UPI
Friday, November 30, 2001
Capital Comment
On Wednesday, Arkansas GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee challenged anyone demanding he raise taxes
during the current economic slowdown to lead the way by contributing to the newly created
Tax Me More Fund at the state Department of Finance and Administration. The governor said he created the fund so
those who believe they should be paying more taxes can make a voluntary contribution to the state and set
an example for others who believe as they do.
All money sent to the account will go to the state's general revenue fund to help offset the current revenue
shortfall. The names of those who send in money and the amount contributed
will be public record. "There's nothing in the law that prohibits those who believe they aren't paying enough in taxes
from writing a check to the state of Arkansas," the governor said. "Maybe this will make them feel better."
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The Boston Globe
Monday, December 3, 2001
A Boston Globe editorial
Swift strikes back
Acting Governor Jane Swift took bold steps over the weekend to rectify the Legislature's
amateurish budget while sending a strong message that her administration is ready to stand up
for retarded children, the homeless mentally ill, and other individuals who rely on human
services to keep afloat.
Swift unveiled $271 million in mostly well-executed vetoes while submitting a $590 million
supplemental budget that puts needed pressure on legislative leaders as they prepare for a
one-day override session on Wednesday.
Swift struck directly at $20 million in the Legislature's office and operational expenses and
another $20 million in public works projects used for currying favor in legislative
districts. Legislators now will be forced to defend their pet projects in light of their $22.6 billion state
budget that failed to account for millions of dollars in mandates, contracts, and consent
ecrees in human services. House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, Senate President Thomas F.
Birmingham and their respective Ways and Means chairmen will have a long way
to go to explain why their expense accounts and bloated overtime budgets for their loyalists come
before funding for residential placements for retarded men and women whose elderly
parents can no longer care for them, basic shelter for the homeless mentally ill, and salaries for the
social workers who aid troubled adolescents.
Swift is relying, in part, on reserves and temporary suspension of the state's smoking
cessation programs to meet human service needs. But the largest veto -- $134 million -
concerns the state's contribution to the public employees' pension fund. The Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation criticizes Swift for shifting current pension costs onto future
generations. But the moral high ground belongs to the governor, who rightfully fears that
mental health facilities would close and adult basic education offerings would collapse unless
she redirects state resources.
Legislative leaders argue accurately that Swift underfunds efforts to build affordable housing.
But their own budget crippled the nonprofit community development corporations that
lead statewide efforts to build inexpensive homes.
Only a suspension of the next two phases of the tax cut would be sufficient to deal with the
problems presented by a slowing of the state economy and declining revenues.
If the Legislature shuns Swift's supplemental budget on Wednesday, it will call even more
attention to the body's shameful footdragging that lasted five months into the current
fiscal year. Swift highlighted this already by including $23 million for Clean Elections campaign
financing, consistent with the will of the voters in 1998. The Legislature, however,
evaded that responsibility along with basic funding for the state's fortuneless residents.
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The Boston Globe
Monday, December 3, 2001
Vouching for a larger issue
By Adrian Walker
[Excerpt]
In this grim excuse for a legislative session, perhaps nothing has brought as much disfavor on
the Legislature as its self-serving contempt for Clean Elections. In fairness, House
Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham were emboldened by the
lack of public outcry over the burial of the law.
It's a small mystery that the general public seems to care so little about a law that garnered so
much of the vote. Perhaps its support really is broad but not deep, as some
lawmakers suggest. Or, as I think more likely, maybe the public is just weary, beaten down by an insular
political leadership that seems to consider it a birthright to do whatever it wants,
voters be damned.
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The Boston Globe
Monday, December 3, 2001
Clean Elections in hands of SJC
Justices asked to order funding
By Stephanie Ebber
Globe Staff
{Excerpts}
The Clean Elections Law, which voters enacted by a ballot initiative in 1998, is being closely
watched from Beacon Hill to Capitol Hill as a measure of citizen discontent, legislative
inertia, and judicial authority.
What's at stake is not merely the fate of individual candidates, but the 2002 election
schedule, $23 million in state funds, a voter mandate for campaign finance reform, and
the ability of the Legislature to ignore it....
In 1996, the court ruled that a ballot question designed to cut legislative pay in half was
unconstitutional. The following year, the court struck down another ballot initiative that
would have limited lawmakers' terms to eight years....
John Bonifaz, the attorney leading the plaintiffs' case, likens it to the one-person, one-vote
cases presented to the SJC nearly four decades ago.
"There could be no clearer example of the importance of the ballot initiative process than this
case," he argued. "The Legislature is the chief beneficiary of the exclusion of
campaign finance reform."...
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The Boston Herald
Monday, December 3, 2001
A Boston Herald editorial
Time to repair a sloppy budget
The budget package that acting Gov. Jane Swift has submitted is a last chance for
Massachusetts to put its scrambled finances in better order. Members of the Legislature
should look upon the debate this week not as the usual opportunity to insist on their own
way, but a rare chance to correct mistakes and bad judgments.
The governor has sent along a supplemental budget with her line-item vetoes. The two
documents ought to be judged together.
The appropriations requested are the way to fix some puzzling under-spending and meet
state obligations. The most important omission was not a mistake. The $23 million sought
for Clean Elections is essential to uphold the sovereignty of the people and avoid a nasty,
unnecessary court order that quite possibly could provoke a constitutional crisis.
New contracts with state employee unions require about $120 million, and this ought not be
left to the $350 million pot in the General Fund that the Legislature's last-minute budget
intended to handle this obligation and many others. Medicaid needs $287 million more; to
continue the unseemly custom of underfunding Medicaid in the regular budget for the sake of
a low total but making it up later may not be possible when tax revenue projections are so
uncertain.
Also sought is $22 million to take care of 1,400 mentally retarded adults that was agreed in a
court settlement with their families. These are some of the most vulnerable people in
the state, facing some of the bleakest futures of anyone when their parents die; it is hard to understand
why a Legislature that prides itself on its compassion for the unfortunate should
refuse this money. It's a moral obligation.
Among the governor's vetoes are a shaving of $150 million from about $869 million taken
from reserve funds and tobacco settlement money on the argument that so much of reserves
ought not be spent in a single year. This caution deserves respect.
The best-grounded veto is the $134 million Swift wants to take from the amount devoted to
bringing public employee pension funds to full funding by 2018. The cut would put the
state on a schedule to full funding in 2028 -- the goal until recently. With all the other demands on
the Treasury, it's a reasonable request. It would be irresponsible to zero out this
appropriation, but no one is proposing that.
The governor also plans to reduce the $29 million in carried-over legislative funds to $9
million. Normally this money would remain to be spent, but these are not normal times.
The governor and Treasurer Shannon O'Brien (one of the Democrats planning to run for
governor) volunteered for 3 percent reductions in their own office budgets. A little
austerity from the Democratic Legislature is appropriate.
The five months of budget disagreement between the House and Senate have not been a
pretty sight. Before the process can be improved, the budget itself ought to be improved, and
this package offers the only opportunity.
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The Boston Herald
Monday, December 3, 2001
A Boston Herald editorial
When lawmakers fail
Those who have a healthy respect for what courts can and cannot do, those who rail against
judicial activism -- at least in the abstract -- will face an interesting dilemma this
morning as the Clean Elections drama goes before the Supreme Judicial Court.
The sad fact is that it should never have come to this.
In 1998 the voters of Massachusetts by a nearly 2-1 margin passed a law mandating the
commitment of taxpayer dollars for political campaigns. Like it or not (and this newspaper as
a matter of editorial policy did not endorse it), it was a fact -- a fact that would cost
taxpayers an estimated $40 million for each four-year election cycle.
Now there was a legitimate way out for the Legislature, had lawmakers truly objected to the
wisdom of spending that money on political campaigns. They could have repealed the law.
Ah, but that would have required going on record, likely even with roll-call votes, to do so.
Instead they have taken the coward's way out -- simply not appropriating the money, or at
least the last $23 million needed -- to make it work.
The Clean Elections Law becomes the only the latest in a long list of responsibilities the
Legislature has shirked, forcing the courts to pick up the slack. (Those with long
memories may remember that Boston Harbor would still be a virtual open sewer had it not been for a
court order. And even today parents of mentally retarded adults have put their faith
in a court-approved settlement, albeit one also not yet funded by the Legislature.)
"It is at times like this, with an entrenched political establishment resisting the people's will,
that the judicial branch of government needs to stand up for the people," said
the proponents of Clean Elections in a memo issued last week.
They will expand on that argument today in court. But what a sorry commentary that is on
the state of lawmaking in Massachusetts today and those who were elected to do the job.
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