Despite comfortable perches on Beacon Hill, state lawmakers are fleeing the Legislature at a fast clip. Leading the outmigration are several top lieutenants to House Speaker Robert DeLeo.
Lynn Democrat Steve Walsh, the latest lawmaker to announce his departure, raises a few eyebrows by going from the House chair of the Health Care Financing Committee to lead the Massachusetts Council of Community Hospitals. Revere Democrat Kathi-Anne Reinstein, the House Second Assistant Majority Leader and Assistant Majority Whip, heads off to work as a Boston Beer Company government affairs executive.
Eugene O’Flaherty, the Judiciary Committee chair, follows his good friend Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to serve as corporation counsel for the city of Boston. Last year, Westfield Republican Donald Humason moved over to the Senate to join Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr’s band of merry GOP men.
Few people begrudge anyone for moving on to bigger and better things. Asked about Walsh’s departure, Medford Democrat Paul Donato, who admitted earlier this month that a $120,000 job offer might prompt his own speedy exit from the House, told the State House News Service that the reps looked to “financially and professionally better themselves.”
Lawmakers know from day one that they aren’t going to make big bucks in the Massachusetts Legislature. Professional advancement, however, is another story. If a person is skillful and patient, they can move into leadership positions in Beacon Hill’s Byzantine corridors of power.
But that trajectory only takes a capable and ambitious person so far. One element that links these recent departures is that the soon-to-be-former lawmakers like Reinstein and Walsh are going to private sector executive positions that permit them to prowl Beacon Hill at higher pay while continuing to wield as much, if not more, power and influence than they do now.
After all, what’s a state representative really to do when he or she has butted up against the leadership ceiling? Lawmakers can also develop expertise in key policy areas like health care or find purpose in providing outstanding constituent service.When a seat opens up, they can bail to the Senate (where the atmosphere is only marginally better).
The Massachusetts House is a place where dissent is not viewed favorably, and, debate, which should be the hallmark of a democratic institution, is often absent. Not all Democrats think alike. Put reps from Provincetown, Peabody, Palmer, Peru, and Pittsfield in an ornate room with high ceilings somewhere else in Boston and a spirited debate might break out. In the House chamber, not so much.
On the major votes, state reps generally show up and vote for pre-determined outcomes. Power begins and ends with House Speaker Robert DeLeo. Disagree with the Speaker’s stance on a major issue in public and life becomes difficult. Be bolder still and try to challenge the status quo by making a feint for the Speaker’s chair, and, well, former Burlington representative Charles Murphy has some words of wisdom for you.
After his ouster from his perch atop the House Ways and Means Committee, Murphy told The Boston Globe that the Legislature runs on a “top-down leadership model where dissent is discouraged, debate is limited, decisions are made by a select few, and formal sessions are rare.”
With the 2014 campaign season getting underway, it will be worth watching whether there are more lawmakers who see a better future outside the General Court. Being part of so-called leadership apparently is not containing that impulse.
–GABRIELLE GURLEY
BEACON HILL
Snow causes Gov. Deval Patrick to call off his scheduled Tuesday night State of the State address.
“What is Carlos Henriquez waiting for?” asks Adrian Walker, who says it’s well past time for the Dorchester state rep convicted (and jailed) last week for assaulting a woman to resign his seat.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
The Lawrence City Council unanimously supports the candidate backed by Mayor Daniel Rivera for the Licensing Board over the former wife of former mayor William Lantigua. The council also backs Rivera on other personnel matters, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
Newbury earmarks $10,000 to help Plum Island homeowners restore eroding dunes.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she intends to file legislation allowing students to refinance their college debt at lower interest rates, the Associated Press reports. She also hears federal flood insurance woes during a visit to Marshfield, the Patriot Ledger reports.
Governing reports on the education initiatives governors are offering in their state-of-the-state speeches, from free tuition for students who choose four areas of study to pay hikes for teachers working in low-income areas.
Former Virginia governor Robert McDonnell and his wife Maureen are charged with illegally accepting gifts, luxury vacation, and large loans from a Richmond-area businessman, the Washington Post reports.
Slate contrasts President Obama, as profiled by the New Yorker’s David Remnick, with Michael Lewis’s Obama.
The Atlantic argues that the media cares much more deeply about the abortion debate than the general public does.
A Wall Street Journal editorial says that if the White House is going to acquiesce to state liberalization of marijuana laws, it ought to change federal law, not turn a blind eye.
Four same-sex couples, along with the ACLU, sue Utah over the state’s refusal to recognize their marriages.
ELECTIONS
Attorney General Martha Coakley leads Republican Charlie Baker, but Baker leads the other four Democratic candidates for governor, according to a new WBUR poll conducted by the MassINC Polling Group.
Scot Lehigh says Baker and Democratic candidate Juliette Kayyem get high marks for transparency when asked whether they’d release questionnaires various interest groups ask candidates to complete (both said they would). He says the other four candidates for governor he heard back from — Coakley, Don Berwick, Joe Avellone, and Steve Grossman offered little more than “lip service” when it comes to campaign transparency on this issue.
Peter Gelzinis predicts Scott Brown’s “Mr. Studly Goes to Washington” will fall flat in New Hampshire.
GAMBLING
In a CommonWealth column, Jim Aloisi says a Revere-only casino is an insult to East Boston.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Two women from Salem and Wakefield are trying to build a sea salt business using ocean water pulled from the shores of Cape Ann, the Gloucester Times reports.
EDUCATION
Geochemist Laurie Leshin will become the first woman president in the 149-year history of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio lock horns over pre-K funding.
HEALTH CARE
The state public health department will conduct an investigation of South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, where two women recently died soon after childbirth.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
Cape Wind’s chief opponent files a new federal lawsuit alleging the proposed wind farm’s power contract with a Massachusetts electric utility violated federal laws, CommonWealth reports.
Opponents of a new natural gas-fired power plant in Salem are planning a rally in early February, the Salem News reports.
Rhode Island lawmakers urge Massachusetts to transition away from coal, the Herald News reports.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
A psychiatric evaluation is ordered for an 18-year-old from Auburn who is accused of physically abusing his 11-month-old cousin, the Telegram & Gazette reports.
The Supreme Judicial Court orders a new sentencing hearing for a Lynn man who was convicted of participating in a murder when he was 16. The court recently ruled that sentencing juveniles to sentences of life without parole is unconstitutional, the Associated Press reports.
A West Roxbury man who was the leader of a $10 million Ponzi scheme was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
MEDIA
Ezra Klein is leaving the Washington Post and the Wonkblog he created to launch an independent, explanatory journalism website, the Nieman Journalism Lab reports.
In his first column since the wrenching ordeal of his 16-year-old son’s three-day disappearance, Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby offers heartfelt gratitude for the broad support he and his family received — but he offers no clues as to what was behind his son’s vanishing act, which ended happily when police found him in New York’s Times Square.
