“For practical reasons as well, it’s time to move
on....
“I favor ending this petition initiative promptly. If adjournment can
accomplish that, so be it.
Deval Patrick Statement on the Constitutional Convention
and Marriage Equality
January 2, 2007
The man who is about to become the next Governor of the
Commonwealth, who will take an oath pledging to uphold the state Constitution,
today has stated that the Constitution should be violated and is lobbying the
legislative leadership to violate it.
Apparently when he takes his oath of office on Thursday he will be intentionally
committing perjury.
CLT News Release
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Deval Patrick: Ungoverned by the Constitution
Yesterday legislative leaders showed their respect
for the Massachusetts Constitution and their obligation to uphold it,
which is more than can be said for Gov.-elect Deval Patrick....
Legislators surely must have taken to heart the 7-0 rebuke from the
state’s Supreme Judicial Court, which ruled last week they “have a
constitutional duty to vote by the yeas and nays on the merits of all
pending initiative amendments before recessing.”
The truly astonishing thing is that the same man who tomorrow will stand
on the State House steps and swear to uphold the Massachusetts
Constitution yesterday urged lawmakers to do just the opposite and
violate their oaths of office....
Patrick’s ends-justifies-the-means approach to governing is nothing
short of appalling....
As if a simple up or down vote on one petition is such a major
distraction that it will consume all the energy of lawmakers for months
to come. What utter nonsense. And what arrogance!
Voters should be grateful legislators knew better.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, January 3, 2006
A Boston Herald editorial
Lawmakers get it, Patrick doesn’t
“He didn’t have his finger on the pulse of what was happening
in terms of where the members of the House and Senate stood,” said state Sen.
Richard Tisei, a Republican who, like Patrick, opposes the proposed ban on gay
marriage.
“It seemed a little tone deaf,” Tisei added....
Tisei and other observers said Patrick, who called a press conference to explain
his opposition in the morning, did not seem to understand the impact of a
Supreme Judicial Court ruling last week that unambiguously stated that lawmakers
had to take an up-or-down vote.
Patrick did address the court’s ruling in his comments to reporters yesterday,
saying he believed that voting to adjourn would have constituted a vote on the
merits of the proposed ban. He also said lawmakers have more important business
to attend to, an argument that one State House insider called a “rookie
mistake.”
“He didn’t flip a single vote,” the insider said....
“He showed today he’s willing to do what he believes is right, not because it’s
politically expedient, but because it’s what he believes,” Patrick spokeswoman
Cyndi Roy said. “He believes in what he said before and after today’s vote.”
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Legislators advance bid for gay-wed vote
A week after the state's highest court declared lawmakers had
a duty to cast a vote, the Massachusetts Legislature yesterday advanced a
proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, pushing it over a
critical hurdle to get onto the 2008 state ballot.
In a tense afternoon of nose-counting and backroom negotiations, the proposal
received 62 votes, a dozen more than required, from the joint session of the
House and Senate. The vote was gaveled through by Senate President Robert E.
Travaglini, chairman of the constitutional convention, who ignored efforts by
the House leadership for time to debate the issue and gain votes to defeat the
measure....
"This is a victory for democracy, it's a victory for the people's right to
petition, and . . . it's a victory for the constitution, the oldest living
constitution in the world," said Kris Mineau, the president of Massachusetts
Family Institute, which is spearheading the drive for the proposal defining
marriage as between only a man and a woman.
"We are a nation of laws and we proved that," Mineau said....
Both sides in the fight note that one new factor will be incoming governor Deval
Patrick, a major advocate for keeping same-sex marriage legal. Patrick's use of
the bully pulpit of the office will be a key ingredient in a future vote on the
petition.
Patrick appeared on Beacon Hill before the convention, meeting with legislative
leaders and holding a news conference to urge legislators to use "whatever means
appropriate" to kill the measure. Emerging from the office of House Speaker
Salvatore F. DiMasi, who was lobbying House members to kill the amendment,
Patrick described the issue as a "question of conscience" and said same-sex
marriage is a civil right that should not be subject to a referendum. He said
the question of civil rights outweighs the provisions providing for citizens
petitions to amend the constitution.
One Senate leader said Patrick's lobbying -- which included a letter and calls
to lawmakers -- irritated Senate President Robert E. Travaglini, who had been
pushing his colleagues to abide by the court's ruling....
Lawmakers yesterday voted on the measure twice. First they voted 62 to 132, and
then promptly voted to reconsider the motion, leading to speculation that they
would reverse their action. However, they then voted on the measure a second
time: the results, 62 to 134.
The session brought out the tension that has developed between Travaglini and
DiMasi. Travaglini, who has said the issue of same-sex marriage should be
decided by voters, ran the convention with a strong gavel....
DiMasi remained in his office, just off the House chamber where the convention
was held, trying to persuade lawmakers to kill the measure.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, January 3, 2006
Same-sex marriage ban advances
Lawmakers OK item for ballot, but hurdle remains
$2.5 million - The amount of money the Massachusetts Teachers
Association spent to support Deval Patrick’s campaign for governor, according to
the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance. The union’s expenditures,
comprised mostly of a single $2.2 million media buy to support Patrick,
accounted for 62 percent of spending by independent groups and individuals to
support or oppose candidates in this year’s elections. Almost all the money
spent by such groups went to support Patrick.
The Boston Herald
Monday, December 25, 2006
The Monday morning briefing
Poor Arline Isaacson - her Mass. Teachers Association dumps
all that money into the campaign of Gov.-elect Deval Patrick, so she calls in a
marker on the only thing she really cares about, gay marriage. But then Deval
can’t twist enough arms to kill the bill.
Three million bucks just doesn’t buy what it used to, does it, Arline? ...
It was a rather unseemly way for Deval to begin his inaugural week, which is
shaping up as even longer than Gerald Ford’s funeral. But what choice did he
have? He owes Arline Isaacson big time, and he’s a bit strapped in the local-aid
department, plus, didn’t he promise to reduce property taxes rather than stand
by while the teachers turn every municipality in the commonwealth into Chelsea?
But is it really a good move to urge the legislators not to worry about breaking
the law? That’s just the kind of encouragement they don’t need, Deval.
Breaking the law is a suggestion that will win friends and influence people on
Beacon Hill. Break the law? Yes we can....
Deval shrugged and said that defying the law was simply a matter of
“conscience.” Yeah, right. By one vote, the SJC invents a right to “gay
marriage” that nobody anywhere had ever heard of before, and then, to stop the
people from exercising their constitutional rights to do something about this
radical reordering of society, Deval decides it’s OK to shred a part of the
state constitution that dates back to 1918.
“The sky isn’t falling,” Deval said.
No, it isn’t. Not today. No thanks to you, Deval.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Deval sticks his nose in, but can’t close deal
By Howie Carr
One hundred and sixty-six years ago, a prominent
Massachusetts politician, former President John Quincy Adams , played a role in
black history by persuading the US Supreme Court to free a group of African
captives who had staged a mutiny on the slave ship Amistad.
Tomorrow, when Deval Patrick takes his place in the history books as the state's
first African-American governor, he will offer a symbolic nod to that storied
past, taking the oath of office on a leather-bound Bible given by the freed
captives to the former president.
"This Bible is a quintessential American symbol, one of democracy, and the inner
workings of freedom, and our system of laws ... " said Beverly A. Morgan-Welch,
the executive director of the Museum of African American History and a cochair
of Patrick's inauguration committee.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, January 3, 2006
Bible with ties to slave ship will be used for oath
Sixty-two state legislators voted to shrink the civil rights
of Massachusetts citizens yesterday when they advanced a proposed constitutional
amendment to ban gay marriage. Every effort should be made now to kill the
measure by reducing that number below 50 when the issue comes up again before
the newly elected Legislature.
One of the key arguments raised by opponents of gay marriage is also one of the
most spurious: that, having filed more than 123,000 certified signatures for the
amendment, they have a right to see it go on the 2008 ballot.
There is no such right. The Constitution provides that it can only be changed by
public instigation through an initiative amendment that must first be approved
by one-quarter of two successive Legislatures. If the collection of signatures
were reason enough to put a proposed amendment on the ballot, there would be no
need for the one-quarter votes from the legislators. This means that each
senator and representative is duty-bound not simply to pass the issue on to the
electorate, but to vote it up or down on the merits....
When a final vote is taken by the new Legislature, the members must consider
whether this is an appropriate issue to put to the voters.
A Boston Globe editorial
Wednesday, January 3, 2006
A shameful reversal of rights
An effort to enshrine in the state constitution guarantees of
affordable and comprehensive health coverage died in the Legislature Tuesday,
with legislators reluctant to impose statutory prods on themselves while they
experiment with a first-in-the-nation law.
Lawmakers voted, by a count of 101 to 92, to keep bottled in a special committee
the citizen-driven amendment ...
Disappointed activists said legislators, who earlier had voted to advance a
petition banning gay marriage that had followed the same channels, were ignoring
their constitutional obligations. Health Care For Massachusetts Campaign
co-chair Barbara Roop said, "It's very sad that the Legislature feel they have
the choice to obey the Constitution whenever it's convenient to them."
By keeping the plan in committee, lawmakers today avoided a vote on the question
itself, which was put before state government with the signatures of tens of
thousands of supporters.
Asked if officials from Health Care for Massachusetts planned to continue
pursuing the pending lawsuit filed with the Supreme Judicial Court requesting
the Legislature to vote on the amendment today or place the petition before the
voters on the 2008 ballot, Roop said she is reviewing all the options available.
"It's certainly not an easy suit to pursue," she said, pointing to the recent
SJC ruling, arising from the gay marriage petition battle, that there is no
judicial remedy to enforce a vote even though legislators have a constitutional
duty to vote on citizen petitions.
State House News Service
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Lawmakers nix petition guaranteeing health care access
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
Symbolism over substance. That defined Deval
Patrick's campaign for governor, and apparently will define his
governing for the next four years.
Nobody -- not even the "Moonbats" -- could enunciate
exactly what Deval Patrick planned for the Commonwealth if elected.
None knew what "Together We Can!" meant: but it sounded good, it
fulfilled their every vacuous wish, whatever desire from government they
might use to fill in the blank. Patrick said nothing of substance,
but it sounded so comfortable. And he got away with it from a
mostly-subdued media.
No to the tax rollback, Deval asserted: Instead
he'd reduce the property tax burden. Last week his
administration-in-waiting -- of course with the usual backing of Michael
Widmer, president of the so-called Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation --
announced that this is not likely going to happen any time soon.
[More about this in an upcoming Update.]
Symbolism over substance again defined his effort to
overturn the state Constitution yesterday, despite the explicit ruling
of the state Supreme Judicial Court only recently. Tomorrow he
will take the oath of office as our incoming governor -- swearing with a
hand on the Bible, "I will bear true faith and allegiance to the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and will support the constitution
thereof. So help me God." That's the very Constitution he
called for to be ignored, only yesterday.
But not on just any Bible -- of course not.
Symbolism over substance. He will use the Bible once owned by John
Quincy Adams, "the Mendi Bible" given by Adams to the slaves who took
over the Amistad and eventually won their freedom.
Beverly A. Morgan-Welch, the executive director of
the Museum of African American History and a co-chair of Patrick's
inauguration committee, observed: "This Bible is a quintessential
American symbol, one of democracy, and the inner workings of freedom,
and our system of laws ... "
Maybe she can explain those concepts better to the
governor-elect, before he defiles it when taking his oath?
Today's Boston Globe editorial curiously called the
people's exercise of their constitutional right "A shameful reversal of
rights." The people -- 170,000 citizens -- exercised a right
specifically found in the state Constitution, explicitly enumerated in
Article 48 and unanimously affirmed by the state's highest court
recently. This same court in a closely split decision discovered a
new right unknown to mankind in its entire history and imposed it by a
4-3 decision that the Boston Globe nonetheless rabidly supports.
But when the Legislature abided by the enumerated right spelled out in
the Constitution -- as legislators' oaths of office demand of them --
the Boston Globe calls it a "reversal of rights"? How in heaven's
name did the editorial board elitists ever reach that bizarre
conclusion?
Do those contorting Morrissey Boulevard liberal
extremists really wonder why they've lost so much credibility --
and readership?
While almost the entire media was focused with
singular tunnel vision on the hot and sexy issue of gay marriage
-- whether legislators would honor the Constitution and their oaths of
office and bring it to a "yea or nay" vote -- the State House News
Service reported that another, less high-profile citizens amendment, did
not get its equally required vote during the final meeting of the
Constitutional Convention. It reported, "by a count of 101 to 92"
the Health Care for Massachusetts amendment was kept "bottled in a
special committee." Therefore, legislators ultimately violated
their oaths of office.
Most of the other media is praising legislators for
abiding by the Constitution and their oaths in the end -- but they've
missed the point. All citizens initiative amendments
must be voted on their substance in a roll call of the yeas and nays --
not just high-profile, headline-grabbing amendments.
101 legislators violated their oaths of office and
trashed the Constitution by failing to perform their duties. In
yesterday's new release -- and in individual letters to each
legislator who is also an attorney -- we advised what CLT intended to do
if they violated the law and their oaths. We shall now include
Attorney and Governor-elect Deval Patrick in our complaint to the
Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers. This cavalier lawlessness
must be terminated, now.
Deval Patrick won't take his oath of office as
governor until tomorrow -- but yesterday he called specifically for the
state Constitution to be ignored -- lobbied energetically for it to be
violated.
The insurrection he advocated from the State House
yesterday is an affront to the Supreme Judicial Court and its recent
ruling; it is encouragement for legislators to violate their oaths and
the state Constitution, and; I'm afraid it's only a taste of things to
come from an arrogant administration -- one which sees the law as only a
convenience to be discarded when bothersome.
We at CLT have hoped to give the Patrick
administration a fair chance, offered him and it our advice if desired.
But the honeymoon is over. His actions have spoken louder than any
of his soothing if meaningless words.
 |
|
Chip Ford |
Deval Patrick
Contact: Cyndi Roy, 413-348-2573
January 2, 2007
Deval Patrick Statement on the Constitutional Convention and Marriage
Equality
Boston – January 2, 2007 – The following is a statement from
Governor-elect Deval Patrick on today’s Constitutional Convention:
“I believe that adults should be free to choose whom they wish to love
and to marry. The SJC’s decision in Goodridge affirms that basic human
right, and I support it.
“Above all, this is a question of conscience. Using the initiative
process to give a minority fewer freedoms than the majority, and to
inject the state into fundamentally private affairs, is a dangerous
precedent, and an unworthy one for this Commonwealth. Never in the long
history of our model Constitution have we used the initiative petition
to restrict freedom. We ought not start now.
“For practical reasons as well, it’s time to move on. Whatever one’s
views of marriage equality, all can agree that we have far more pressing
issues before the Legislature and the Commonwealth. It serves no public
interest to focus more time and attention on this issue when there are
under-served and under-performing schools, an infrastructure showing
signs of sustained neglect, gun and gang violence on the rise, jobs and
people leaving the state, a growing homeless population, soaring health
care costs, a looming deficit and a score of other serious challenges
crying out for the attention and the creativity of the government and
the people. We cannot in good conscience ask these unmet needs to wait
while a few individuals try to insert discrimination into our
Constitution.
“I favor ending this petition initiative promptly. If adjournment can
accomplish that, so be it. If the Constitutional Convention chooses to
vote on the merits, I want to be utterly clear that I believe a vote to
advance this question to the 2008 ballot is irresponsible and wrong.
Given the significant challenges we face on so many other fronts, I
would be deeply disappointed in such a vote. It would do nothing more
than condemn us all to more years of debate and expense on a matter that
is legally and practically settled.”
CLT News Release
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Deval Patrick: Ungoverned by the Constitution
“I favor ending this petition initiative promptly. If adjournment can
accomplish that, so be it.”
-- Governor-elect Deval Patrick
Statement, January 2, 2007
The man who is about to become the next Governor of
the Commonwealth, who will take an oath pledging to uphold the state
Constitution, today has stated that the Constitution should be violated
and is lobbying the legislative leadership to violate it.
Apparently when he takes his oath of office on Thursday he will be
intentionally committing perjury.
Citizens for Limited Taxation, in its concern for Article 48 of the
Constitution, will file a complaint with the Massachusetts Board of Bar
Overseers, asking that appropriate sanctions be administered against any
and all attorneys/government officials who violate their oaths -- both
as attorneys and as public officials.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, January 3, 2006
A Boston Herald editorial
Lawmakers get it, Patrick doesn’t
Yesterday legislative leaders showed their respect for the Massachusetts
Constitution and their obligation to uphold it, which is more than can
be said for Gov.-elect Deval Patrick.
Meeting in Constitutional Convention, 62 lawmakers voted in favor of a
constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage - more than the 50 votes
needed to send the initiative petition to the next legislative session.
Legislators surely must have taken to heart the 7-0 rebuke from the
state’s Supreme Judicial Court, which ruled last week they “have a
constitutional duty to vote by the yeas and nays on the merits of all
pending initiative amendments before recessing.”
The truly astonishing thing is that the same man who tomorrow will stand
on the State House steps and swear to uphold the Massachusetts
Constitution yesterday urged lawmakers to do just the opposite and
violate their oaths of office.
Hours before a scheduled vote on the initiative petition, Patrick
lobbied legislators, saying, “I favor ending this petition initiative
promptly. If adjournment can accomplish that, so be it.”
Patrick’s ends-justifies-the-means approach to governing is nothing
short of appalling.
At least leaders like Senate President Robert Travaglini, who remained a
steady hand at the helm of the end-of-the-year session, knew better.
But Patrick didn’t stop with merely urging legislators to ignore their
constitutional obligations. He justified it with this bizarre
non-sequitur:
“It serves no public interest to focus more time and attention on this
issue [gay marriage] when there are under-served and under-performing
schools, an infrastructure showing signs of sustained neglect, gun and
gang violence on the rise, jobs and people leaving the state, a growing
homeless population, soaring health care costs, a looming deficit and a
score of other serious challenges crying out for the attention and the
creativity of the government and the people.”
As if a simple up or down vote on one petition is such a major
distraction that it will consume all the energy of lawmakers for months
to come. What utter nonsense. And what arrogance!
Voters should be grateful legislators knew better.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Legislators advance bid for gay-wed vote
By Casey Ross
Gov.-elect Deval Patrick suffered a stunning political defeat just two
days before his inauguration yesterday when lawmakers rejected his
last-ditch pleas and voted to move a proposed constitutional amendment
banning gay marriage one step closer to the 2008 ballot.
Lawmakers said Patrick lobbied aggressively yesterday afternoon,
visiting with legislative leaders and making phone calls to
rank-and-file members when the vote appeared to be turning against him.
Some said he seemed “tone deaf” to legislators’ concerns, and actually
wound up losing ground when the matter came to a final vote.
“He didn’t have his finger on the pulse of what was happening in terms
of where the members of the House and Senate stood,” said state Sen.
Richard Tisei, a Republican who, like Patrick, opposes the proposed ban
on gay marriage.
“It seemed a little tone deaf,” Tisei added. “Had he been engaged over
last couple weeks, maybe he could have helped influence the outcome.”
The measure defines marriage as between one man and one woman and would
ban future gay marriages.
Patrick said last night that he is “disappointed” by the Legislature’s
vote, but pointed out that most legislators stood with him. The final
vote was 62 in favor of the ballot initiative, 134 against. Only 50 of
200 votes were needed to advance the measure to the next legislative
session, where lawmakers will take a final vote on whether to include it
on the ballot in 2008.
“Look, this matter is not over,” Patrick told the Herald last night. “My
position is we’ve never used an initiative petition to inject
discrimination into the Constitution. The sooner we can put this behind
us, the better.” Tisei and other observers said Patrick, who called a
press conference to explain his opposition in the morning, did not seem
to understand the impact of a Supreme Judicial Court ruling last week
that unambiguously stated that lawmakers had to take an up-or-down vote.
Patrick did address the court’s ruling in his comments to reporters
yesterday, saying he believed that voting to adjourn would have
constituted a vote on the merits of the proposed ban. He also said
lawmakers have more important business to attend to, an argument that
one State House insider called a “rookie mistake.”
“He didn’t flip a single vote,” the insider said.
Gay marriage supporters pushed yesterday’s constitutional convention
into a recess yesterday after 61 members voted in favor of the ballot
initiative, a move that bought Patrick and other opponents more time to
change votes.
However, when the convention reconvened, the governor-elect’s camp had
actually lost one vote.
A Patrick aide last night said the vote to advance the gay marriage ban
was “absolutely not” a damaging political defeat for Patrick.
“He showed today he’s willing to do what he believes is right, not
because it’s politically expedient, but because it’s what he believes,”
Patrick spokeswoman Cyndi Roy said. “He believes in what he said before
and after today’s vote.”
The vote was a huge win for Gov. Mitt Romney, poised to enter the 2008
presidential race as a conservative Republican. “This is a huge victory
for the people of Massachusetts,” Romney said in a statement last night.
“In a democracy, the voice of the people is sovereign. I congratulate
the Legislature and its leadership for upholding the Constitution and
the rule of law.”
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, January 3, 2006
Same-sex marriage ban advances
Lawmakers OK item for ballot, but hurdle remains
By Frank Phillips and Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff
A week after the state's highest court declared lawmakers had a duty to
cast a vote, the Massachusetts Legislature yesterday advanced a proposed
constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, pushing it over a
critical hurdle to get onto the 2008 state ballot.
In a tense afternoon of nose-counting and backroom negotiations, the
proposal received 62 votes, a dozen more than required, from the joint
session of the House and Senate. The vote was gaveled through by Senate
President Robert E. Travaglini, chairman of the constitutional
convention, who ignored efforts by the House leadership for time to
debate the issue and gain votes to defeat the measure.
The proposed amendment now moves to the next legislative session, where
it will have to be approved again by at least 50 lawmakers in order to
be placed on the November 2008 ballot. The narrow margin left gay
marriage advocates optimistic they could defeat the measure in the new
legislative session, which begins today.
Still, the vote marked a dramatic shift in fortune for social
conservatives and Governor Mitt Romney, who just weeks ago had little
hope the petition would move forward. Both they and same-sex marriage
advocates said the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling was the major factor
that shifted the political ground in favor of the proposed amendment.
"This is a victory for democracy, it's a victory for the people's right
to petition, and . . . it's a victory for the constitution, the oldest
living constitution in the world," said Kris Mineau, the president of
Massachusetts Family Institute, which is spearheading the drive for the
proposal defining marriage as between only a man and a woman.
"We are a nation of laws and we proved that," Mineau said.
Romney, who is expected to file papers to open a presidential
exploratory account today, described the vote as a "huge victory for the
people of Massachusetts." After the Nov. 9 constitutional convention,
when lawmakers recessed without taking a vote on the petition, Romney
joined forces with same-sex marriage opponents to seek a ruling from the
SJC. He also sent lawmakers a copy of the state constitution, pointing
to language saying that legislators must vote on citizen ballot
petitions.
"In a democracy, the voice of the people is sovereign," Romney said in a
statement released by his office yesterday. "I congratulate the
Legislature and its leadership for upholding the Constitution and the
rule of law."
After the SJC on Dec. 27 declared that legislators had a constitutional
duty to vote on the petition, same-sex marriage backers saw support for
their plans to adjourn the convention without taking a vote collapse.
The justices said they could not force the Legislature to vote, but the
strongly worded opinion laying out the legislators' constitutional
obligation rattled many on Beacon Hill.
In the days since, same-sex marriage supporters argued that placing the
ban in the constitution would undermine the rights of thousands of
same-sex couples. At the same time, they indicated that with just 50
votes in the 200-member Legislature necessary to advance the measure,
they were likely to lose.
"This is devastatingly troublesome to us, but it is not shocking because
we knew on a vote on the merits that we were going to lose," Arline
Isaacson, cochairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political
Caucus.
"Instead we have a mean-spirited antigay amendment that is going to live
on until next year and we believe will wreak havoc on this state if it
goes to the ballot in 2008," Isaacson said. "It would be one of the most
nasty and divisive battles the state has ever seen, viciously antigay.
We will do everything in our power to stop that from happening."
Still, same-sex marriage advocates on Beacon Hill predicted that the new
Legislature, whose members were elected in November and take office at
noon today, will be more receptive to rejecting the amendment. They
predict that they will gain seven votes to oppose the amendment and that
six of those among the 62 who voted for the petition can be persuaded to
vote against it.
"I'm personally heartened by the fact that we are within just a few
votes of changing this around," said state Representative Michael Festa,
a Democrat from Melrose. Representative Byron Rushing, a Democrat from
the South End and assistant House majority leader, said the vote for the
petition fell significantly short of what same-sex marriage proponents
expected. He said the roll call on the petition offers a road map to
defeat it.
"We know who we have to talk to," Rushing said.
Mineau agreed that the petition faces major obstacles in the next
several years to get on the ballot.
"We just slid into second," Mineau said. "To win in the next year and a
half we have to make third base with another vote in the next session,
and then home plate is the election 2008."
Both sides in the fight note that one new factor will be incoming
governor Deval Patrick, a major advocate for keeping same-sex marriage
legal. Patrick's use of the bully pulpit of the office will be a key
ingredient in a future vote on the petition.
Patrick appeared on Beacon Hill before the convention, meeting with
legislative leaders and holding a news conference to urge legislators to
use "whatever means appropriate" to kill the measure. Emerging from the
office of House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, who was lobbying House
members to kill the amendment, Patrick described the issue as a
"question of conscience" and said same-sex marriage is a civil right
that should not be subject to a referendum. He said the question of
civil rights outweighs the provisions providing for citizens petitions
to amend the constitution.
One Senate leader said Patrick's lobbying -- which included a letter and
calls to lawmakers -- irritated Senate President Robert E. Travaglini,
who had been pushing his colleagues to abide by the court's ruling. The
two met privately in the Senate president's office. An aide said the two
had a cordial conversation.
Lawmakers yesterday voted on the measure twice. First they voted 62 to
132, and then promptly voted to reconsider the motion, leading to
speculation that they would reverse their action. However, they then
voted on the measure a second time: the results, 62 to 134.
The session brought out the tension that has developed between
Travaglini and DiMasi. Travaglini, who has said the issue of same-sex
marriage should be decided by voters, ran the convention with a strong
gavel.
Both times the petition came up for a vote yesterday, he moved to a roll
call with virtually no debate, angering DiMasi and his leadership team
who were trying to stretch out the debate. The House leaders, working
with same-sex marriage advocates and supporters in the Legislature, were
considering strategies that could block a vote on the proposal, but
Travaglini's decision to call the vote quickly foiled their efforts.
"There has been discussion on this issue for three years," Travaglini
said as he left the House chamber after the final vote. "There was no
new elements brought into the conversation."
DiMasi remained in his office, just off the House chamber where the
convention was held, trying to persuade lawmakers to kill the measure.
The Boston Herald
Monday, December 25, 2006
The Monday morning briefing
By Casey Ross
[Excerpt]
By the numbers:
$2.5 million - The amount of money the Massachusetts Teachers
Association spent to support Deval Patrick’s campaign for governor,
according to the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance. The
union’s expenditures, comprised mostly of a single $2.2 million media
buy to support Patrick, accounted for 62 percent of spending by
independent groups and individuals to support or oppose candidates in
this year’s elections. Almost all the money spent by such groups went to
support Patrick.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Deval sticks his nose in, but can’t close deal
By Howie Carr
Poor Arline Isaacson - her Mass. Teachers Association dumps all that
money into the campaign of Gov.-elect Deval Patrick, so she calls in a
marker on the only thing she really cares about, gay marriage. But then
Deval can’t twist enough arms to kill the bill.
Three million bucks just doesn’t buy what it used to, does it, Arline?
So the proposed 2008 ballot question to ban “gay marriage” remains
alive. But Arline is still a heavy favorite to win in the end. She’s
doing it, after all, “for the children.”
The good news is, everyone’s life and liberty is safe -- the Legislature
adjourned last night.
The bad news, they’re coming back to the State House this morning to be
sworn in for the next session. And the terrain continues to shift in
favor of the gay lobby. Last night, Kris Mineau of the Massachusetts
Family Institute was asked which pols played the most important roles in
fending off the homosexual lobby.
“There was Gov. Mitt Romney,” he said, “who changed the whole dynamic
when he filed the lawsuit against the Legislature.”
This, of course, is Mitt’s last full day as governor.
“And Senate President Travaglini ran a tight ship, he didn’t allow for a
lot of procedural maneuvers. He made it happen.”
Everybody thinks the next thing Trav will make happen is his own
disappearance from the Legislature, probably in the spring.
“And, of course, the two reps, Phil Travis and Emile Goguen.”
Both of whose final terms expired at midnight.
The fact is, the gays just got greedy yesterday. They could have played
by the rules and won. Hell, they probably still will. The high-water
mark for the meanspirited let-the-people-decide crowd was 62 votes. And
several of the pro-family reps besides Travis and Goguen are history.
Farewell, Marie Parente.
But they couldn’t wait. They’re just too afraid of putting “gay
marriage” to a vote. Finally, even Isaacson admits what we all know --
that it would be voted down here, just as it has been everywhere else.
So Deval Patrick took time out from baking his inaugural chocolate chip
cookies to trudge up to the State House to dangle a few carrots. Do you
suppose that someone from, say, Essex County was promised, say, the job
of veterans commissioner in return for changing his vote?
It was a rather unseemly way for Deval to begin his inaugural week,
which is shaping up as even longer than Gerald Ford’s funeral. But what
choice did he have? He owes Arline Isaacson big time, and he’s a bit
strapped in the local-aid department, plus, didn’t he promise to reduce
property taxes rather than stand by while the teachers turn every
municipality in the commonwealth into Chelsea?
But is it really a good move to urge the legislators not to worry about
breaking the law? That’s just the kind of encouragement they don’t need,
Deval.
Breaking the law is a suggestion that will win friends and influence
people on Beacon Hill. Break the law? Yes we can.
Next, Deval, you can lead the solons in a chant.
Toga, Toga, TOGA!
Deval shrugged and said that defying the law was simply a matter of
“conscience.” Yeah, right. By one vote, the SJC invents a right to “gay
marriage” that nobody anywhere had ever heard of before, and then, to
stop the people from exercising their constitutional rights to do
something about this radical reordering of society, Deval decides it’s
OK to shred a part of the state constitution that dates back to 1918.
“The sky isn’t falling,” Deval said.
No, it isn’t. Not today. No thanks to you, Deval.
And by the way, did you notice something missing in this debate? Namely,
live TV coverage. Yes, at a very fortuitous moment, the Legislature has
vanished from Channel 44. Now they’re on the Internet, and I don’t mean
YouTube, or MySpace. They’re tucked away on a government site, never to
be seen again.
Nice win, all you soon-to-be-former pols. For Deval and Arline, the
question is, can we stick it to the people at the next ConCon? The
answer is, Yes we can.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, January 3, 2006
Bible with ties to slave ship will be used for oath
By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff
One hundred and sixty-six years ago, a prominent Massachusetts
politician, former President John Quincy Adams , played a role in black
history by persuading the US Supreme Court to free a group of African
captives who had staged a mutiny on the slave ship Amistad.
Tomorrow, when Deval Patrick takes his place in the history books as the
state's first African-American governor, he will offer a symbolic nod to
that storied past, taking the oath of office on a leather-bound Bible
given by the freed captives to the former president.
"This Bible is a quintessential American symbol, one of democracy, and
the inner workings of freedom, and our system of laws, and the
abolitionist movement, and it represents a real victory for Africans who
stood up for themselves," said Beverly A. Morgan-Welch, the executive
director of the Museum of African American History and a cochair of
Patrick's inauguration committee.
"The Bible was given to Adams by these freed African men because they so
appreciated that Adams was not just their legal advocate, but he
believed in their freedom, and here we are, how many years later, and we
are installing Massachusetts' first African-American governor,"
Morgan-Welch said.
The book, named the Mendi Bible for the men's tribe, is part of the
collection of the Adams National Historical Park in Quincy.
On an inside page, the Mendi men wrote a note of thanks to Adams, saying
the Bible "has been a precious book to us in prison, and we love to read
it now we are free."
Adams sent the men a letter back, saying, "It was from that book that I
learnt to espouse your cause when you were in trouble."
Four years ago, Mitt Romney took the oath of office using a family Bible
signed by his father, George Romney, a former governor of Michigan.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, January 3, 2006
A Boston Globe editorial
A shameful reversal of rights
Sixty-two state legislators voted to shrink the civil rights of
Massachusetts citizens yesterday when they advanced a proposed
constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Every effort should be
made now to kill the measure by reducing that number below 50 when the
issue comes up again before the newly elected Legislature.
One of the key arguments raised by opponents of gay marriage is also one
of the most spurious: that, having filed more than 123,000 certified
signatures for the amendment, they have a right to see it go on the 2008
ballot.
There is no such right. The Constitution provides that it can only be
changed by public instigation through an initiative amendment that must
first be approved by one-quarter of two successive Legislatures. If the
collection of signatures were reason enough to put a proposed amendment
on the ballot, there would be no need for the one-quarter votes from the
legislators. This means that each senator and representative is
duty-bound not simply to pass the issue on to the electorate, but to
vote it up or down on the merits.
In this case, a vote for the amendment is a vote to eliminate a civil
right that is contained in the state Constitution -- a shameful and
perhaps unique reversal of the long forward march of civil rights
progress, both locally and nationally. Each such vote is, as
Governor-elect Deval Patrick said yesterday, "irresponsible and wrong."
Opponents of gay marriage say that the one-quarter vote requirement
exists to protect the rights of minorities, yet they are trying to use
this process to extinguish minority rights.
And to what end? We are still waiting to hear of the first heterosexual
couple whose marriage has been damaged by the more than 8,500 same-sex
marriages performed here since 2004.
One anomaly of this process is that the second Legislature that would
vote on this amendment has already been elected and takes office today.
Clearly, the drafters of this constitutional provision required a vote
from two separate Legislatures, imagining that the voters would have an
intervening election to change the makeup of the second Legislature.
That will not be the case this time.
When a final vote is taken by the new Legislature, the members must
consider whether this is an appropriate issue to put to the voters. We
believe Massachusetts voters would not take away this right, and a
popular endorsement might be considered healthy. But civil rights are
fundamental, and gay marriage should not be subject to plebiscite here,
any more than it would have been appropriate to have Alabama voters
directly decide school integration or Virginia voters decide interracial
marriage.
State House News Service
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Lawmakers nix petition guaranteeing health care access
By Jim O'Sullivan and Priscilla Yeon
An effort to enshrine in the state constitution guarantees of affordable
and comprehensive health coverage died in the Legislature Tuesday, with
legislators reluctant to impose statutory prods on themselves while they
experiment with a first-in-the-nation law.
Lawmakers voted, by a count of 101 to 92, to keep bottled in a special
committee the citizen-driven amendment, which advocates said would have
anchored the moves toward universal health care contained in a landmark
reform law passed last year.
The petition, had it been approved, would have been marked as a
referendum on the 2008 ballot, because the Legislature voted to advance
it during the 2003-2004 Constitutional Convention.
Disappointed activists said legislators, who earlier had voted to
advance a petition banning gay marriage that had followed the same
channels, were ignoring their constitutional obligations. Health Care
For Massachusetts Campaign co-chair Barbara Roop said, "It's very sad
that the Legislature feel they have the choice to obey the Constitution
whenever it's convenient to them."
By keeping the plan in committee, lawmakers today avoided a vote on the
question itself, which was put before state government with the
signatures of tens of thousands of supporters.
Asked if officials from Health Care for Massachusetts planned to
continue pursuing the pending lawsuit filed with the Supreme Judicial
Court requesting the Legislature to vote on the amendment today or place
the petition before the voters on the 2008 ballot, Roop said she is
reviewing all the options available.
"It's certainly not an easy suit to pursue," she said, pointing to the
recent SJC ruling, arising from the gay marriage petition battle, that
there is no judicial remedy to enforce a vote even though legislators
have a constitutional duty to vote on citizen petitions.
Two of the authors of the milestone health care expansion - Sen. Richard
Moore (D-Uxbridge) and Rep. Patricia Walrath (D-Stow) - spoke against
the measure during the convention, urging lawmakers to allow its
implementation before putting it to a popular vote.
Moore and Walrath lead the committee that had custody of the petition.
Walrath said that the adoption of the constitutional amendment would
restrict legislators from quickly making inevitable tweaks to the
reform, forcing them instead to adhere to the difficult constitutional
amendment process, which takes at least four years.
"Do we really want to subject each legislative move to improve health
care coverage to a statewide referendum?" Walrath said during her floor
speech.
By a 153-41 vote in a July 2004 Constitutional Convention session,
nearly two years before the health care reform became law, House and
Senate members advanced the measure. But in July 2006, lawmakers voted
118 to 76 to reroute the proposal to a special committee of the
Constitutional Convention, a step supporters acknowledged represented a
serious blow to the petition's chances.
That step pushed the petition beyond the reach of the November ballot,
and when the Constitutional Convention returned two days after the
election, it was with the universal health care amendment buried at the
bottom of the calendar.
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