If you haven’t read this outstanding op-ed by David D’Alessandro, go get yourself some of this. D’Alessandro was the author of the blistering 2009 report that put the onus squarely on legislators to act on MBTA financing. And he’s not holding back now. There are so many good bits it’s impossible to excerpt, but here you go:
DeLeo recently said we have to “take a look top to bottom at the MBTA.’’ Yet just since he has been speaker, there have been two major “reforms,” and the result is that the MBTA maintenance and repair needs are 100 percent higher — and climbing. DeLeo spent years and untold political capital on trying to save a few hundred jobs at Suffolk Downs by promoting a casino in East Boston while the MBTA continued to crumble. Perhaps a little more time and energy worrying about how hundreds of thousands of citizens get to work and school everyday was in order.
…The legislative leadership needs to stop its excuses, stop bloviating, stop shifting blame, and accept responsibility for its decades of failures. They need to give the governor whatever he needs and adopt a new mantra: “We will fix it or you should throw us out.”
I mean, That’s. What. I’m. Saying.
Two points:
#1: I actually disagree with D’Alessandro on T expansion: I don’t think the politics works unless you include new geographical areas that have something to gain from the T. And T expansion helps the low-carbon economy. You just have to pay for it.
#2. How much leverage does anyone have over DeLeo and Mariano? Short of a credible primary threat to either or them, I’m not seeing it. Even many of our “progressive” legislators are touting their new committee assignments, which of course they received in exchange for fealty to DeLeo — the one guy that makes funding the T impossible. It’s all fine and well to get a handful of nifty things for your constituents, but no senior center or health clinic or town square gazebo compares with people getting to work on time.
In any event, one gets the strong impressiion that DeLeo and Mariano are feeling very little pressure whatsoever from the back-benchers to fund the T. I’d love to be proven wrong on this.
Trickle up says
Oh, yeah?
On Baker’s watch as Gov. Cellucci’s A&F secretary Big Dig costs spiraled out of control and Baker’s solution was to saddle the T with about $1.7B of Big Dig debt.
All else followed.
I only am not bashing Baker for bashing’s sake, but I mention this because there’s just no way to fix the T with this crippling burden in place.
ryepower12 says
The legislature has had more than a decade to fix that.
Not only did it not want to fix it, but it actually passed legislation that exacerbated the problem.
Baker is no innocent victim in any of this, but someone has to take responsibility for this mess and in Massachusetts, the legislature is where the power is at.
Only the legislature can fix the MBTA. That is the beginning, the middle and the end of the conversation.
Trickle up says
and D’Alesandro pegged that part pretty well.
But he gave Baker a pass.
Covering for Baker means covering for the Big Dig debt. There’s just no solution possible with this $1.7B millstone around the neck of this drowning agency.
Peter Porcupine says
The legislature has no oversight and no power of appropriation over the MBTA and MassDOT. So how can they fix it?
They CAN repeal the dog’s dinner of a bill they passed in 2010 which created MassDOT, But then the Gov would have control via the Dept of Trans, and can’t have that.
Christopher says
This whole legally rogue agency model is not appropriate IMO.
ryepower12 says
They can change the MBTA through legislation in ways that would fix it, from increasing funding to dramatic changes to the structure of the agency or MassDOT, to any number of other changes.
paulsimmons says
I was doing one of my occasional walkabouts at the State House on Friday, chatting up various friends on various staffs – House and Senate. The consensus among their bosses (most of whom represent Districts within the MBTA/Commuter Rail service area) seems to be that additional funding at this time is both bad politics and bad policy. The former is because there is nothing in the way of tangible pressure in favor of additional funding from within their Districts. The latter is because the MBTA’s institutional culture can be unfavorably compared to a Three Stooges movie, and the Legislature has taken pains over the years to avoid any legal obligation to monitor the agency.
There will probably be some sort of blue-plate study, and depending on its conclusions, the MBTA may get something in the future, but any proactive support for mass transit at this time from the Legislature will be purely rhetorical and cosmetic.
The ball is in Charlie Baker’s court by default.
SomervilleTom says
I’m sure what you say is true. I’m even more sure that the result is a colossal failure of our government. When Massachusetts looks Michigan, and Boston looks like Detroit, I will tell my children or grandchildren that it happened in 2015. I will tell my children that we had a chance to fix the problem, and we chose political expedience and greed instead.
“Additional funding at this time is both bad politics and bad policy”?
I’ll tell you what constitutes “bad policy” — having the public transportation of the city of Boston shut down for all most of a winter is “bad policy”. Having a public transportation system with equipment falling apart today — and the earliest PROMISED date for new Red and Orange line cars three years away — is bad policy.
Having a well-researched, and well-documented report like the 2009 D’Alessandro report in hand, and six years and two “reforms” later having the already-staggering maintenance and repair deficit DOUBLE is terrible policy. The MBTA can’t manufacture money.
This legislature is intentionally destroying our public transportation system.
The behavior of our legislature AFTER the election makes me ashamed to call myself a Democrat. I’m learning that whenever somebody on the inside starts to tell me about “good politics” and “bad politics”, I know I’m about to hear about yet another way that we’re all going to get screwed.
I guess it just doesn’t hurt enough yet. Waiting until there is “tangible pressure in favor of additional funding from within their districts” is like the three pack a day smoker waiting until the X-Rays showing his cancer come in, while he rationalizes away the coughing, the wheezing, the phlegm, and the fact that he can’t walk more than fifteen steps without taking a break.
Here’s the deal, guys. It’s going to worse and worse and worse. The traffic will get worse and worse. Economic growth in the entire region will come to a standstill. Take away commuter rail and the MBTA, and you’ve just taken away the scientific community, the academic community, the medical community, the insurance community, and host of others.
This is frigging shameful, as well as insane. I am ashamed to be a member of the party that is doing this.
SomervilleTom says
n/m
necturus says
It seems clear that Mr. DeLeo must go. We can’t vote him out if we don’t live in his district, but perhaps there is a PAC we can pour money into that will oppose his reelection in 2016.
However, the dubious track records of too many of his predecessors prompt me to ask the question: does the state constitution, originally written in 1780, still work today? When I read that one representative, not even elected statewide, can do as much damage as Mr. DeLeo seems to have done by starving the T of necessary investment, I have to ask whether it may be time to adopt a new constitution for the Commonwealth, perhaps one modeled on a parliamentary system like that of Canada?
Christopher says
One in which the Speaker bangs the gavel and has some admin duties, but virtually powerless politically. Or rules like the Model Congresses or Student Senate I’ve been part of where every bill comes up in sequence, referred to the appropriate committee, reported on in a timely fashion, and acted upon by the body.
paulsimmons says
As I mentioned earlier, the lack of proactivity regarding the MBTA is pretty much universal on Beacon Hill, and is also the stated position of the Senate President:
Insofar as an oppo PAC in the Speaker’s District is concerned, it would be a waste of money. All that outside funding would achieve would be to increase Robert DeLeo’s margin of victory in the primary.
SomervilleTom says
In your opinion, is today’s legislature broken or not?
I don’t disagree with your observations about the challenges of changing the role of Mr. DeLeo, nor about the disgustingly passive view of Mr. Rosenberg.
What I want to know is whether, in your opinion, these are problems to solve or simply facts to accept.
paulsimmons says
…embedded in, and operating on behalf of, local communities.
What croaks progressives are their organizational cultures, which seldom if ever engage locals from a position of respect. As a result, there is a lot of unfocused populism out there, but little to no progressive traction therefrom.
Case in point: the Coakley campaign had little in the way of credible surrogates in local communities; hence it operated primarily as a voter supression mechanism, to Charlie Baker’s advantage.
Regarding taxation and the MBTA: Politicians do cost-benefit analyses before they commit to a policy. They see the results of the gas tax referendum (which passed despite being outspent 34-1), note the absence of any consistent outreach or competent pressure from progressives within their Districts, and act accordingly.
It’s that simple.
Charley on the MTA says
And what does that look like when it works? Can you point to examples? I feel what you’re saying, and I think I’ve seen it work, but I also have felt that issue organizing is inherently tricky.
Tell us more.
paulsimmons says
First, it involves respectfully asking people in a given neighborhood what their priorities are, and how they would advance the issue/candidate in that neighborhood.
It then involves identifying credible local worker bees who are willing to organize and motivate their neighbors.
It involves learning the nuances of local civic culture, who the credible locals are, and where the local civic venues are. Irrespective of whether they agree with you are not credible locals are contacted and consulted.
It involves ascertaining that one’s premise accurately fits local realities; if not one adjusts the premise.
It involves personal contact by the abovementioned locals, as opposed to media, cold-call phone banking, etc. Corollary to which, social media (if opted in) can augment field; it cannot replace it. Ditto phone banks.
It means that, whenever possible, nonresident and/or non credible activists are kept away from activities on the ground, or anything else involving face-to-face contact within a given target universe.
There’s more, but the general idea is to establish a self-motivated, task-oriented neighbor-to-neighbor mechanism with a minimum of outside supervision. When done correctly, this mechanism also constitutes an accurate reflection of local civic, social, and political realities with collateral political and public policy benefits. At worse, there is an accurate channel for bad news.
paulsimmons says
but the best grassroots campaign happened in the context of a corporate battle: Market Basket.
The Arthur T. faction enlisted store management, who enlisted store employees, who enlisted customers, who enlisted their neighbors. I would argue that Arthur T mobilized more supporters than any constitutional candidate last year.
SomervilleTom says
I get that, I’ll stipulate it.
My question is whether or not you see this as a problem for the legislature.
It seems to me that the result is that the legislature is markedly more conservative, especially when it comes to tax policy, than the voters of MA. In particular, the overwhelmingly “Democratic” legislature (at least in terms of declared party affiliation) is distinctly more conservative on these matters than Massachusetts Democratic voters.
In your view, does the legislature bear any responsibility to make its policies more representative of the views held by Massachusetts voters — no matter how poorly those voters are organized?
paulsimmons says
In point of fact, I think that the General Court is somewhat more accepting of increased taxes (when they can get away with it) than the voting electorate, judging by the record of the past three decades.
Without going too far into the demographic weeds, I have yet to see any polling data indicating receptivity to increased taxes of any kind by a majority of “Massachusetts Democratic voters”. More to the point, I have yet to see it reflected in election returns. (This begs the issue of Unenrolled voters – the majority of those registered – who exercise their franchise in Massachusetts Democratic primaries.)
The problem is that anti-tax referenda tend to pass, and there is no interest on the Hill in being masochistic.
paulsimmons says
I’m not going to blame either the Legislature or House Leadership for acting in their collective political self-interest, however much I may differ on matters of policy.
In my opinion the issue is not one of a “broken” Legislature, but a vacuum on the ground. Case in point: Somerville turnout in the 2014 general was 48% .
Somerville’s elected representatives seem to be a comfortable fit for you.
You could help them (and their allies in municipal government) by working to increase turnout.