Citizens for Limited Taxation has requested a
complaint form from the Office of the Bar Counsel so that we may
file a complaint with the
Board of
Bar Overseers concerning the refusal of 34 legislators to
uphold the state Constitution.
Last weekend, we sent
letters to the 42 lawyer-legislators who had voted to recess
the Constitutional Convention until January 2, reminding them of
their sworn constitutional duty to vote on the initiative
petitions for constitutional amendments that had been properly
placed on the Constitutional Convention agenda.
They had already been reminded of this duty the previous week by
the Supreme Judicial Court; we wanted to alert them that if they
ignored the Court we would file a complaint with the Board of
Bar Overseers, noting that they had violated their oaths as both
legislators and lawyers to uphold the Constitution.
Fortunately, one of the initiative petitions, concerning gay
marriage, was taken up by the ConCon and the required roll call
was taken. Unfortunately, the other initiative petition,
concerning health care, was not taken up when the Legislature
refused to release it from Committee for the vote.
Of those legislators who voted against discharge, 34 are listed
in the
Massachusetts Political Almanac as lawyers, or as having
graduated from a law school.
We plan to include in our complaint the actions of Governor
Deval Patrick, also a lawyer, who urged legislators to violate
both their legislative and lawyer oaths, then himself took
another oath as governor yesterday to uphold the
Constitution. Though he was addressing the marriage amendment,
his contempt for the Constitution may have led to the defeat,
without proper process, of the health care amendment.
CLT has no position on either the marriage or the health care
amendments. Our concern is Article 48 of the Constitution, which
is used by citizens from across the political spectrum and is
endangered by the actions of the governor and 34 legislators.