The Standard-Times
New Bedford, Mass.
Friday, November 30, 2001
Editorial:
Rude surprises continue surfacing in the state budget
Now we have another example of our state legislators' boundless contempt for democracy and the people they are supposed to serve. With the assenting silence of the rank and file, House Speaker Thomas Finneran is trying to put one past us in the stealth budget that was hatched last week, this time in a rider that would restore the bad old days of rampant patronage in the court system. The budget, as sent to Gov. Jane Swift, strips the hiring authority from the chief administrative justice, Barbara A. Dortch-Okara, and hands it over to the commissioner of probation, John J. O'Brien. O'Brien, wouldn't you know, happens to be a very close pal of Finneran, and very receptive to the pleas of legislators who want their friends and relatives to get good jobs as probation officers whether they are qualified or not.
The problem they all have with the system as it is now is that the reforms of a decade ago are working. It isn't easy to game the current system, in which competence and compatibility actually matter more than who you know. The pols couldn't stand for that any longer. So last spring they made a move to go back to the bad old days.
The trouble was, democracy interfered. When the plot was made public, people within the court system howled at the prospect of an invasion of the politically connected.
Lawmakers couldn't leave it alone, however, so behind closed doors, in that small clique that drew up the budget without anyone watching, Finneran slipped in this little "outside section" giving him and his friends what they wanted -- and open deliberation and the public interest be damned.
True to form, the speaker defended (through his spokesman, of course) the move, saying "The commissioner is a professional and he was put there for his professional expertise, which he should use to pursue personnel matters." The mouthpiece made no mention of this professional's lifetime alliance with
Finneran.
So once again, Finneran acts as though giving us a reason -- any reason -- ought to be sufficient for us giving him whatever he wants. We don't need a debate as long as there's a reason, any reason, no matter how thin. We don't need to file a bill, we don't need to have hearings, we don't need to look at the damage this would do to the integrity of the courts. We don't need to expose lawmakers to their own hypocrisy. All we need is a reason, honest or not, and that's good enough for lawmakers in Massachusetts in the year 2001.
As proof: Judges and others are looking for the Senate, not the House, to sustain a veto of this travesty. The House, they fear, will easily come up with enough votes for an override. There is no resistance to either patronage or the speaker over in the House. There is, it seems, a residue of hope in the Senate.
How much of this sort of thing are Massachusetts voters going to endure? How many insults are going to be heaped on citizens by their elected representatives? We have watched them gut the Clean Elections Law, passed by a thumping two-thirds majority in a referendum, and sit back in smug satisfaction. Lawmakers even kept the heaps of extra expense money they gave themselves this year, money they grabbed using the Clean Election Law's spending restrictions as an excuse. When they made the excuse disappear, they conveniently forgot to return the loot to the treasury.
And now this with the courts.
This is a Legislature that is out of control. This is a Legislature that needs to be reformed. This is a Legislature that is begging to be replaced. Whoever emerges to seriously challenge the way it does business, to break the hold of Finneran and to restore some spine to the rank and file, will have our support and gratitude and probably that of the vast majority of voters.
Meanwhile, we await the next insult.
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The Boston Herald
Friday, November 30, 2001
Unlikely 'radical' makes bid for gov
by Thomas Keane Jr.
Warren Tolman appears an unlikely radical. A politician most of his adult life, he once seemed to fit comfortably within the conventions of the State House.
No more. Now, early in his race for governor, he has gone from being an insider to an outsider, from someone who was part of the system to someone who stands outside House Speaker Tom Finneran's home holding picket signs.
It didn't start out like this.
If central casting were to write the pedigree of a Democratic man-of-the-people, it would be Tolman. Born in the projects and one of eight children, his father was a railroad conductor and chair of his union. Tolman was the wunderkind of Watertown: A star student, president of every class from sixth grade on, the first in his family to complete college. And not just any college: he was the first Watertown student in 25 years to attend Amherst.
Nor did he forget his roots. After college, he went back home. He taught school and drove a truck for United Parcel Service while at Boston College Law School. He married, got involved in town politics, and, when just 31, successfully ran in 1991 for state representative. Three years later, he was elected state senator.
Tolman is smart, ambitious, and popular; tall and trim, the only thing missing - as he notes with rueful humor - is a full head of hair. He played the political game well, quickly making friends within the business community while still staying close to the state's politically active labor unions. In 1998, when he won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor, people figured he would one day be governor or U.S. senator.
And even though Tolman and his running mate, then-Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, lost to incumbent Paul Cellucci, Tolman did well. With his strong union base, he helped turn what should have been an easy race for Cellucci into one that was extraordinarily tight. Tolman, it seemed, was on the top of the political heap.
Fast-forward a few years and where is he? He's been touring the state with a mobile billboard that lambastes Finneran. He's suing the Legislature. Some of the State House wise guys roll their eyes at his name. Others think he's a crank.
The cause of all of this is Clean Elections, the public campaign financing law. Passed by referendum in 1998, it was supposed to transform the state's politics. Every other candidate running for governor - Senate President Thomas Birmingham, Treasurer Shannon O'Brien, businessman Steve Grossman - has voiced support for the law. But Tolman played by its rules, running as a Clean Elections candidate. He forswore large contributions, instead collecting small amounts from over 6,000 individuals. Doing so, in theory, entitles him to more than $4 million in public campaign funds.
That's where theory and practice diverged. The Clean Elections law is such an anathema to the political establishment that the leadership of both the House and Senate killed its funding with the apparent acquiescence of the governor. And it's Tolman's refusal to keep quiet about it that has made him a pariah.
Tolman is hardly a crank. In conversation, he remains as rational and focused as ever. He's put together a strong statewide organization and honed his message of reform and accountability. Like most politicians in Massachusetts, he always said he supported campaign finance reform. Unlike them, apparently, he actually meant it.
Having played by the new rules, is Tolman's gubernatorial campaign now out of luck, bested by a poker-faced establishment? Not yet. This Monday, he plays one final card.
On that day, the Supreme Judicial Court hears a lawsuit challenging the Legislature's refusal to fund Clean Elections. Brought by Mass Voters for Clean Elections and joined in by Tolman, the argument is straightforward: Under the state Constitution, the Legislature has two options when it comes to referendum questions, either fund them or repeal them (by a two-thirds vote).
It hasn't been repealed. Therefore, Mass Voters and Tolman argue, the court should force the state's campaign finance office to fund qualifying campaigns. On its face, it's a compelling argument. Indeed, if the court doesn't act - brushing off the lawsuit by saying it's a political question not appropriate for a court to decide - it effectively will be transforming all ballot referenda from binding laws to things the Legislature can accept at its whim.
The constitutional stakes are high; for Tolman, the personal stakes are high as well. If he loses in court, his campaign is virtually wiped out.
But a win turns the race upside down. Tolman becomes the player with four aces in his hand: he'll have a bigger bankroll than anyone else and a sudden burst of momentum. To the dismay of the commonwealth's autocratic political elite and the shock of the pundits who discount him, Warren Tolman could end up occupying a certain corner office in the State House.
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The Lowell Sun
Friday, November 30, 2001
Editorial
Tolman's valiant stand
Clean Elections gubernatorial candidate Warren Tolman has played by the rules yet has nothing to show for it. He's the only statewide candidate to meet the qualifying threshold for Clean Elections funding, but he won't receive a dime unless the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules in favor of democracy Monday at the Suffolk County Courthouse in Boston.
While the court can't order the Legislature to fund Clean Elections, it can order the state agency that oversees the law -- the Office of Campaign and Political Finance -- to comply with it.
It's truly sad and outrageous that the high court has to get involved in the state's political affairs, but Beacon Hill's arrogant legislative leadership left it no choice.
House Speaker Thomas Finneran and Senate President Tom Birmingham refused to fund the Clean Elections Law in the haphazard 2002 state budget they rammed through the Legislature last week. Not only did they defy the people's will -- the law passed as a 1998 statewide initiative by a 2-1 margin -- but they ignored the fact that $24 million had already been deposited in the Clean Elections account from two previous budgets. The $12 million needed this year and next would have launched the law for the 2002 election cycle.
Under the state constitution, the Legislature had two choices after voters put the Clean Elections Law on the books. It could either enact the law by funding it, or repeal it. This Legislature, in its incorrigible way, chose to do neither. Now Tolman, with the aid of the Mass. Voters for Clean Elections, has filed suit.
In all fairness, Tolman deserves the state money to run for office whether you agree or disagree with his political party (Democrat) or views. He began his campaign in good faith, believing the Legislature would embrace the people's overwhelming voice and fund the law. He collected contributions of $5 to $100 from 6,061 registered voters, many of whom despise the present money-grubbing system favoring incumbents who'd rather play golf and dine with special interest lobbyists than visit constituents at the local coffee shop. The system protects incumbents, 71 percent of whom had no competition in the last election.
Tolman is a valiant reformer not unlike 1960s civil rights activists who fought huge odds to change a powerful, segregated America. He's faced an uphill battle against autocratic rulers Finneran and Birmingham and a majority of the 200 legislators who routinely back the leadership's abuse of power.
Tolman's odds, however, are much better with the seven-member Supreme Judicial Court, which will decide the issue on its merits.
No matter what happens, the Legislature's inaction on Clean Elections is quite revealing. It tells the commonwealth's citizens that its governing body can't be trusted to follow the dictates of the people as expressed through voter initiatives. Just as repugnant, it exposes Massachusetts to national ridicule and embarrassment.
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The Union-News
Springfield, Mass.
Friday, November 30, 2001
Letters to the Editor
Citizens for limited taxes says editorial inconsistent
The Union-News defends the voter-approved Clean-Elections
Law with the statement, "as we've noted a number of times, voters have a right to alter their government through the use
of ballot questions from time to time without fear that lawmakers will later at attempt to
undermine their will."
You are so right.
This is why Citizens for Limited Taxation, which originally
opposed this ballot question, now supports its implementation.
We are, however, simply baffled when this same editorial
then calls on legislators to suspend the income tax rollback, which was also voter-approved. CLT is consistent: Respect the
voters, fund Clean Elections, roll back the income tax rate.
BARBARA ANDERSON
Citizens for Limited Taxation
Peabody
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The Boston Herald
Saturday, December 1, 2001
Swift seeks to KO budget cuts
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
Acting Gov. Jane M. Swift is moving to restore $600 million in budget cuts -- most for social services, forcing lawmakers to choose between what an aide called a "vote of conscience" or being leadership "sheep."
Swift budget chief Stephen Crosby threw down the gauntlet yesterday, demanding that lawmakers buck House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham's decision to slash $650 million from programs for kids, the poor, the sick and the retarded.
"Each rep and senator is going to have to look themselves in the soul and say, do we stick with the leadership that got us in this mess, or do we stick with these critical care issues?" Crosby said.
Many rank-and-file lawmakers are angry about the five-month budget delay, and embarrassed by the juxtaposition of painful spending cuts with protection for coveted political perks.
Public outrage has been growing since the Legislature rushed the budget through on Thanksgiving eve. Mayor Thomas M. Menino yesterday joined Swift in decrying the Legislature's budget as "a mistake."
"The programs that affect people's lives on a daily basis have been decimated," Menino said.
At a ceremony today in North Adams, Swift will sign a $22 billion budget, issue $250 million in vetoes and file $600 million in stop-gap spending.
The supplemental budget provides $450 million for health and human services, mostly through a $297 million infusion for Medicaid, the state health care program for the poor, said an administration source.
It also seeks to restore $62 million for the Department of Social Services, which cares for abused and neglected kids, and $16.6 million for the Department of Mental Health, the source said.
The Department of Mental Retardation would get back $29 million, including $15 million for court-ordered services for the retarded. The other $150 million in non-human service money would go toward contracts with state workers, and snow and ice removal.
Swift also wants to restore $13.2 million to adult basic education, a cut that would have wiped the programs out on the spot. Education officials, who have been bombarded with pleas to save the services, reserved any relief until they see what the Legislature does.
"We're not clapping our hands until we know for sure it's a done deal," said Department of Education spokeswoman Heidi
Perlman.
Legislative leaders, who have called a special session Wednesday to take up veto overrides, were wary and skeptical of Swift's proposal.
Senate Ways and Means Chairman Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford) acknowledged lawmakers would like to revisit some cuts. But he said they would have to figure out where to get the extra money.
"It's impossible to promise supplemental revenues right now, but there are holes that need to be filled," Montigny said.
Crosby said Swift would rely first on the $350 million the Legislature tapped from the $2.3 billion in state reserves.
The other $250 million would be drummed up through vetoes of "non-essential" budget items such as $20 million from legislative slush funds, $2.5 million in special do-nothing police patrols and $17 million from smoking prevention programs, Crosby said.
But the biggest chunk of veto money would come through a $130 million reduction in the state's annual contribution to state employee pensions -- a plan the Senate supports, but Finneran fiercely resists.
Finneran was junketeering at a legislative conference in Miami yesterday and couldn't be reached for comment. But spokesman Charlie Rasmussen said shortchanging the pension fund foists obligations onto future generations, threatening the state's long-term stability.
"They have no desire to mortgage the future for present costs," Rasmussen said.
Wall Street credit rating agencies, while historically leery of pension games, seem more forgiving in the wake of Sept. 11. Fitch IBCA Vice President Claire Cohen noted that Massachusetts' pension system is 85 percent funded, and the state has other "conflicting demands."
"I don't think there's any deep concern," Cohen said.
Ellen J. Silberman contributed to this report.
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The MetroWest Daily News
Friday, November 30, 2001
Editorial
A bid to boost patronage in state courts
Acting Gov. Jane Swift is working overtime these days with her veto pen, planning to have her hoped-for budget revisions to Senate and House of Representative members today.
It isn't likely though, that her objections will have an impact on the financial aspects of the $22.6 billion budget approved by the Legislature last week. She doesn't have the votes.
Swift can still pack a punch in another area, however, and that is a House-sponsored budget rider that would take away from Chief Administrative Justice Barbara A. Dortch-Okara the authority to hire court probation officers.
The rider, supported by House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, would put that task into the hands of his good buddy, Commissioner of Probation John J. O'Brien. It would also take away from Dortch-Okara responsibility for overseeing O'Brien's budget.
Insiders say the House proposal is in response to Dortch-Okara's refusal to honor the requests of Finneran and other legislators to hire their political supporters and relatives as probation officers. That doesn't sit right with some them because they count on patronage jobs to keep their people happy.
Supporters of Dortch-Okara say she believes the court system must have professionally trained people in the sensitive areas they handle - such as family abuse. She is also committed to increasing the number of minorities hired as probation officers in direct response to the varied nationalities now seen in the courtroom.
That can't happen if she bends to the whims and whines of elected officials and their friends.
O'Brien said the proposal was made because he needs more flexibility in moving probation officers from court to court, and that centralizing hiring in his office would be less political.
We don't buy it. The personnel policy of the court system was overhauled in the 1970s specifically to eliminate the blatant political influence in that arm of government. Dortch-Okara is doing exactly what she is supposed to do. Finneran's proposal is an attempt to turn back the clock.
The culture of patronage is deeply rooted in Massachusetts politics. In recent weeks the spotlight has been on Massport, where Virginia Buckingham took the fall for generations of political hires. But Massport isn't the only corner of state government where who you know is more important than what you know. The courts have long been patronage havens as well, a legacy Dortch-Okara has been trying to leave behind.
Judges throughout Massachusetts have lobbied Swift to veto the probation officers rider, and she should. Because it is on the budget only at the insistence of Finneran and without the express support of the Senate, Swift's veto pen just might have enough power to protect the court system from Finneran and his good-old-boy network.
At the very least, it would force members of the House and Senate to vote on this specific proposal, which has previously been lumped into the budget. Meaningful votes in the Legislature have been exceedingly rare this year. It's time representatives and senators were forced to take a stand on Finneran's anti-reform agenda.
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Associated Press
Friday, November 30, 2001
For House Speaker Thomas Finneran,
a new title: 'President'
By John Mcelhenny
BOSTON (AP) He spearheaded opposition to spending public money on political campaigns, even though more than 1 million voters approved it.
He championed a congressional redistricting map that would have pitted two incumbent Democrats two of his own party against one another.
And he has led a House that was the last in the nation to agree on a state budget, nearly five months after it was due.
Yet Thomas Finneran is held up as a role model for the rest of the nation's speakers of the house.
Finneran, who has been derided as "King Tom" and assailed as an enemy of openness in government, is the new president of the National Speakers Conference.
"When I look at Tom Finneran, I see a speaker who has ignored the will of the people," said Warren Tolman, a former Democratic senator who is running for governor. "That's hardly a model that other states should follow."
Finneran says his leadership has made Massachusetts the envy of other states, especially now that the economy has soured. Supporters say he's a fiscally responsible leader who doesn't trade his principles for politics.
On Friday, Finneran flew to Miami for a meeting of the Legislative Leadership Foundation, which helps run the National Speakers Conference. A spokesman said the trip was paid for through Finneran's campaign account.
Tolman and other campaign finance reform advocates have sharply criticized Finneran because he has led the Legislature in failing to appropriate money for "Clean Elections" candidates who agree to limit their spending and contributions.
Voters approved the Clean Elections law by a 2-to-1 margin in 1998. A lawsuit in the case goes to the state's highest court Monday.
Finneran's reputation took another hit as wrangling over the state budget between his House negotiators and their Senate counterparts dragged on through the summer and into the fall.
Only a handful of lawmakers were involved in the closed-door budget negotiations. The budget was submitted Nov. 20, one day before the Legislature adjourned for the year, giving 200 rank-and-file lawmakers fewer than 24 hours to examine, debate and vote on the 369-page document.
The fiscal year that the budget is supposed to pay for began on July 1.
"No speaker should bring such secrecy and lack of representation in such a closed process as this speaker has brought," said Ken White, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts. "It seems a strange time for the speaker to be out promoting the 'Massachusetts miracle' when we're having so much difficulty at home."
But Finneran points to the 40 other states that passed their budgets on time and now have to revise them. Some are raising taxes, while others are forced to borrow large sums to cover shortfalls.
Massachusetts, for its part, plans to do neither, relying instead on $2.3 billion in reserves built up over the last decade.
At the September meeting of the National Speakers Conference in Charleston, S.C., at which Finneran was elected president, those reserves made Massachusetts the envy of the other 42 other assembled House speakers, Finneran said.
"To a person, they would change places with the legislative leadership in Massachusetts," he said. "Few if any of them had any reserves built up."
South Carolina House Speaker David Wilkins, whom Finneran replaced as NSC president, said he wasn't aware of Massachusetts' failed campaign finance reform or its longest-in-the-nation budget impasse.
But he said Finneran had impressed the other house speakers as an intelligent, dynamic and articulate leader.
"When Tom Finneran speaks, other speakers listen," Wilkins said. "He's obviously someone who has successfully run his body for a number of years."
In July, Finneran ignited controversy when he proposed a congressional redistricting plan that abolished U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan's district. The plan was a highly unusual blow to an incumbent congressman, especially since Finneran and Meehan are both Democrats. It was eventually overturned in the Senate.
Finneran said he assumed Meehan was running for governor, not reelection, since he was sending campaign brochures around the state. But critics saw a more devious motive: Revenge. Meehan had fought loudly for campaign finance reform in Massachusetts and Washington.
Finneran strongly opposes public financing of campaigns. He calls it "candidate subsidies."
Another redistricting plan, this time by Finneran's leadership team for state House seats in October, prompted more accusations of revenge because it pitted liberal critics of Finneran against each other.
David Donnelly, director of Mass. Voters for Clean Elections, said Finneran's "political games" around redistricting gave the House as an institution "a black eye."
"The House has been diminished by his actions," Donnelly said.
A vote by Finneran's followers in January to get rid of speakers' eight-year term limits earned him the nicknames "King Tom" and "Speaker for life."
But despite the shots critics have landed on Finneran, Democratic consultant Tobe Berkovitz said there's plenty for other house speakers to admire about him.
"Who wouldn't want to be the most powerful political broker in their state?" Berkovitz said. "If you were a speaker looking to dominate your state politically, this is the model you'd want to go for but that doesn't mean it's a model for parliamentary democracy."
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The Boston Herald
Friday, November 30, 2001
House, Senate chiefs to trim spending
by Steve Marantz
Facing a gubernatorial veto of bulging administrative accounts, House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham yesterday announced new internal spending restrictions on travel, hiring and office renovations.
With hundreds of angry human service advocates protesting at the State House over deep budget cuts, Finneran said he was banning travel by House members, freezing staff raises and hiring, and cutting back the summer intern program -- reducing spending by about $1.5 million.
"It is important to set the tone and avoid rhetorical exchanges and try to set an example," said Finneran (D-Mattapan).
Birmingham (D-Chelsea) is imposing limits on hiring, raises, technology purchases, renovation projects and the intern program, said aide Alison Franklin.
The limitations will preclude a $1.8 million planned expansion in the Senate budget, she said, but it was unclear if they represent a reduction from last year.
The two legislative leaders announced the cutbacks a day after the Herald reported they were sitting on lavish slush funds of unspent money from last year and acting Gov. Jane M. Swift vowed to veto as much as $29 million from administrative accounts. "The governor made clear her intent to address that issue -- I assume (they) did it in reaction to that," said Swift spokesman James
Borghesani.
The cuts were accepted without grumbling by rank-and-file lawmakers.
"I think it's good (Finneran) is taking a stand on these issues because ... if we're going to make it up in human services you have to examine your own house as well," said Rep. Kay Khan (D-Newton).
Meanwhile, Finneran indicated that lawmakers are not inclined to come up with $22 million to place mentally disabled adults in a group homes as mandated by a legal settlement between the state and 2,400 families in January, despite Swift's warning that the state is legally bound to fund it.
"Our attorney suggests we have not done anything in violation," said Finneran. "The consent decree may require the administration to file (for funding) but the Legislature is not bound to follow them."
Said Borghesani: "To withhold money from needy mental health patients on the basis that the lawsuit didn't specifically mention the Legislature is legalese trumping responsibility."
About 300 demonstrators marched on the State House yesterday to protest the cuts in services to the mentally ill, chanting outside Swift's office as police kept watch.
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