Senate President Therese Murray says she’s as angry as anyone at the chaos and bickering that passes for governing in Washington.
The problem for Murray is voters are just as angry – perhaps more so — at Beacon Hill, where she is part of the three-headed power structure.
“The federal government is not listening,” the nine-term incumbent said tonight at the first in a series of debates against her GOP challenger Thomas Keyes.
“Neither is the state government,” one of the audience members said in a stage whisper that stopped her in her tracks.
Throughout the one-hour debate at Plymouth Town Hall sponsored by the Plymouth Area League of Voters and WATD-FM (95.9), Murray repeatedly touted herself as a champion of reform while deflecting blame for problems on everyone and everything from Congress to the Big Dig to Gov. Deval Patrick.
Keyes, a former Sandwich selectman and member of the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates, tried to harness the anti-incumbent anger and paint Murray as the problem and cause for the economy turning sour and job flight from Massachusetts as well as her dismissal of the Tea Party movement earlier in the year as a bunch of “nuts.” He says her focus on statewide policy, which he said has led to record job loss and deficits, have come at the expense of the taxpayers who sent her to Beacon Hill.
“This district has been underrepresented for 18 years,” said Keyes, who runs a private management consultant firm.
The debate was full of sound and fury, mostly from the evenly split audience, but the issues were well-worn. The candidates are giving voters two distinct choices on virtually every issue on the ballot and affected by the ballot, from taxes to illegal immigration. Keyes is giving Murray her first serious challenge in years while Murray, who ousted an entrenched incumbent in 1992 and rose to become the first female Senate president, is holding herself out as a reformer and one of the angry masses.
Keyes, in his opening remarks, said he favors bringing the sales tax from 6.25 percent down to the original 5 percent. But he then went further in a response to a question by saying he would vote yes on the ballot referendum to slice it to 3 percent.
“We don’t have a revenue problem. We have an expenditure problem,” he said.
Murray argued the drop would devastate local services, requiring an immediate 30 percent cut in local aid, public safety, education and a slew of human services. She said the vote to raise the sales tax to close the growing deficit was triggered by the state’s growing debt from the Big Dig.
“No one wanted to raise the sales tax,’ she said, adding other options such as a gas tax increase were considered. “We looked at the sales tax as the most fair.”
Keyes used the opening to hit Murray on illegal immigration, which he said costs the state $600 million a year, though he didn’t detail how. But he pounded Murray for comments she made that has since been replayed on talk radio numerous times saying about immigrants and the anger from Tea Party movements.
“Just because people disagree with you, do you think you should call people names?,” Keyes asked.
Murray said she never supported illegal immigration, emphasizing “illegal” and then donned the mantle of Ronald Reagan, calling for a “path to citizenship.” She said her comments about the people screaming at her at events was based on a “fringe element” of the right. She said she acknowledges the right of people to disagree and she herself agrees with the rising tide of anger.
“I recognize the Tea Party is a legitimate movement,” she said.
Murray tried to ambush Keyes on a question about a report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this month regarding spent fuel rods at the 40-year-old Pilgrim Power Plant. She did not give details about the report, simply asking what his thoughts on it were.
The NRC has determined that nuclear waste can be stored at the facility for at least 60 years after the plant closes, rather than the current 30 years. The spent fuel was supposed to be stored at a facility to be determined, with customers paying nearly $20 billion in rate surcharges to finance a site over the last 40 year, but Congress has never approved a site.
Keyes asked Murray to name the eight taxes he and other Republicans say have been raised over the last four years. Murray cited the sales tax, alcohol tax and tax on tobacco but, much to the chagrin of the audience, moved on to other subjects. Keyes, though, also didn’t name the other five taxes.
The pair split on the repeal of the alcohol tax, Murray against, Keyes in favor of repeal – and disagreed on whether there was enough gun control, with Murray saying there is and Keyes saying there’s too much. Keyes said he would vote to repeal Chapter 40 B, the state’s affordable housing law, which he says holds towns “hostage.” Murray said she would not vote to eliminate it at the ballot but conceded it is a flawed law that needs change.
But as it will be over the remaining 20 days of the campaign, the issue came back to the Legislature and Murray’s very large role in it.
“Corruption up at Beacon Hill has got to stop,” said Keyes.
“I have been a force for change my entire career,” said Murray.
Can both be right?
