Richard Cook is a fisherman who wants to build an oyster farm in Mashpee. His farm is in danger, not because he can’t get the right permits, which he can, but because he’s unwittingly stumbled into a legislative street fight. Cook’s oyster farm is up against a familiar Beacon Hill cocktail: wealthy people with powerful friends, hidden interests, and a legislative process that rewards loyalty to leadership and quashes debate.
The Globe‘s Jim O’Sullivan reports today that Cook’s proposed oyster farm unexpectedly caught the attention of a few well-placed state lawmakers last week. The farm has been caught up in a legal fight with wealthy Mashpee neighbors, including the Kraft family, for three years. According to O’Sullivan, House lawmakers voted through a budget amendment last week that would create an ocean sanctuary on the exact spot that’s permitted for Cook’s oyster farm. Most House members didn’t know that they’d just zeroed out a Mashpee oyster farm, because the site was only identified by its geographic coordinates. The amendment didn’t read, “Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, this guy on the Cape can’t raise oysters because his rich neighbors have lobbyists who have major juice on Beacon Hill.” But in the end, it might as well have.
Rep. Michael Costello, an outgoing lawmaker from Newburyport, sponsored the budget amendment that took the legs out from under Cook’s farm. O’Sullivan reports that Costello handled the bill at the request of the lobbying firm ML Strategies. House leadership then tucked the amendment into a package of budget amendments that leadership expected to sail through the full House. The local rep, David Viera, only learned of the maneuver when he got a call from the Mashpee town manager on Friday, after the measure had passed.
The way the Legislature has structured itself encourages shenanigans like the one Costello just pulled. The Legislature’s structure also indicates that it’s unlikely Costello could have acted without approval from House Speaker Robert DeLeo and one of his top deputies, Brian Dempsey. CommonWealth detailed a closed, tightly-held legislative process two years ago. Beacon Hill has evolved in a way that discourages open debate, and concentrates power in the hands of a few powerful leaders. The consolidated amendment maneuver that Costello used to bundle the Mashpee amendment in with a stack of other budget measures is a prime example. The consolidated amendments are handled in a side room by legislative leadership. Lawmakers assume that, if a measure winds up in a consolidated amendment, it has DeLeo’s and Dempsey’s blessing, everything inside it has been prescreened by leadership, and House members are expected to approve the bundle, not debate it or scrutinize it. It’s enough to know that, when Mr. Speaker’s light goes green, the rest of the House is expected to follow suit.
The current Mashpee episode harkens back to the days of former House speaker Sal DiMasi. In late 2007, DiMasi put the finishing touches on a sweeping energy bill by tucking in a vague amendment that wound up taking care of a wealthy, powerful friend. DiMasi had DeLeo file an amendment opening up Buzzard’s Bay to offshore wind; the two then bundled the measure into a consolidated amendment, and it sailed through the House with little notice. It was only after the votes had been tallied that folks started noticing that DiMasi’s bill had essentially handed a controversial wind farm to the former speaker’s friend, Jay Cashman. The Cashman maneuver wound up withering under public scrutiny. But the mechanics behind it are clearly alive and well.
–PAUL MCMORROW
BEACON HILL
Patronage is not a crime, rules federal judge William Young in the trial of former Probation commissioner John O’Brien. Peter Gelzinis marvels at the O’Brien trial jury questionnaire, which asks jurors whether they have opinions about every big name in state government.
The state is throwing in the towel on efforts to fix its ailing health insurance exchange website and will instead replace it with a system used by several other states. Meanwhile, a study says the state’s 2006 health reform law, which served as a model for the national Affordable Care Act, has prevented 320 deaths per year, estimates a new study.
Ex-rep Carlos Henriquez, now out of jail, sits down with NECN to talk about his conviction and reputation.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Today’s final installment of the Globe‘s devastating Spotlight report on slumlords who operate with impunity in Boston zeros in on the worst of the worst, multimillionaire property owner Anwar Faisal, who lives in his Brookline mansion like a king, thanks to the proceeds from thousands of apartments, where rats and bed bugs live alongside the students he packs into them, sometimes with the assistance of Northeastern University.
Tom Keane rips Boston City Councilor Michael Flaherty‘s proposal to up the residency requirements for firefighters and police officers as an easy play to the cheap seats that comes with real cost and little benefit to city residents.
Andover Town Meeting engages in a raucous three-hour debate over health insurance coverage for public employees, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
A union at the Lowell Housing Authority files an unfair labor practice against the agency for hiring people not in the union, the Sun reports.
Hull voters shot down a proposal at Town Meeting supported by town officials that would have allowed short-term rentals of housing from seven to 29 days in the beachside community.
Framingham orders local shopping center to clean up its act.
Rockland Town Meeting voters approved a measure to start free, full-day kindergarten.
CASINOS
Several judges on the Supreme Judicial Court said they were puzzled by Attorney General Martha Coakley’s rationale for ruling that an initiative petition banning gaming can not appeal on the November ballot, CommonWealth reports. A Herald editorial fears the ballot effort will chill business.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
In a 5-4 decision split down the ideological divide, the Supreme Court says it is okay to start local government meetings with prayer, even if it is always Christian.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren proposes a bill that would reduce student loan debt and introduce millionaires to the Buffet Rule.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio aims to bridge the housing divide with an ambitious 10-year, $41 billion plan that has buy-in from the city’s real estate developers.
ELECTIONS
Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post picks the Republicans to take control of the Senate.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Massachusetts needs to build more rental units in dense, downtown areas — not more single-family homes in suburbia — if it’s serious about addressing the demand for housing, writes Paul McMorrow.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio rolls out an ambitious affordable housing agenda.
EDUCATION
The New Bedford Teachers Union is in the process of conducting a no-confidence vote in Schools Superintendent Pia Durkin, who is implementing turnaround measures at some of the city’s failing schools.
Wendy Kaminer argues that the White House’s new college campus sexual assault policy presumes guilt and “practically obliterates the due process rights of the accused.”
HEALTH CARE
The Massachusetts health care law is linked to a lower mortality rate, WBUR reports. Time reports that the Massachusetts experience proves Obamacare will work.
UMass Dartmouth will ban the use of all tobacco products on campus, including chewing tobacco and e-cigarettes, starting in June of next year.
A Gallup poll indicates the percentage of adults without health insurance has fallen to 13.4 percent, the lowest level since the company began tracking the figure.
The MetroWest Daily News hails Vermont for requiring food products containing genetically modified organism to be labeled.
TRANSPORTATION
Governing asks: Should cities limit the number of rideshare cars on the road?
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
Marblehead Town Meetingbans plastic bags and Styrofoam, the Salem News reports.
Climate change is occurring here and now, according to the federal government’s National Climate Assessment report.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
A former West Bridgewater police officer who was fired in February was indicted for perjury for allegedly lying in court about his involvement in a restraining order brought by a Brockton woman.
New York asks why states use lethal injections in death penalty cases, when it’s “pretty much the worst way to execute people.”