Everyone who does any kind of lobbying on Beacon Hill knows that lobbying fees for work done to influence legislation cannot be based on success. That is a contingency fee. No bonus or anything for successes throughout the process.
Nobody knows this better than former rep and senator and current lobbyist John Brennan. This man has been around the building so long he remembers Charles Bulfinch walking into his office leading tours of the place.
The Franciscan Hospital hired Brennan’s firm to help secure state funds dispersed by the executive branch. The law is at best ambiguous on this but Martha Coakley smelled an opportunity and went digging. Do you know what a it costs an honest business in legal fees when the Attorney General comes knocking at its door?
Martha being Martha said she was going to force the issue so Brennan’s shop agreed to civil penalties which were less than the fee. That’s because there is a thing called quantum meruit which means no matter what, you are entitled to get paid for work performed.
So the always-willing-to-get-his-name-in-the-paper-by-pointing-the-morality-finger-at-others-former-inspector-general-Greg-Sullivan said this in today’s Globe:
“If someone robs a bank, you don’t say they can keep two-thirds of the money and walk,” he said.
This is drawing attention because the clueless Steve Grossman thought this was the case to knock Martha on.
And then yesterday the “Dark Prick” Bill Galvin also said Martha should have gone after Brennan criminally.
‘There’s an election going on. Nobody’s name is too good to wrongfully besmirch.’
Screw them all!
JimC says
I don’t know Ernie … i get the rationale behind work having to be paid even if there’s no success, but is this a common way of getting around contingency agreements? For example, could an agreement renew on X date as a retainer even if the lobbying effort were over? So, in effect, a successful effort would be rewarded, and an unsuccessful effort would be punished by not being renewed?
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
The law applies to legislation not executive actions. If it was clear cut it wouldn’t be done. Martha admitted so.
You examples are ways to circumvent the law. This is different. The law doesn’t apply but Martha want to try a novel approach and say it did.
Brennan would not have put himself in this position if he thought it violated the law.
He reported it.
Also lobbyists are necessary in a free government. It’s not a bad word.
JimC says
I’m a little confused, but I get your point. It would be strange bedfellows converging, but they are all on the ballot.
Christopher says
…against calling public officials names using language you would never want to hear out of a child’s mouth, especially in the title of a diary, there ought to be IMO.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
blow me.
Mark L. Bail says
work as titles go. As substitutions, I recommend the following:
“Stercum caput.” Literal translation: “manure head.” (Probably have the declensions wrong).
Testa di cazzo, which, I’m pretty sure is “dick head.” In a Naples or on The Sopranos, it would sound something like “desta dee cots’.”
“Pendejo” would bring out that multicultural streak we all know you have. I’m told the literal translation is a single pubic hair, but it means jerk.
“Mamahuevo” is another Spanish phrase that translates literally to “egg sucker,” but actually means something like cocksucker.
“Maderchoder” is Hindi for motherf—er.
“Chutiya” is the C-word.
Two Indian kids and I used to call each other these names at school. The fun is that no one else, including the better brought up Indian kids, knew what the words meant.
Anyway, next time drop me a line. These are just a few of the more creative expletives I have in this warehouse of useless thing called my mind.
Christopher says
…but I uprated for the language lesson. I think your first Latin one is in fact correct on the agreement. Caput is third declension neuter and -um is the standard nominative neuter ending for adjectives.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
I’m low bow and a good “blow me? beats obscure foreign language references. I play to the seventh graders out there not the brie and wine crowd.
John Tehan says
If you would kindly re-read the rules:
It’s there in black and white – rudeness is not allowed, and calling someone a shithead in your post’s title, then inviting those who object to blow you, is certainly rude. I agree with Tom’s “WTF” comment below – editors, please delete this trash, and consider a timeout for the author.
jconway says
Pity the lobbyist, pity the patronage workers, pity the Governor’s council, pity the millionaire DeMoulas who doesn’t want to save his company or it’s workers, pity the abortion protestor outside of clinics, and pity Whitey. Just one big pity party between Ernie and his friends.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Southie people
johntmay says
But just in case anyone thinks I did, I’m willing to pay $100K back to the bank.
Is that what’s happening here?
SomervilleTom says
I would like to be able to occasionally visit BMG from my work computer. I recommend BMG to friends and colleagues, several of whom would strongly reject the language of this post and rethink their opinion of me for forwarding a a link to a site that tolerates crudity like this.
“Shit-head” and “A-holes” in the TITLE, for crying out loud? “Blow me” in a response?
This diary is a flagrant violation of the TOS that the rest of us respect and that the editors enforce. EB3’s response to christopher is rude and obscene — I strongly suspect that other participants who made a similar habit of using similar vulgarities would be at least temporarily blocked from further comments and posts.
Please remove this diary (and my intentionally across-the-line comment along with it).
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
You shouldn’t be reading any blogs during work hours.
Do you work for the government or an entity funded by the government?
If so the STOP RIPPING OFF THE TAXPAYERS! but either way GET BACK TO WORK YOU SLACKER!!!
JimC says
Swearing is common.
Christopher says
I’m pretty sure that as much as Fox News hates the President, they have refrained from calling him the names used in the title of this diary.
JimC says
Cable. The outskirts.
Really, if we can’t swear on a blog … where can we?
Christopher says
My real point, however, is that it is never appropriate to call anyone, let alone a public official, such a foul name. It is also IMO inappropriate to use those terms in a diary title on BMG. It’s a matter of expectations, and I for one very much do not expect vulgar verbal assaults on this particular site.
Christopher says
…try not at all. I’ve managed 36 years of my life without using those words with the possible exception of a very rare slip of the tongue.
JimC says
I don’t swear much, by choice. But I think it’s important that the alternative choice exists.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
tell it like it is Jim.
seamusromney says
Ernie is… Bob!
Based on the blatant violations of the rules he gets away with, he pretty much has to be one of the editors.
Bob is the most stridently anti-corporate, anti-corruption of the three. Ernie is his alter ego and polar opposite. The straw man he sets up for us to knock down.
JMGreene says
for a dollar.
judy-meredith says
Reading the comments. And your responses. I just hope the folk who were horrified, shocked, offended themselves or on behalf of others reading over their shoulder at work paid attention to the content. You are absolutely right about the law on contingency fees.
And please Editors I think EB3 is bold, witty, incisive and substantive, and best of all sticks to his diary and doesn’t comment 5 times on every diary.
kirth says
Six times in this one. I don’t think we’re reading the same guy. “Bold, witty, and incisive”? Please. Reckless, crude, and inaccurate is more like it.
judy-meredith says
on his own diaries, or when someone baits him in another diary.
And he does not, thankfully, offer his opinion two, three, four times on other folk’s dairies, regularly , every day, almost. I’m mostly retired and I barely have time to check in to read BMG , never mind comment on everything.
Anyway EB3 too busy at his day job as a bartender at a fancy hotel Beacon Hill.
kirth says
I’m certainly glad he doesn’t. But why do you imply that commenting in other people’s “diaries” is somehow bad? When I post, I expect others to comment on it. Isn’t that the point – to start a discussion? I think he doesn’t do it because the focus of those threads isn’t on him from the start, the way it is in the ones he starts.
I assume that your last line is a joke, but the timestamps on his comments in this thread have him commenting all day long and into the night. If he has a day job, it doesn’t keep him too busy to do that. host job at WRKO.
judy-meredith says
diaries are welcome. I rarely post a whole diary and do appreciate BMG colleagues thoughtful, informed, witty, substantive comments on my diaries and on other’s diaries.
You can check out my frequency of diaries, and comments and yours to see we are pretty much even. Neither of us tend to feel compelled to pick a fight or offer our slightly different opinion on every diary and every topic. Neither does EB3.
SomervilleTom says
I’m one of those who awful people who are so cheeky as to “offer [my] opinion two, three, four times on other folk’s dairies, regularly , every day, almost.” The last time I checked, such participation is THE REASON why those little “Reply” and “Submit” buttons exist. For some of us, it is the reason why we’re here.
It sounds to me as though the aspect of BMG that troubles you the most (“best of all …”) is, at least in my view, the aspect that is most central to our identity and existence.
“bold, witty, incisive and substantive”? Perhaps in comparison to the Boston Globe, but that’s a low standard indeed. If those are the words you find to characterize this rubbish, I cringe to contemplate what your usual fare might be.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
my great hips for birthin babies.