CLT UPDATE
Sunday, December 10, 2006
"Together We Can" begins to define
itself, at last
Gov.-elect Deval Patrick's new budget chief said
Thursday that local option taxes on meals, hotels and other services
should be one of the things the state considers as it seeks to create a
stable long-term financial picture.
Leslie Kirwan also said she isn't sure she can find the $735 million in
wasteful spending Patrick said he wanted to eliminate during this fall's
gubernatorial campaign.
At the same time, the outgoing financial official for the Massachusetts
Port Authority said she isn't sure the state can cut property taxes, as
Patrick said he hoped to do when he said he opposed a rollback in the
state income tax rate during this fall's gubernatorial campaign.
Kirwan, a former aide to Democratic Gov. Michael Dukakis and Republican
Gov. William Weld ...
The appointment was widely celebrated.
"She's got a strong financial management background in the public
sector, broad public policy interests and skills, experience in A&F and
in the Statehouse, and a particular expertise in state-local relations,"
said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation. "She brings a strong hand to what will be a very difficult
role."
Associated Press
Thursday, December 7, 2006
New budget chief raises specter of local option taxes
Kirwan, Patrick's choice to head the Executive Office of
Administration and Finance, said the governor will consider allowing cities and
towns to levy local-option taxes, such as a meals tax, to raise revenue.
"I think local-option taxes should be one of the things that we consider in
empowering communities to have more independence and flexibility in their own
budgeting, their own financial situation," she told reporters.
Kirwan stopped short of pledging to implement Patrick's campaign promise to
reduce local property taxes.
The state should share local aid information with cities and towns "as early as
possible" and help them achieve efficiencies by taking steps like pooling
healthcare costs, she said.
After that, she said, "there may also be the opportunity for them to relieve
some of the tax burden or at least the requirement to keep growing the tax
burden to keep up with the increase in spending at the local level."
Patrick also said he has been poring over the $425 million in spending cuts made
last month by Romney.
"I can tell you I've started a very careful line-by-line review of the cuts,"
Patrick said, "and I see that in many of those cases, we are talking about real
impacts in real people's lives ... food programs, afterschool programs,
homelessness programs. I don't look at these cuts from a purely mathematical
point of view. I'm trying to assess what the real hardships are and what ways
there are to relieve those hardships."
The Boston Globe
Friday, December 8, 2006
Murray opts out; lobbyists scrap event
The governor-elect has spoken eloquently of reengaging
citizens and reinvigorating our democracy. But how much democracy does Beacon
Hill (and Deval Patrick) really want? ...
But suppose Patrick's uplifting rhetoric about the need for more citizen
participation is taken seriously -- even by those who have a different vision
for state government.
Only days after Patrick's election, a battle erupted on Beacon Hill that
featured energized and vocal grass-roots activists -- though not the ones
Patrick had in mind. They were pushing for a vote to amend the state
constitution to prevent same-sex marriage....
No one really expected Patrick to side with the "let the people vote" crowd. He
took a clear stance in his campaign in favor of same-sex marriage, saying the
issue is settled and the state needs to "move on." Nor did he attempt to pass
himself off as a champion of "direct democracy." He spoke against honoring the
2000 ballot proposition to roll back the state income tax to 5 percent.
And yet efforts by activists -- both liberal and conservative -- to use ballot
initiatives to overcome legislative inertia have been a defining feature of
Massachusetts politics in recent decades. More often than not, the Legislature
is coming out on top in those power struggles -- and sometimes by bending the
rules....
Certainly, the Progressive-era reforms that gave citizens the power to propose
laws and constitutional amendments are not in favor with today's lawmakers. The
powers derive from Article 48 in the state constitution, which was drafted by
the Legislature in 1917 and approved by the voters the following year. The
thinking at the time was that voters needed a way to overrule legislatures when
they were too much in the control of powerful business interests....
Of course, few legislators will speak out publicly against the citizen rights
created in Article 48. But their actions tell the story....
Pamela Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, a nonpartisan
government reform group, says that due to legislative intransigence, "the ballot
process for a constitutional amendment is essentially dead." David Donnelly, the
lead activist in the "clean elections" battle of the 1990s, says the ability of
voters to create laws (which is meant to be easier than amending the
constitution) is in doubt, as well.
Donnelly, an organizer for Washington D.C.-based Public Campaign, says the
health of the initiative process ought to be of concern to the new governor.
"That's absolutely part of civic engagement," he says.
And if the Legislature -- and perhaps the governor -- have no confidence in
Article 48's rules, wouldn't it at least make sense to try to change them?
The Boston Globe
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Coming to grips with the grass roots
By Dave Denison
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
We all wondered what "Together We Can," the Deval
Patrick for Governor campaign slogan, actually meant. We heard
over and over the political gatherings of faithful's refrain, "Yes,
we can!" wherever the candidate spoke -- but yes, we can . . .
what? We were never really told. We never knew.
Nobody did, or could.
In many pre-election polls, a majority agreed with
Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey's position on issues important to them -- e.g.,
the income tax rollback, immigration, etc. -- but they were swayed by
the cult of personality. Gov.-elect Patrick apparently had more of
that in the end.
We're now beginning to find out what those amorphous
and utterly vague campaign mantras meant -- the ones that allowed Mr.
Patrick to avoid answering questions. I'm not surprised and hope
you're not either.
To slickly dodge the question asked of him many times
about the voters' income tax rollback he opposed and intended to ignore, he'd plug in his empty
boilerplate response about somehow lowering property taxes instead. When
we asked how he intended to do that, he fell silent and none of the
media followed up far enough to get a direct answer, a commitment. His running mate for lieutenant governor,
Timothy Murray, provided the only insight -- to which CLT responded in a
news release on Oct.18.
No tax rollback from incoming Gov. Patrick, and I
suppose the voters permitted that when they elected him despite his known
opposition to it. Now Leslie Kirwan, his incoming Secretary of
Administration of Finance, wants new local taxes and can't see
any way to actually lower property taxes. Best scenario, maybe she
can find a way to keep them from rising so much.
"Shocking, simply shocking." (The iconic response from
Captain Renault, played by Claude Rains in the 1942 Bogart classic,
"Casablanca," when confronting well-known gambling in Rick's Club.) What
more can be said today, as the fuzzy and vague apparently begin to be clarified?
"Together we can!" Together, they always could,
if they controlled the entire apparatus of state government. Now,
together they will.
 |
|
Chip Ford |
Associated Press
Thursday, December 7, 2006
New budget chief raises specter of local option taxes
By Glen Johnson, AP Political Writer
Gov.-elect Deval Patrick's new budget chief said Thursday that local
option taxes on meals, hotels and other services should be one of the
things the state considers as it seeks to create a stable long-term
financial picture.
Leslie Kirwan also said she isn't sure she can find the $735 million in
wasteful spending Patrick said he wanted to eliminate during this fall's
gubernatorial campaign.
At the same time, the outgoing financial official for the Massachusetts
Port Authority said she isn't sure the state can cut property taxes, as
Patrick said he hoped to do when he said he opposed a rollback in the
state income tax rate during this fall's gubernatorial campaign.
Kirwan, a former aide to Democratic Gov. Michael Dukakis and Republican
Gov. William Weld, did say she will undertake a top-to-bottom review of
state finances so they can plot the most financially secure course for
achieving the governor's policy goals.
"I think it's a matter of how you approach them and what the ramp-up is,
and I think there will be options for introducing these policies in the
first budget and building on them over time," Kirwan said as she joined
the governor-elect at a news conference in a downtown hotel.
Patrick himself said he wants his new Administration and Finance
secretary to "lean forward" as she seeks creative solutions to state
financial problems, and to improve the state's relationship with city
and town governments.
"I have today directed Leslie to give me an honest account of our
financial condition in state government, a clear-eyed and candid
assessment of just what our resources are and where our opportunities
lie, so that we can begin to sequence in how we move on some of our
legislative agenda," Patrick said.
The governor-elect, whose first budget is less than a month after he
takes office, repeated that his first priorities are fielding 1,000 new
police officers across the state, as well as working toward universal
all-day kindergarten.
At the same time, Patrick rebuffed any suggestion he selected Kirwan to
dispel any notion he will be a free-spender as governor. Weld, Kirwan's
most recent gubernatorial boss, fashioned himself an anti-tax governor
in the example later followed by Gov. Mitt Romney and Lt. Gov. Kerry
Healey.
As the Republican gubernatorial nominee, Healey charged that Patrick's
spending proposals would cost $8 billion over four years.
"This notion never came from me," said the governor-elect. Patrick said
he always talked about phasing in his priorities, and focusing on
growing the state's economy to help support any programs he favored.
"I haven't selected Leslie Kirwan because of either her Weld bona fides
or her Dukakis bona fides," Patrick said. "I selected her because of her
thoughtfulness, her experience, her reasonableness, her creativity and
her record of depth in dealing with financial challenges and finding
creative solutions."
The appointment was widely celebrated.
"She's got a strong financial management background in the public
sector, broad public policy interests and skills, experience in A&F and
in the Statehouse, and a particular expertise in state-local relations,"
said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation. "She brings a strong hand to what will be a very difficult
role."
Geoff Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal
Association, said: "Clearly she will be working for Gov. Patrick and the
people of the commonwealth, so we will have to advocate for local
government interests. But she is a listening leader, someone who has
actively reached out and sought to understand what is important to
cities and towns."
Kirwan, 49, is known for her reserved demeanor and appears unflappable,
two traits on display during the news conference.
Asked how she hoped to manage expectations in the first Democratic
administration in 16 years, she said, "Very factually." Asked whether
she felt she could keep Patrick's promise to eliminate $735 million in
wasteful spending, she replied, "We will approach that on a factual
basis."
Later, when asked whether she could help the governor-elect keep his
property-tax pledge, Kirwan replied, "I think the opportunity would be
to stabilize and be predictable about the amount of local aide that can
be available."
Finally, when asked about the possibility of locally approved taxes on
meals, hotels and other expenses currently taxed on by the state, she
replied: "I think that local option taxes should be one of the things
that we consider in empowering communities to have more independence and
flexibility in their own budgeting, in their own financial situation."
Kirwan will be paid $150,000, which Patrick noted is "more than me" but
the same as Thomas Trimarco, the current secretary of Administration and
Finance.
Kirwan said she will explore how to handle any payout for the unused
sick days she has accrued at Massport, an independent state authority.
Employees currently retiring receive 100 percent of the value of any
sick time they have accumulated, and 50 percent if they resign. That is
more generous than regular state employees receive, although the
Massport board recently voted to bring the two into alignment for sick
time accumulated after Dec. 31.
Patrick criticized the policy during the campaign and again labeled it
"lavish" on Thursday.
"I didn't select the policy," he said. "I selected the person."
Kirwan, who would receive between $27,000 and $54,000 under the existing
policy, said she was exploring the regulations and "would follow the
rules."
The Boston Globe
Friday, December 8, 2006
Murray opts out; lobbyists scrap event
His plan to speak at closed forum spurred questions
By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff
A top lobbying firm canceled a breakfast forum yesterday after the
featured speaker, incoming Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray,
decided not to attend, amid concerns that his appearance at the
invitation-only event would conflict with the Patrick administration's
pledge of openness.
Murray was scheduled to keynote a forum next Wednesday hosted by O'Neill
and Associates, whose clients include Big Dig project manager
Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff. But yesterday, after the Globe published a
story about the event, Murray canceled his appearance, as did NECN host
Jim Braude, who was scheduled to be master of ceremonies.
Andrew Paven, a spokesman for O'Neill and Associates, had described the
breakfast as a "marketing event" for the firm that was expected to draw
100 of the firm's clients, potential clients, public officials, and
other citizens. It was also sponsored by Sovereign Bank.
Murray spokesman Michael Cohen, seeking to explain why Murray withdrew,
said late yesterday afternoon that Murray had assumed it was a public
event. He did not explain why Braude's appearance at the event made it
public. Organizers told the Globe that they had not decided whether to
permit the press to attend.
"From day one, we understood this to be a public event, open to the
press," Cohen said. "But the public media component fell away with Jim
Braude's decision not to attend. It changed the nature of the event. It
became an animal of a different sort, and because of that change Tim
Murray decided it was best not to attend."
Yesterday, shortly after Murray's aide said the incoming lieutenant
governor had decided not to attend, Paven said the firm was canceling
the breakfast.
"We respect the lieutenant governor's decision," said Paven. "We never
intended to cause Lieutenant Governor Murray or the new administration
any trouble. We looked forward to holding a public discussion of the new
administration's priorities after 16 years of Republican leadership."
Braude said he decided against speaking at the forum after learning it
was a marketing event to attract clients and attention for the
politically connected firm.
"When I learned I was part of a so-called marketing event for a firm
whose choice of clients I've often criticized, I decided it was probably
better I take a pass," Braude said in an interview. "I'm not arguing
that someone misled me. I'm not assessing blame. But if it is a
marketing event, it's not a place where I want to be."
In addition to the O'Neill and Associates breakfast, the Globe reported
yesterday that the law firm Greenberg Traurig plans to host a reception
next week for Patrick's new chief of staff, Joan Wallace-Benjamin, to
honor her for her work as president of The Home for Little Wanderers and
"to wish her well in her new endeavor." The firm is a longstanding
supporter of the Home for Little Wanderers.
The Globe also reported that Boston law firm Goulston & Storrs provided
office space for Patrick's transition team; Patrick has said he would
pay for the space.
While lobbyists traditionally have sought to curry favor with governors
and other players on Beacon Hill, Patrick campaigned as an outsider who
would break up that insider culture. Spokesmen for the firms and
Patrick's campaign have insisted that the arrangements are legal,
ethical, and aboveboard.
Earlier this week organizers of Patrick's upcoming inauguration said
they will raise more than $1 million from corporate and individual
donors to pay for the five-day celebration.
In other developments yesterday, Patrick said he may revoke Governor
Mitt Romney's plan to have state troopers arrest illegal immigrants.
"I still think it's a bad idea, and I'm going to get briefed by the
secretary of public safety on exactly what the agreement is and what the
guidelines are, and then I'm going to be looking at my power and my
opportunities to fix what I think is broken," Patrick said at a press
conference yesterday morning to introduce Leslie Kirwan as his top
budget aide.
Asked specifically whether he will revoke the policy, Patrick said: "I'm
going to investigate what power I have. You know that I think it's a bad
idea for state troopers to be involved in immigration enforcement. They
have enough to do as it is, and I said that consistently."
Also yesterday, Kirwan, Patrick's choice to head the Executive Office of
Administration and Finance, said the governor will consider allowing
cities and towns to levy local-option taxes, such as a meals tax, to
raise revenue.
"I think local-option taxes should be one of the things that we consider
in empowering communities to have more independence and flexibility in
their own budgeting, their own financial situation," she told reporters.
Kirwan stopped short of pledging to implement Patrick's campaign promise
to reduce local property taxes.
The state should share local aid information with cities and towns "as
early as possible" and help them achieve efficiencies by taking steps
like pooling healthcare costs, she said.
After that, she said, "there may also be the opportunity for them to
relieve some of the tax burden or at least the requirement to keep
growing the tax burden to keep up with the increase in spending at the
local level."
Patrick also said he has been poring over the $425 million in spending
cuts made last month by Romney.
"I can tell you I've started a very careful line-by-line review of the
cuts," Patrick said, "and I see that in many of those cases, we are
talking about real impacts in real people's lives ... food programs,
afterschool programs, homelessness programs. I don't look at these cuts
from a purely mathematical point of view. I'm trying to assess what the
real hardships are and what ways there are to relieve those hardships."
The Boston Globe
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Coming to grips with the grass roots
By Dave Denison
The governor-elect has spoken eloquently of reengaging citizens and
reinvigorating our democracy. But how much democracy does Beacon Hill
(and Deval Patrick) really want?
The victory speech Governor-elect Deval Patrick delivered on the night
of Nov. 7 was characteristically hopeful and idealistic -- and
passionate on the subject of citizen power. "We have a mandate to change
the way we do business on Beacon Hill and to keep the grass roots alive
and growing," he told his assembled supporters.
A few weeks earlier, at a rally on the Boston Common, he sounded a
similar note. "Grass-roots governing, like grass-roots campaigning, is
about listening to people -- going to where they are in their lives and
workplaces," he told the crowd. "This [campaign] is not just about
strengthening partisan politics, it's about reviving citizenship."
Citizen activism was the dominant theme of the Patrick campaign. And
last week his key campaign organizer, John Walsh, confirmed that one
thing Patrick means by "grass-roots governing" is that he will create a
new political organization for his network of volunteers and donors. He
has also encouraged his backers to stay involved in community affairs
and local Democratic Party politics.
If that's the extent of the new governor's program for transforming
politics and civic life, it is neither controversial nor especially
ambitious. But suppose Patrick's uplifting rhetoric about the need for
more citizen participation is taken seriously -- even by those who have
a different vision for state government.
Only days after Patrick's election, a battle erupted on Beacon Hill that
featured energized and vocal grass-roots activists -- though not the
ones Patrick had in mind. They were pushing for a vote to amend the
state constitution to prevent same-sex marriage. Legislators met in
joint session on Nov. 9 and spent a long afternoon avoiding action. At
the end of the day, they voted to recess until Jan. 2, apparently
dooming the amendment by parliamentary maneuver. As protesters kept up a
drumbeat of "let the people vote" over the next week, it was outgoing
governor Mitt Romney who seized the democratic high ground and blasted
legislators for ignoring "the voice of the people."
"Certainly what's happened in the last several weeks is not in line with
what Governor-elect Patrick is advocating," says Kristin Mineau,
president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which has led the drive
for a constitutional amendment. "November 9th was business as usual."
Mineau's group joined Governor Romney and others in asking the Supreme
Judicial Court to find a remedy for the Legislature's inaction. The
court is expected to make a ruling this week or next.
No one really expected Patrick to side with the "let the people vote"
crowd. He took a clear stance in his campaign in favor of same-sex
marriage, saying the issue is settled and the state needs to "move on."
Nor did he attempt to pass himself off as a champion of "direct
democracy." He spoke against honoring the 2000 ballot proposition to
roll back the state income tax to 5 percent.
And yet efforts by activists -- both liberal and conservative -- to use
ballot initiatives to overcome legislative inertia have been a defining
feature of Massachusetts politics in recent decades. More often than
not, the Legislature is coming out on top in those power struggles --
and sometimes by bending the rules.
The battle over same-sex marriage is just the most recent example. In
fact, if Jan. 2 comes and goes without a vote on the proposed amendment
-- and on another one asserting a right of universal access to
healthcare that is also pending -- the Legislature will have disposed of
seven of the last eight citizen-proposed amendments, not by up-or-down
votes but by motions to adjourn or recess.
This side of Beacon Hill politics puts Patrick in a difficult spot: If
the same-sex marriage debate illustrates the dangers, from his
perspective, of direct public involvement in lawmaking, the
Legislature's machinations also feed the kind of public cynicism about
politics that Patrick has so often decried.
Good-government reformers have complained about closed-off legislatures
for a long time -- and Massachusetts may not be the worst offender. A
couple of years ago, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU produced a
study that called New York state government the "most dysfunctional" in
the nation. Seymour Lachman, a disenchanted New York state senator,
detailed the problems in a book this fall entitled "Three Men in a
Room." Lachman argued that all major decisions in Albany are made by the
governor, the Senate majority leader, and the Assembly speaker.
Massachusetts has seen a similar pattern over recent years. In fact,
during some stretches of the 1990s, Beacon Hill operated more on the
"two men in a room" model, as when Senate President Tom Birmingham and
House Speaker Tom Finneran famously spent six months in 1999 negotiating
details of an overdue state budget while the Republican governor, Paul
Cellucci, was frozen out.
Now Patrick has a chance to at least move Massachusetts back to
triumvirate rule. He begins with the widespread expectation he will have
a better working relationship with House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and
Senate President Robert Travaglini than Romney had, if only by virtue of
being of the same party. Patrick's plan to keep his political
organization active signals he wants to negotiate from a position of
strength.
Cynics will call that "machine politics." But Patrick's civic agenda is
likely to include other worthy ideas. His working group on civic
engagement, one of several transition groups charged with developing an
agenda for the Patrick administration, has discussed allowing same-day
voter registration, improving public access to government documents
through better websites, and redesigning civics education in the
schools.
These modest reforms, however, don't get at the thornier questions
raised by citizen initiatives, and it remains to be seen whether Patrick
intends to make reforming that process part of his agenda.
Alan Ehrenhalt, executive editor of Governing magazine, wonders why a
new governor would make wider citizen activism one of his priorities.
"Most citizen participation is negative," says Ehrenhalt. "The main
reason most citizens participate most of the time is to oppose things."
Realistically, Patrick might stand to get more done simply by working
well with top legislative leaders. "If it's 'three men in a room' and
you see eye-to-eye with the other two, it's hard to imagine why you'd
want to change that," Ehrenhalt says.
Certainly, the Progressive-era reforms that gave citizens the power to
propose laws and constitutional amendments are not in favor with today's
lawmakers. The powers derive from Article 48 in the state constitution,
which was drafted by the Legislature in 1917 and approved by the voters
the following year. The thinking at the time was that voters needed a
way to overrule legislatures when they were too much in the control of
powerful business interests.
But it turns out that powerful economic interests can use the process,
too -- sending out paid signature-gatherers to put questions on the
ballot that do not really spring from "the grass roots." And the
question raised by the same-sex marriage amendment is a vexing one for
those who idealize populist democracy: Is it acceptable to submit a
question of minority rights to majority rule?
Of course, few legislators will speak out publicly against the citizen
rights created in Article 48. But their actions tell the story. The
Legislature came near to a constitutional crisis in 1999, as it
steadfastly refused to fund a law approved by voters creating public
financing of elections -- a clear violation of its constitutional duty,
according to a ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court.
Pamela Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, a
nonpartisan government reform group, says that due to legislative
intransigence, "the ballot process for a constitutional amendment is
essentially dead." David Donnelly, the lead activist in the "clean
elections" battle of the 1990s, says the ability of voters to create
laws (which is meant to be easier than amending the constitution) is in
doubt, as well.
Donnelly, an organizer for Washington D.C.-based Public Campaign, says
the health of the initiative process ought to be of concern to the new
governor. "That's absolutely part of civic engagement," he says.
And if the Legislature -- and perhaps the governor -- have no confidence
in Article 48's rules, wouldn't it at least make sense to try to change
them?
But what would changing them mean? The problem, of course, is that it
would take a new constitutional amendment to rewrite Article 48 -- and
it would have to be approved by the voters. And as many activists would
point out, Massachusetts already has high hurdles in place for the
citizen initiative. Of the 18 states that allow citizens to propose
constitutional amendments, Massachusetts is the only one that requires
legislative approval before the amendment can go to the ballot.
Still, there may be a good-government argument to be made that majority
support in the Legislature should be required for constitutional
amendments (as it stands, amendment proponents need support from only a
quarter of the Legislature in two consecutive sessions). And yet,
realistically, there is almost no chance voters would decide to weaken
their initiative powers. Does that mean the Commonwealth faces a problem
without a solution?
Benjamin Barber, the Kekst Professor of Civil Society at the University
of Maryland and author of "Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for
a New Age" (1984), admits that empowering citizens is a tough sell to
those in power. "There's no question that involving and engaging
citizens in a serious way in self-government is much more complicated
and difficult for politicians," Barber says. It risks "that a certain
amount of their power is actually returned to the people."
Nevertheless, Barber, who directs CivWorld, a New York-based
organization that promotes democratic innovation, contends that a
governor must take a bold approach if he wants to expand citizen
democracy. The answer, Barber says, is in moving beyond "let the people
vote."
"Part of the point of direct democracy and strong democracy is not just
to get citizens to vote on things but to get individuals to turn into
citizens," Barber says. "And that's a process that is more than just
about voting."
If initiative and referenda powers are to be meaningful they need to
become "more deliberative" Barber says, which means requiring more work
on the part of the voters. Coming to "a wise judgment" requires more
than a modern-style political battle waged with manipulative television
spots. Barber envisions new uses of Internet networks, distribution of
high-quality educational materials provided by all sides, frequent
televised debates, and even a series of straw votes before the final
binding one.
Updating our Progressive-era reforms for the modern world may sound
utopian, but going in the other direction -- asking voters to beef up
the powers of the Legislature -- is no more realistic.
Dave Denison is a former editor of
CommonWealth magazine.
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
|