Sahl: Exclude certain hospitals since they’re expensive?
Gab: Use community health centers and hospitals.
[No discussion of bulk-purchasing of drugs. Tough one, and needs to be done.]
Question on education from Keough(?)
Reilly: Improve public higher ed.
Q: More money, or more accountability?
Reilly: Need both. GOP govs have failed: less funding, higher fees. Lot of money for regular folks.
[Reilly again acts as champion of middle class. That’s his riff, and it’s a good one.]
Patrick: Invest in future, invest in ed. Do a bond bill for stem cells, invest that $ in public higher ed.
Gab: Disagree with DP — shouldn’t narrow stem cell $ to public u’s. Need invigoration of science at high school level; a Bronx Science in MA.
[Reilly and Gab have more distinctive answers to this question than Deval.]
Alison King: MCAS — isn’t it helping?
Patrick: Can’t educate whole child teaching to MCAS. Mason School in Roxbury — small classes; MCAS scores are good, but has receded in importance. That’s the model.
King: If 96% pass MCAS, shouldn’t it be tougher?
Patrick: MCAS is not silver bullet. Educate whole child. Yes, raise bar, but that’s not enough.
Reilly: I almost dropped out of school. Lot of kids need extra help — after school, summer school, etc. Every child is important.
Gab: Passing MCAS is 8th grade level — not enough. Need to be proficient/advanced. Don’t up the bar now.
[DP and Gab come off best here: Seem more specific.]
8:18
Q: $295 assessment for uninsuring employers enough?
Gab: Numbers don’t add up for health care bill. Skeptical that someone making $25k-40k will be able to afford insurance. I would be willing to raise that #.
Reilly: We’ve got to make law work within confines. Harvard Pilgrim. Experience counts.
Patrick: Share some of CG’s concerns if some small businesses stop providing health care. Got to work through it.
[We knew we’d hear about Harvard Pilgrim from Reilly — it’s a strong point for him, but Gab wins this question: strongest, clearest answer.]
Q: Nursing shortage?
Reilly: Don’t want lege mandating staffing levels. Encourage education.
Q: What’s state’s role?
Reilly: Quality control, performance standards.
Patrick: Very skeptical of mandated nurse ratios. Doesn’t lend itself to legislation — should be done by hospital managers. Measures of quality should be same between hospitals/settings.
Gab: Ratios do correlate to outcomes. Lower ratios are objectively better. It’s a good compromise: ceilings and targets.
[Again, Gab is clearest.]
Q: Charter schools? Don’t you actually oppose them?
Patrick: Charters should be labs for innovation, and be accountable for that innovation. Shouldn’t drain regular schools to fund charter schools.
Q: Charter schools popular in Boston — lift cap?
Patrick: No. Pilot schools have been terrific.
Reilly: Parents deserve choice. I support charter schools. Should consider lifting cap in Boston.
Gab: Tom’s right. 80% of charter schools have longer days. Innovation for regular schools is really hard work — gov needs to drive that.
8:31
A. King to Gab: Universal early childhood ed is effective. So is after school. If you could do one, which one?
Gab: False choice. Find districts to work on, pick some that could do innovation, and do both. Focus on districts where kids do poorest, and where promise is greatest. Only things that could do work. Must do both. Not everyone wants these.
Patrick: CG is right — there’s not universal acceptance. It’s a part of my plan. We should phase these in.
Reilly: Put $ where there’s most benefit. Agree with DP and CG.
[That’s Gab’s issue … but didn’t really answer the question.]
Q: Drug reimportation vs. biotech industry?
Reilly: Tough choices. Must consider middle class folks and seniors. Can’t subsidize Canada when folks are hurtin here. Strongly support reimportation. Prioritize jes’ folks over biotechs.
Patrick: Agree with Tom, but it’s a Band-Aid. Work with biotechs — free drugs for folks who need it.
Gabrieli: Agree with reimportation — been in that industry. It’s a political gimmick. Tom’s right we pay too much.
[Tom did a great job with this — makes a strong choice.]
Q: Health care costs — how lower?
Patrick: Uniform codes for reimbursement, admin costs. Talks about his grandmother and terrible admin problems with health care.
Q: Too much for two years — what else?
Patrick: Must steward surplus in budget.
Reilly: Anecdote of neighbor with kid’s baseball injury.
Gab: Need 5-year projections for budget. Numbers of health care plan don’t add up. Not honest to put burden on working poor.
[Draw. It occurs to me that Patrick needs to use more strong, active verbs — Gab’s pretty good at this.]
—-END FIRST PART—-
RD Sahl: Tell us why the other guys aren’t as good as you.
Reilly: Experience. I have a vision and proven record.
Sahl (interrupting): No — tell us about them.
Patrick: No one else has my range of experience working with different
Gab: I’m going to aim at Romney/Healey.
Sahl: Position where your opponent is wrong?
Patrick: Tax rollback. We can’t afford all these promises and do this.
Gabrieli: Need to tell voters exactly how to get to 5.0%.
Reilly: If we don’t do it now, we’ll never do it.
Gab: Where are the $500 million?
Patrick: We need economic growth, through investing in ourselves, with good infrastructure and schools leading to econ growth.
[Gab has STILL not told voters exactly how they’d do it! But he’s right: Where’s the $500 million? Where’s the beef?]
Sahl: Gay marriage? Should lege vote on amendment?
Patrick: Doesn’t threaten my marriage at all. Let’s move on.
Reilly: Yes, they should vote, but I’d vote against it if I were in the lege.
Gabrieli: I would encourage people to vote against it.
Patrick: Reilly shouldn’t have certified ballot.
Reilly: I followed law in certifying ballot.
Sahl: Repeal 1913 law?
Patrick: Yes.
Gabrieli: It’s a Republican wedge issue and a distraction.
Patrick: Agree.
[These guys don’t want to talk about this, except to bash Romney/Healey.]
Sahl: Favor restrictions to access to abortion based on term?
Gab: Pro-choice — no, it won’t be an issue.
Reilly: Pro-choice, too; hope we don’t go back.
Patrick: Status quo’s good.
[It’s a wash.]
Sahl: Ever hired an undocumented worker?
All: Don’t think so. [??]
Gab: Can’t let state contractors get away with hiring illegals.
Patrick: Same. Cooperate with federal authorities.
Reilly: Favor McCain/Kennedy. National solution.
[Gab’s got strongest answer.]
CLOSING STATEMENTS:
Reilly: Almost dropped out of high school. Worked through school, lived up to my potential.
[Reminds me of Tom Birmingham’s stump speech — salt-of-the-earth … but too fast and doesn’t sink in.]
Patrick: It Takes a Village! Came here at age 14 — education transformed my life. People believed in me.
Gabrieli: Romney/Healey not gotten job done. Track record of results. Move beyond rhetoric. Create jobs. Accountable.
[Boilerplate from all three.]
against Reilly. I heard him say out loud that he would let bigots decide whether my friends could marry or not.
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Oh, geez, the fireworks just started here, thought my house was blowing up after what I said about Tom….
Actually, what Reilly said was this:
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“I’m opposed to the constitutional amendment, but, yes, I think the legislators should vote on this. I would vote against it if I were a legislator.”
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I support same-sex marriage AND I support the constitutional amendment process. I happen to believe, more strongly than I can possibly put into words, that it is not only important to arrive at the right answer (preserve same-sex marriage) but that we do it the right way (preserve our constitutional amendment process).
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Anything less is an “ends justifies the means” mentality that leaves all of us, gay or straight, weaker at the end of the day. Someday, our side may need the amendment process and we would only suffer from a decision to erode it now for expediency’s sake.
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These issues are far to complicated than to simply say that Reilly is pandering to bigots, which is preposterous.
The Court read our Constitution, and determined that we weren’t treating all of our citizens equally. I think that’s one of their jobs.
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Are you suggesting that Reilly doesn’t support the process of judicial review? That he doesn’t trust our justices to do their jobs?
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If we had left many of the black civil rights issues to voters, they would not have come to pass.
Mem, I have suggested nothing of the sort, so let me go into what “the process” is all about.
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The SJC’s job is to interpret our Constitution. That is what they did and i believe they did their job well. As a result, Goodridge is now the law of the land in Massachusetts and Tom Reilly has said exactly that.
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However, the SJC’s decision is not an end point and never will be. If the process treated high court decisions as infallible, we would still be living under the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson. (You see, Mem, your concerns about the tyranny of the majority have also taken place in a majority of the Supreme Court.) Fortunately, our system allows for stare decisis, the process by which future courts may review the decisions of previous courts and, as in the case of Plessy, correct past mistakes.
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And this is where people are missing the much bigger picture with Tom Reilly’s decision to certify the same-sex marriage amendment. . .
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As I previously mentioned, the SJC’s job is to interpret the Constitution. It does not make immutable law. In fact, it does not “make law” at all. The law comes from our Constitution and our General Laws. The SJC merely does its best job to tell us what the law is (as opposed to what it should be) when there is a dispute. For example, the SJC did not create the right for same-sex couples to marry (as Mitt Romney and George Bush contend), but rather found that their right to marry was always embodied in our State Constitution. It always existed, even if we had not previously recognized it.
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We the People, however, are empowered to control our Constitution. (Otherwise, 5 SJC Justices would be able to control the fate of any issue in perpetuity, which would bind us to atrocities such as the aforementioned Plessy decision.) The Constitutional amendment process exists so that The People will always have the ultimate say on the laws of their government.
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So, while the Goodridge decision still stands as the law of the land, there is a constitutionally created process (every bit as powerful and important as judicial review) by which citizens may amend the Constitution. Nothing should come between The People and their Constitution.
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In a democracy, this means that the amendment process is available to bigots too. Whether or not we agree with them is irrelevant to whether or not the process should be available to everyone. This is why the ACLU fights to protect the rights of the KKK to march. Even the worst among us are entitled to the protections afforded by the Constitution. Anything less would place us on the slippery slope of rationing our liberties.
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So, your characterization of Tom Reilly’s position as pro-bigot or anti-democratic are really off the mark. Tom Reilly is pro-democracy. Period.
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If we could all get what we wanted by ignoring the parts of our democracy that we do not like, we might feel better for the moment, but we would all be more vulnerable in the future.
Goodrigde is the law. I guess we agree there. Seems to be working–there are now happily married same-sex couples all over this state.
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I don’t understand why anyone who claims this would advocate risking it. Best case, we end up where we are. Worst case, you destroy happily married families. In the mean time, we waste lots of time and money and argue with each other.
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I just don’t think people who advocate the possibility of destroying my friends families has their best interests at heart. Process for process sake seems trivial when I look at my happy god-daughter and her daddies.
Yes, everything is working. Yes, we want it to continue to work. But guess what, the Constitutional amendment process exists. You may think that sucks, but: A.) it STILL exists; and b.) I’m glad that it does.
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Listen, we all like shortcuts, but you cannot short-circuit democracy without paying a heavy price. Democracy is slow, painful, and costly (both in time and money). As Churchill said, it is the worst form of government except for all the others that we have tried from time to time.
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If you wish to continue to framing this issue as Tom Reilly is pro-bigot, Tom Reilly is anti-family, or, frankly, Tom Reilly is anti-same-sex marriage, I cannot stop you, but it ignores all of the very important reasons why this process is important and it mischaracterizes why Tom Reilly made his decision in a major way.
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This is not “process for the sake of process.” This is a fundamental to our system of democracy. It is written into our Constitution! Citizens have the right to amend the Constitution. Period. It is not even debatable. We cannot simply wish for something otherwise. It’s right there, in black-and-white (or whatever colors John Adams elected to use).
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As I have said in other posts, if Goodridge had been decided 5-4 in the opposite direction, we would all appreciate why the amendment process is critical to a healthy democracy. We would be clamoring for an amendment. We would be railing against the 5 judges who rules against same-sex marriage. And we would be going ballistic of the Legislature refused to do their job by giving us the opportunity to get a 1/4 vote of the Legislature in two consecutive years in order that we could amend the Constitution to make it explicitly clear that same-sex marriages should be legal.
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The fact of the matter is that we, as a Commonwealth, must live with our decisions. If we undermine our Constitution when it suits our cause, we have to live with those ramifications when we are inevitably on the other side.
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This, in my opinion, is a price well-worth paying.
Ok, so the Constitution is working. Goodridge is working. Therefore we should change it, because we have a process?
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Leave the Constitution alone = undermining….
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Huh. Well, I didn’t go to law school. Perhaps I lack the correct language for that.
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I believe that people have the right to try to change it, I never said I would prohibit that. I think you are misrepresenting my position by saying that. But I won’t support their efforts, or encourage them in any way. And I am not interested in supporting politicians who encourage that. I think that pressing for the vote encourages the bigots. Clearly you disagree. And that’s fine.
if the SJC says it is.
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If, after some turnover of court personell, they change their mind, then your new right will evaporate. This is a lesson that abortion rights advocates are now learning, to their cost.
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It wasn’t just Brown v. Board of Ed that made the progress during the civil rights era, it was the action of the courts PLUS the painful process of enacting the Voting Rights Act and other civil rights legislation. Without the latter, civil rights progress might have proved to be as ephemeral as abortion rights now seem to be. The legislative process achieved something like an enduring political consensus. Compare abortion politics, 1973-2006.
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Supporters of gay marriage should recognize that, so long as their winnings are dependent solely upon the opinion of the SJC, they remain vulnerable.
Reilly’s positions on same-sex marriage haven’t been some high-minded defense of democratic principles, they’ve been expedient at best. Let’s not forget who we’re talking about here: Reilly publically stated he believed “marriage was between a man and a woman” in 2004. It wasn’t until he realized he might need the support of some same-sex couples and their friends in his primary campaign that he started claiming he was moved by their stories and was opposed efforts to ban same-sex marriage.
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Reilly’s running as Republican-lite. Certifying the anti-marriage initiative, against the advice of two former state attorneys general who also care about the law and defending democratic institutions, doesn’t get Reilly the big profile in courage award. What it gets him is the ability to wink at a block of voters he can’t court openly until after the primary. It’s like saying you support equal opportunity, while distributing campaign literature featuring Willie Horton. The bigots Reilly’s trying to reach get the message.
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Shame on you, Maverick, for trying to give Reilly cover on this one. Sure, the amendment process is available to bigots, too, but that doesn’t absolve elected officials from acting within the scope of their responsibilities and the law from stopping bad initiatives when they can.
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I’m with Mem on this one. Deal-breaker.
Debate broken down into parts, which is great.
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http://www.boston.com/news/necn/
I only heard the first half of the debate, but it reminded me of how strong Gabrieli really is on education issues. He knows those topics back and forth far beyond the abilities of the other two candidates. I was impressed. I highly doubt I could ever support Gabrieli (because of his immigration stance and wishy-washy stances on other major issues), but I hope Patrick pulls him in to the administration as he could be an excellent resource on education.