ve gotten plenty of tax buts over the years through
increases in the personal deductions allowed. And they did get the rate
down to 5.3 percent before deciding in 2002 they could go no further.
It’s all true. Personal deductions have increased and 5.3 percent is
indeed lower than 5.95 percent.
But it’s also a deception.
The fact is that state spending has increased every year at rates well
above inflation. Until Gov. Mitt Romney was able to tap the brakes a
bit, the state budget since the late 1990s has been increasing at about
$1 billion per year. In April, tax revenues hit an all-time record of
$2.024 billion. State reserve accounts have swollen to $1.2 billion.
So the money is rolling in and legislators are finding no shortage of
projects to spend it on – why can’t the taxpayers see a little of it?
Won’t legislators finally keep their promise? Doing so would cost the
state only $250 million in revenue, according to Romney administration
estimates.
Don’t count on it.
There’s no hope of a tax rollback this year. Romney has included the
measure in his budget. But when Senate Minority Leader Brian Lees,
R-East Longmeadow, tried to even debate the rollback, the leadership
ruled him out of order.
"We would love to get taxes rolled back," Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey said on
Thursday in a meeting with Eagle-Tribune Publishing editors in Beverly.
"There is sort of a dogmatic opposition to lowering taxes. It flies in
the face of reason when you’re sitting there with a $1.2 billion reserve
account."
That’s it in a nutshell. The very idea of lowering taxes makes
legislators queasy. Handing out your money to others gives politicians
power. Less money means less power.
Anyone care to wager how many of the next 30 years will see taxes at
their "temporary" level of more than 5 percent?
Ken Johnson is editorial page editor for The
[Lawrence] Eagle-Tribune.
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Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Department of Revenue
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
May revenues total $1.327 billion
Revenue Commissioner Alan LeBovidge today announced revenue collections
for May totaled $1.327 billion, an increase of $122 million or 10.1
percent over last May. Year-to-date revenue collections totaled $15.258
billion, an increase of $1.077 billion or 7.6 percent.
Receipts for May were $68 million above the monthly benchmark while
year-to-date revenues are $377 million above the benchmark. The fiscal
2005 benchmark was revised April 15 to $16.650 billion.
"We are still benefiting from stronger than expected income tax payments
with returns," LeBovidge said. "The year-to-date surplus of $377 million
is almost entirely accounted for by the income tax."
Income tax collections for May totaled $801 million, an increase of $85
million or 11.9 percent over last May. Withholding tax collections
totaled $628 million, an increase of $36 million or 6.0 percent over
last May. Sales and use tax collections were $332 million, up $15
million or 4.8 percent from last May. Net corporate and business tax
collections in May were $41 million, an increase of $25 million or 157.2
percent over last May.
Year-to-date income tax collections totaled $8.776 billion, an increase
of $802 million or 10.1 percent over last year. Year-to-date withholding
tax collections were $7.070 billion, up $290 million or 4.3 percent.
Sales and use tax receipts for the first 11 months of fiscal 2005 were
$3.532 billion, up $140 million or 4.1 percent. Year-to-date net
corporate and business taxes were $1.324 billion, an increase of $36
million or 2.8 percent.
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The Boston Herald
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Reforming health care is a necessity
By Robert E. Travaglini and Charles D. Baker
This week, numerous business and political leaders, health care
providers, advocacy groups, religious organizations, patients and
activists will converge upon Beacon Hill to highlight our health care
system's problems and to offer possible solutions.
This event - and this year - marks the first time in over a decade that
the state's leadership agrees that we must build real health care
reform. We can no longer ignore the negative impact rising health care
costs create for our economy, and we must make progress on finding more
affordable solutions for those lacking coverage.
Massachusetts is a world leader in health care and medical research, but
the uninsured and rapidly rising health care costs remain a major
problem. They make running a business - and staying in business - very
difficult. They make offering the same health benefits to employees year
after year virtually impossible.
For state and local governments, this situation makes maintaining
essential services more and more difficult, as health care costs
increase faster than inflation or tax revenues. In particular, increases
in health care spending at the local level have put tremendous pressure
on municipal budgets, and in some cases represent the primary reason why
some cities and towns pursue overrides of Proposition 2½.
At the state level, health care consumes more than $11 billion of the
budget, nearly 40 percent of the state's fiscal resources. The state
also spends over $1 billion each year on the uninsured, yet we still
have more than 500,000 uninsured residents and we continue to face large
annual increases in premiums. In addition to these challenges, the
federal government has proposed significant cuts to Medicaid that would
be devastating if implemented.
It's not a pretty picture, and it has to change. Reducing the uninsured
and taming health care costs over the next few years will be one of the
state's most difficult challenges.
You might ask how much the two of us could have in common. We're from
different political parties, we were raised in different parts of the
state and our public policy experience has been in different branches of
state government. But when it comes to health care, we agree that in
order to work, reform must target several areas.
For instance, market-based reforms can spur insurers to offer affordable
insurance to small businesses, the self-employed and others who cannot
afford coverage. In addition, by loosening restrictions on insurance
products, we can also reduce the number of uninsured Bay Staters.
We should consider targeted investments to expand coverage and reduce
costs - a strategic subsidy for small business insurance can help many
workers buy health insurance affordably. In addition, by making targeted
investments in Medicaid rates for hospitals and doctors, we can
encourage them to treat more low-income Medicaid patients and the
uninsured.
We can promote long-term savings by supporting public health programs
that focus on prevention, streamlining the regulatory process for
providers to buy low-cost technologies and authorizing state agencies to
collect and distribute cost and quality data. Over time, the collection
and distribution of health care data - data that is not readily
available to consumers today - will provide us all, no matter what role
we play in health care, with the right information and the proper
incentive to get smarter and better about health care costs and quality.
Building consensus on health care reform will not be easy and not
everyone will agree on the details. However, we must ensure that our
solutions do not cause more harm than good. Comprehensive expansions,
raising broad-based taxes or imposing broad business mandates could
drive jobs out and undermine the state's economic health.
Our success on health care reform will require that all parties -
including Washington, state officials, physicians, insurers, advocates
and individuals - make coverage for the uninsured and taming health care
costs a priority. It will take nothing less to ensure that Massachusetts
continues to have the world's best health care system, a competitive
economy, higher salaries for employees, quality benefits and more
opportunity to offer affordable coverage to everyone in our state.
Return to top
State House News Service
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Bill would outlaw paid signature gatherers
By Amy Lambiaso
Armed with stories about alleged voter fraud, lawmakers and advocates
pushed Tuesday to change state laws to prevent groups from paying people
to collect the signatures needed to get questions on the ballot and
require photo identification at polling spots.
Several legislative proposals being floated on Beacon Hill are intended
to "uphold the integrity" of the elections process, lawmakers said, by
ensuring that people signing petitions understand the question presented
and are not coerced into adding their name to it.
Massachusetts is one 24 states where citizens can place an initiative
petition on the ballot by collecting enough valid signatures. Three
percent of the voters who cast votes in the previous gubernatorial
election must sign a petition to advance to the ballot. Last year,
65,825 signatures were required.
But many say the process here is too regulated and difficult, and may
often encourage voter fraud. A voter rights advocacy group, MassVOTE,
plans to release a report Wednesday detailing instances of voter
irregularity and voter fraud witnessed during the 2004 elections.
Presenting dozens of signed affidavits from people claiming they were
coerced into signing a petition, Rep. Alice Wolf urged members of the
Election Laws Committee today to support her bill that would prevent
people from being paid by the signature when collecting endorsers for a
petition.
"Financially compensating individuals on a per signature basis creates a
strong incentive to mislead voters into signing their names or to add
signatures fraudulently," Wolf told the committee. "There is ample
evidence of this."
Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, said
her group found more than 1,000 instances of alleged voter fraud
conducted by an anti-gay marriage group trying to put a question on the
ballot in 2001. Paid signature gatherers intentionally lied about the
intent of the question or lied about what the question actually was, she
said.
But because proving voter fraud is difficult, expensive and time
consuming, Isaacson said the group was never stopped. Those instances
are what Wolf and others are looking to prevent.
Committee members, all of whom say they have collected signatures for
their own campaigns, say people shouldn't have to be paid for a cause
they believe in. Rep. Patrick Natale (D-Woburn) called it ludicrous to
pay someone to collect signatures.
"If your initiative is so important that you believe it should be on the
ballot, you shouldn't have a problem finding volunteers to get
signatures," Natale said.
Opponents of the legislation say the process works well as it is now and
shouldn't be tampered with in ways that could discourage people from
generating an initiative petition.
"I don't think you need to devise a law to deal with one or two
instances" of voter fraud, said Chip Faulkner, associate director
of Citizens for Limited Taxation, a group that has sponsored
several ballot initiatives.
Faulkner said the only time CLT paid for signature gatherers was in 1999
in the wake of a court ruling that said any petition with extra or stray
marks on it would be thrown out. He said voter fraud is an "aberration"
that happens very seldom.
Committee co-chairman Sen. Edward Augustus (D-Worcester) said he
believes there is a clear problem that needs to be addressed. "You say
aberration, I say it's something that's gone on and may need to be
corrected," he said to Faulkner.
Janet Domenitz, executive director of Massachusetts Public Interest
Research Group, also expressed her opposition to the bill, saying the
process for getting an initiative petition to the ballot is already one
of the most difficult to navigate in the country. She said Wolf's bill
is "symbolic at best" at getting to the heart of voter fraud.
"I can't see that it would do anything," Domenitz said. "I don't see
this as being an antidote to fraud."
Another bill debated today aimed at combating voter fraud would require
voters to present a valid photo identification at the polling place.
Rep. Michael Rush (D-West Roxbury) said putting names on voter lists
without the person's knowledge is a common thing in many cities,
especially Boston, and undermines the integrity of the process.
"The joke has been around for a while that if you had a cemetery in your
district it would help you tremendously in an election," Rush said,
referring to Boston. "The integrity of the system must be protected at
all times. If I go into a liquor store I have to prove this is me."
Natale agreed that showing identification should be a requirement. "I
can't believe anybody would be against taking their driver's license out
to show who you are," he said.
Pamela Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, opposes
the additional requirement because she believes it will increase the
time to cast a vote, result in many eligible voters being turned away
from the polls, confuse and potentially anger the public, and not have
the intended result of addressing voter fraud.
As of 2003, she said, 11 states required additional proof at the polls,
with many state rejecting the additional requirement when proposed.
Under the Help America Vote Act, voters were required to show photo
identification when voting for the first time last year.
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The Boston Herald
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Finneran vows: I’ll beat federal rap
By J.M. Lawrence and Tom Farmer
Former House speaker Thomas M. Finneran vowed yesterday to beat a
federal indictment accusing him of lying about redrawing the state's
legislative districts to benefit incumbents and dilute black and
Hispanic voter power.
"I plan on showing up in court next week and entering a firmly stated
'not guilty' on all charges," said Finneran, who called his 26 years of
public service "unblemished" and highlighted by "unquestioned
integrity."
After a 16-month investigation by FBI agents, Massachusetts U.S.
Attorney Michael J. Sullivan yesterday announced three counts of perjury
and one count of obstruction of justice against the ex-speaker. Finneran
resigned amid the probe and became head of the Massachusetts
Biotechnology Council.
"What's important is when someone raises his hand to tell the truth, he
tells the truth," Sullivan said, brushing off some legislators'
criticism of the charges as a political power play by an ambitious
Republican U.S. attorney against a powerful Democrat.
Finneran, 55, of Mattapan was not arrested and will be allowed to
self-report for a June 14 arraignment before a federal magistrate.
The indictment accuses Finneran of lying during a sworn deposition March
28, 2003, and again during trial testimony Nov. 14, 2003, in a civil
suit filed by minority groups accusing the state of violating the
federal Voting Rights Act when the lines were redrawn in 2001.
Finneran claimed he delegated the redistricting job to committee and had
not seen the map before it was filed with the House clerk, even though
the committee was headed by his top lieutenant, Rep. Thomas M. Petrolati.
The federal panel of judges who ordered the district lines redrawn last
year remarked that "circumstantial evidence strongly suggest" Finneran's
denial of involvement is not true.
"When federal judges say that, it tells you something big is going on
there," said Juan Martinez, executive director of MassVote, the
organization that battled to topple the redistricting plan.
The indictment claims that months before the plan went before the House,
the speaker met with Petrolati and others to go over the plan. Finneran
allegedly had three conference calls with Petrolati and met with
legislators from Springfield, Lowell and Newton.
"Thomas M. Finneran made comments ... and provided direction as to how
that redistricting plan should be altered," the indictment claims.
Finneran's law partner, Thomas Drechsler, yesterday called the
indictment a misuse of federal resources. "I don't think this is an
appropriate subject of federal prosecution," he said.
Finneran's attorney, Richard Egbert, repeatedly has argued the panel of
judges missed Finneran's admission during his trial testimony that he
had talked with Petrolati several times about the redistricting plan.
If convicted on all counts, Finneran would face 16 to 21 months under
federal sentencing guidelines. But U.S. District Court Judge Richard G.
Stearns could impose up to five years for perjury and 10 years for
obstruction of justice.
Finneran also could have his license to practice law revoked.
The Massachusetts Biotechnology Council's board of directors issued a
statement backing him.
"He has our full support moving forward," chairwoman Dr. Una Ryan said.
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The Boston Globe
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Demanding the truth
By Brian McGrory, Globe Columnist
Thank you, Michael Sullivan.
Thank you for not winking back, for not sharing that smirking nod so
common in the corridors of power, for not going along with the gag
that's been perpetuated for too long by too many politicians who believe
they can say whatever it is they please, the public be damned.
Thank you, in other words, for indicting Tom Finneran, for finally
drawing a much-needed line, for making sure that untruths have
consequences.
Finneran, according to the indictment, lied. It wasn't a small lie. It
wasn't a meaningless little white lie. It wasn't yet another lie on the
campaign trail or in a legislative chamber that gets diluted because of
the sheer number of lies.
He lied while he was under oath, answering questions from lawyers,
addressing judges in a court of law. He lied after he had raised his
hand toward the heavens and sworn that he wouldn't. As egregious as
anything else, he lied about one of the most important and abused tenets
of the small-d democratic system: redistricting.
Think about that for a second. Redistricting is supposed to shore up the
one-person-one-vote foundation upon which the American brand of
democracy is built. Your vote is as important as your neighbor's. A vote
cast in Dorchester should have the potential impact of one cast in
Dover.
Instead, here and elsewhere, redistricting is too often a muck-covered
sham, a once-a-decade attempt by those in office to maintain the
stranglehold on power that they already have. In the original House
plan, minority voters were packed into their own districts, and
incumbents including Finneran saw their districts, well, whitened. It is
and was a cowardly and unconscionable abuse, so a group of minority
residents sued.
As part of the case, Finneran waltzed into a federal courtroom a year
and a half ago and testified that he didn't keep a calendar that marked
his important meetings. The famously autocratic former House speaker
testified that he played no role in the process that affected his own
district. He testified that he never learned about the results until
they were unveiled to the rest of the House.
As I've already said in this space, it's a wonder he could keep a
straight face.
But, hey, why not? That's what politicians do: They lie. They lie about
campaign pledges. They lie about their relationships. They lie about
what's already happened and what's about to. To them, the power of
public office instills in them the power to lie.
Outraged -- outraged! -- Finneran minions and assorted other Democrats
are already out in force, accusing Sullivan, the Republican US attorney,
of pursuing a political agenda. If you were to believe them, Finneran's
alleged lies are inconsequential, and federal prosecutors, they say,
shouldn't be meddling in civil cases.
But don't believe them, not for a moment. What Sullivan is doing is
staking a claim, saying that the tie that binds public officials to the
people they are paid to represent is the truth. He is saying that the
public should be able to take its leaders at their word. He is saying
that if public officials take an oath, they had better adhere to it.
"The public places extraordinary trust in those it gives the greatest
authority," Sullivan said during an afternoon press conference
yesterday. He added later, "It's important to send a clear and
convincing message that people who claim they're going to tell the truth
in fact do tell the truth."
A lie is a theft. A lie steals the credibility of a government that
takes our money in taxes and sends our young men and women to fight in
foreign wars. A lie serves to push the government further from the
people it is supposed to represent. Distance is danger.
Should Finneran go to jail? That's not the point. The point is to
challenge him and countless other government officials like him when
they don't honor the most basic social contract: the truth. It's a shame
that Mike Sullivan is proving to be such an anomaly for doing just that.
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The Boston Herald
Thursday, June 9, 2005
Truth be told, indictment justified
By Wayne Woodlief
A federal grand jury's perjury indictment against former House Speaker
Thomas M. Finneran sends a stark and vital message to elected officials
and candidates: It is no trivial matter to lie under oath.
The indictment sought by U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan is not only a
blow to Finneran. It is a jolt to the culture of lying and
truth-stretching that has been too characteristic of our politics.
We - pols and press alike - had become accustomed to the wink and nod
and the knowing exchange in which all parties just knew there was some
dissembling going on (pardon my definition, President Bush). And yet we
chose to shrug it off as part of the game.
Maybe that's why the speaker felt he could blithely, and unbelievably,
deny in court virtually any involvement in legislative redistricting in
2001. But this time he wasn't talking to reporters or cronies or a
public audience. He was under oath. And his denials - that he never
reviewed redistricting plans, that he didn't know what was in the final
plan before it was distributed, that he never attempted to influence
changes in his own district - were so preposterous that a footnote by
federal judges hearing the case virtually begged Sullivan to begin a
perjury probe.
Sullivan was right on when he said Monday: "When the people's
representatives ... perjure themselves ... as alleged in this case, it
is a serious breach of the public trust."
Precisely so. The public becomes more cynical. Breaking or evading laws
you don't like may seem no big thing. Citizens are tempted to think,
"Hey, if a big shot can lie on the stand and get away with it, maybe I
could, too."
I don't want to see Tommy Finneran go to jail. He has a good family and
they need him. He was the brightest, wittiest, most-fun-to-cover House
speaker I've ever known. And experienced prosecutors have noted that
intent to deceive in perjury cases - especially in civil law - is often
hard to prove.
But if he has to spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers and
perhaps face the embarrassment of house arrest if convicted - well, he
brought it on himself. And that statement Finneran put out Monday, this
"26 years of unblemished public service and unquestioned integrity"
spiel - what a joke.
How about Finneran's assassination of the Clean Elections Law after the
state's voters, tired of the influence of special interests, authorized
a system of public funding for candidates by a 2-1 margin in 1998?
Finneran said he respected the will of the voters. And then for four
years, he sought to starve the system. King Tom and his underlings
wouldn't part with a dime. The big money boys loved that service.
And where was Finneran's integrity when he tried to dismantle the 5th
Congressional District in 2001 to get back at U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan
(D-Lowell) for daring to defy him on Clean Elections? Mayors throughout
the Merrimack Valley howled that their communities were being split, but
King Tom didn't care. It took pressure from the state Senate and a GOP
governor - and Meehan deciding not to run for governor - to quell that
crisis.
Sullivan now is taking heat, especially from Finneran supporters who
claim the indictment is "political," fueled, they say, by Sullivan's
ambitions to claim a big Democratic scalp when (or if) he runs for
public office - perhaps attorney general. Or maybe even a shot at
governor, as Bill Weld did in 1990, using the U.S. attorney's berth as a
stepping stone.
Yet Sullivan has not acted on any of those supposed ambitions. And so
what if he would be helped politically by an indictment of Finneran, as
long as it is the right thing to do. This is the right thing. During one
of the Clean Elections battles in 2001, Finneran said he was simply a
referee, trying to sort out different points of view in the House.
Everybody on Beacon Hill knew that was a lie. But no one seriously
confronted Finneran on it. You get used to lying in that atmosphere.
But now Sullivan has called him on it. You just don't lie in court. It's
Finneran's time to face that truth.
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, June 9, 2005
Finneran's gathering storm
Ex-speaker's strongest traits may have hastened his fall
By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff
It was a spring night in 2001, and the hottest question on Beacon Hill
was whether the state budget proposal about to be released by the House
Ways and Means Committee would contain adequate funds for the Clean
Elections Law.
The law to provide public financing of campaigns had been overwhelmingly
approved by voters several years earlier, but House Speaker Thomas M.
Finneran had made no secret of his hostility to it, and that had spelled
doom for many a measure in the State House over the years.
That made Finneran's response all the more surprising when a reporter
asked how much money would be in the Ways and Means budget for Clean
Elections. "I literally have no idea," Finneran said. He went on to
explain that he had been so busy with other legislative matters that he
had left it in the hands of Ways and Means chairman John Rogers.
The notion of a hands-off approach on something Finneran cared about so
deeply ran counter to everything that was known about the controlling,
detail-oriented man who ran the House. But for the eight years Finneran
presided as a speaker of unchallenged power, he seldom felt the need to
agonize over his words or his image. Indeed, he was every inch the happy
warrior, a sharp-tongued figure who freely expressed his opinions.
Yet in the aftermath of his indictment Monday on charges of perjury and
obstruction of justice, some wonder whether the very traits that
propelled Finneran's rise to power -- a self-confidence bordering on the
cocksure, a reflexive refusal to yield on points large or small, an
eager appetite for political combat -- may have worked together to
hasten his fall.
"Hubris," said Pamela Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause of
Massachusetts, speculating on why Finneran denied any involvement in the
redistricting process. "There would have been no consequences to him had
he told the truth: 'Yes, I met with lawmakers and talked about this;
yes, I met with the chairman of the committee.' There would have been no
repercussions. People would have said, 'Look, there's Finneran
controlling the process again, but that would been, 'Yawn, yawn, what's
new?' "
Finneran has vigorously maintained his innocence. Moreover, he has done
so with the unambiguous force that characterized his eight years as
House speaker, issuing a statement saying, "My response to the charges
brought against me today is NOT GUILTY," and telling reporters: "I'm not
going to lose any sleep over it."
If that is true, that would mean Finneran is less bothered by the
indictment than are some of his admirers. Former House speaker David
Bartley contended that the indictment is "just outrageous," and that
Finneran is called arrogant simply for exerting strong leadership and
for being unyielding in his beliefs.
Such support is a testament to the charisma and brainpower Finneran
brought to the post of House speaker, along with an iron-fisted approach
that made dissidents an endangered species. Critics say Finneran's
belief that he was smarter than most -- an opinion honed and to an
extent affirmed in the State House -- contributed to his current legal
predicament. In this view, the commanding -- critics called it arrogant
-- demeanor that defined his leadership in the House simply boomeranged
on the witness stand.
"He was just daring the attorneys to challenge him, to doubt him,"
remarked Representative James J. Marzilli, a Democrat from Arlington who
was often at loggerheads with Finneran during the decade-plus they
served together in the House. "You carry that outside this chamber, this
institution, and people are a lot less willing to live by the rules he's
trying to force upon them."
His will was so fierce, his talents so outsized, that Finneran grew used
to getting his way on Beacon Hill. Often, his word literally was law.
Now a jury will decide whether he broke the law with a few words of
emphatic denial when he was asked, under oath, whether he knew the
contents of a legislative redistricting plan before it was made public.
Lou DiNatale, director of the Center for Economic and Civic Opinion at
the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, said it was clear from the
former speaker's testimony that he found it "outrageous he had to
testify before a federal jury over something that speakers have done
over time immemorial in every state in the country . . . to protect his
party members, Democrats, and his leadership. He made a mistake. He
assumed this wasn't going to be as explosive a public issue as it
became."
Whatever the outcome, the indictment has refocused the spotlight on a
figure as compelling as he is contradictory. Finneran is a student of
history who loves Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire" and Winston Churchill's "The Gathering Storm," but he didn't
seem to see the storm gathering around him or to apprehend that his own
pride and power might lead to a fall. In interviews with admirers and
detractors of the former speaker, it was striking how often the twin
themes of ambition and tragedy were sounded.
"Tom Finneran thought he was going to be either mayor of Boston or a
United States senator," said John McDonough, a former legislator and now
executive director of Health Care for All, a consumer advocacy group.
"He clearly saw the speakership not as a terminal position but as a
launching pad for something bigger. Given his ambitions, there's a note
of tragedy in it, that someone so gifted and talented was not able to
capitalize on his position to achieve that bigger goal."
Barbara Anderson, head of Citizens for Limited Taxation,
considered Finneran to have "a very thin skin stretched over a very big
ego" from the day in 1991 when he ignored her outstretched hand and
stalked away from her after the two did battle over Proposition 2½, the
tax-limiting measure that was her brainchild. Nonetheless, Anderson
said, she now views Finneran as "a tragic figure who had tremendous
potential for leadership but instead he got lost in his own hubris."
Over time, Finneran became known for what he said as much as for what he
did. In the middle of the 1998 debate over how much public financing
should be given to New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft to build a
new stadium, Finneran at a dinner in Peabody dismissed the idea of a tax
break for the project with a vulgarity.
In 1998, at a post-primary unity breakfast after Scott Harshbarger had
won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, the facade of unity
crumbled in a hurry when Finneran floated the notion that Harshbarger
might drift toward "the loony left," a blow to a nominee who hoped and
needed to appeal to moderate voters.
But for all of his swagger, the depictions of Finneran as a cartoon
tyrant miss the mark, insist many who served with him, including some
who lined up against him on issues or on leadership style. Most describe
a man who was unfailingly cordial, who invariably recalled the names of
members' spouses and children, and who would blink back tears while
discussing the challenges facing the mentally retarded.
Representative Michael Festa, a Melrose Democrat who emerged as one of
Finneran's leading critics, said, "It's a rare member of the House that
would say they didn't like Tom Finneran."
Even though Festa often spoke out against Finneran's tight control of
the House, the two enjoyed a friendly relationship based on a shared
love of gardening, and Festa had Finneran and his wife as a guest at his
house several times. "The man is sufficiently complex for everyone to
understand he's not that one-dimensional as a person," Festa said.
Yet the image that came through to the outside world sometimes lacked
those other dimensions. Having entered the Legislature in his late 20s,
Finneran perhaps inevitably leaned on the instincts and style of a State
House insider. But that very style may have worked against him on the
witness stand, in the view of DiNatale, who believes that the indictment
is unfair.
"Finneran got popped for the wink and the nod," DiNatale contended.
"Because the culture of the [State House] building is 'I know and you
don't know what's really going on,' the wink and the nod is the dominant
form of being in the know.... You can play these winking games with the
press, you can even play them with the Legislature. You can't play them
under oath."
Rick Klein and Jonathan Saltzman of the Globe staff contributed to
this report.
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