CHARLIE BAKER’S EXIT from Massachusetts politics is now complete. According to campaign finance records, his gubernatorial campaign account was dissolved on January 4 and so was the super PAC that he helped launch in 2019 to support largely centrist candidates across Massachusetts.
“It was time,” said an email from Baker, who took over as president of the NCAA in March. “I am very busy these days working with colleges and student-athletes all over the country, and trying to catch up on lost time with my family!”
Baker’s campaign committee, first opened in 2009, emptied its bank account last year, spending down the remaining funds by paying $30,000 for the official portrait of him that now hangs in the lobby of the governor’s office.
The dissolution of the Massachusetts Majority super PAC brings to an end an unusual effort to support generally moderate candidates at the local and state level who fit the Baker brand. Super PACS can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support candidates, but they are barred from coordinating their efforts with the candidates themselves. Baker was not directly involved in the super PAC’s operations, but many of the donors to the PAC said they gave to it at the former governor’s behest.
The biggest beneficiary of the super PAC was Anthony Amore, a Baker-like Republican who vied against Diana DiZoglio for state auditor in 2022. The super PAC spent nearly $390,000 supporting Amore’s campaign and another $247,000 opposing DiZoglio’s candidacy. DiZoglio prevailed with 55 percent of the vote.
Surprisingly, Massachusetts Majority also backed Republican Thomas Hodgson, a brash, Trump-loving sheriff in Bristol County who was seeking reelection in 2022. Hodgson lost that race to Democrat Paul Heroux 51-49 despite receiving $84,134 of advertising support from the super PAC. Baker, who is no fan of Trump, said he backed Hodgson because he knew him long before they got into politics. “We don’t agree all the time on everything, but he is a guy who always does his best,” Baker said at the time.
Most of the super PAC’s money – more than $5 million in all — went for direct mail and digital advertising on behalf of state lawmakers, mayors, and some municipal officials. The biggest donors were John Fish of Suffolk Construction ($400,000), Robert Hale of Granite Telecom ($300,000), and James Mooney III and his wife Lisa ($200,000).
The super PAC was cited twice for violations by state campaign finance regulators, once in 2022 for using Baker’s name on an invitation to a fundraiser and a second time on January 3 for accepting a donation via a treasurer’s check. Both violations were handled by returning donations connected with the illegal actions.
A wake-up call to lawyers – Along with offering a landmark decision that life without parole is unconstitutional for anyone under 21, the Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday offered another bold declaration: Attorneys generally shouldn’t be falling asleep in court.
In a decision considering Nyasani Watt’s first-degree murder conviction in a Dorchester shooting, for which he was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, the high court overturned Watt’s conviction. Watt presented evidence that his attorney fell asleep during several stages of his trial, including jury selection and witness questioning.
Contrary as it may seem to a layperson, an attorney nodding off in court doesn’t necessarily mean a defendant has ineffective counsel. A lawyer can’t sleep through a “substantial portion” of a trial under some federal law, but Massachusetts checks to see if the lawyer slept through a “critical stage” of the proceedings. The SJC on Thursday concluded that effective counsel cannot sleep through a substantial portion of a trial or “an important aspect of trial.”
“Although any slumber by counsel during trial is distressing and detrimental,” Chief Justice Kimberly Budd wrote, the greater problem is that a lawyer being essentially absent during portions of a trial because of sleep “so offends the constitutional protections surrounding the right to assistance of counsel” that it renders the entire process unreliable. Watt is being granted a new trial.
