At times, Friday’s session of the Massachusetts Senate seemed like a revival of the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts, as members offered tributes to four departing members: Edward Augustus of Worcester, Pam Resor of Acton, Robert Creedon of Brockton, and Robert Antonioni of Leominster. As reported by the State House News Service (subscription required), Creedon got most of the good-natured barbs.
Sen. Richard Moore (D-Uxbridge) poked fun at Creedon as a “rascal” who “is reported to have said, ‘Why do we need to do something for posterity? What has posterity ever done for us?'” And Sen. Michael Morrissey (D-Quincy) described Creedon as a “throwback” whose philosophy was: “Why speak when you can nod? Why nod when you can wink? Why say anything if you’ve already got it in the budget?”
After such tributes to his skills as a political insider, it was a bit ironic that when Creedon spoke himself, he lamented the decline of State House coverage in the local media and said that when he first served in the Legislature (as a state representative in 1969), “We had more openness than we have now.”
He also said that “the worst vote I ever made” was to reduce the size of the House of Representatives from 240 to 160 members (a change that took effect after voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1970). “It reduced a very democratic body into a larger version of the Senate,” he said.
Creedon gave up his Senate seat this year after five terms in order to run for Plymouth County Clerk of Courts; he was unopposed in both the primary and general election.