Leaders of one-party states
Last week was a good one for the brothers of leaders of one party states. Raul Castro took over from his brother Fidel, and Michael Travaglini, who runs the state pension board, got a raise to $322,000, which makes him the highest paid employee in the state. Both coincidentally are brothers of state leaders.
One of the great concerns of the founders was that one branch of the government — they were most concerned about the legislature — would suck all power into its maw, and use it to reward personal friends and relatives. Sound familiar?
A critical question for the gubernatorial contest is: who can best check and balance the legislative leadership.
Please share widely!
You ask: who can best check and balance the legislative leadership?
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The only answer: Kerry Healey, a Republican.
Why wouldn’t the leadership just keep overriding her vetoes, the way they’ve done with Romney, who had a stronger claim to being a “strong leader” than Healey does? The more logical argument, IMHO, is that a strong Dem in the corner office represents a stronger check, since in that case you have someone setting the agenda for the Democratic party other than the leadership, and you probably have a number of reps who will back the Governor rather than the leadership.
“who can best check and balance the legislative leadership?”
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Deval Patrick.
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Reilly = part of the machine
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Gabrieli = machine/too much beholdin’ to the reps and machine dems who got him on the ballot to begin with
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Mihos = scary thought
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KH = I think the ads tying her to Romney are working. Dems need to push the idea that if she is somehow elected her husband will be getting a LOT more than $1 million sweetheart tax deals.
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So it’s Deval. Never been on Beacon Hill – has a great grass roots movement he’ll be beholdin to. But that’s it. People Power.
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Deval will be able to browbeat this legislature into following his agenda – he’ll use his “grass roots” to do that and he’ll use them to slap the legislature around when they’re getting out of hand as well.
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Anyone think some in the establishment are against Deval because he’s Senate material? Meehan? Delahunt? Scot Lehigh and the Boston Globe
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(I’m Obviously a Deval supporter)
The Republicans in the legislature are a tiny, spent force in this blue state. The real questions tend to be issues that can split progressive reformers from machine politicians, issues like reducing patronage, single-payer health care, campaign finance reform, investing in public transportation, environmental justice, indexing the minimum wage to inflation, etc. Over the past decade and a half of Republican governors, progressive legislators have had no where to go when their positions were at odds with legislative leadership.
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A Democratic governor changes the equation. The Governor’s bully pulpit and executive authority create a new path to influence for Democratic legislators. Instead of always dancing to the Speaker and Senate President’s tunes if they want to gain power, they would be able to sometimes side with the a reform-minded Governor.
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Recently, a good example of these possibilities occurred in New Jersery, where Democratic Governor Corzine won near total victory after a major confrontation with the Democratic legislature over the state budget. Because he was a strong Democrat, with a power base separate from the traditional state capitol world, he was able to break off Democrats from their usual lockstep support from the Democratic House Speaker in the name of reform. Eventually, a majority of the caucus was in his camp, and opposition to change collapsed. In doing so, he did not totally break the power of South Jersey’s traditional machines, but he did strike a huge blow, and came out the stronger for it.
Only a Republican governor can check the crazy out of control legislature!
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Only a Republican governor can keep the Big Dig on track, under budget, and safe!
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Only a Republican governor can prevent the crazy excesses of the legislature, by preventing an increase in the minimum wage law and stopping gays before they get to uppity!
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Yay, Republican governors!!!!
. . . I agree that a Republican governor can check the Legislature. (I.e., while the Legislature may override the Governor’s vetoes, he ultimately will control the Executive Branch’s activities which may or may not be consistent with the Legislature’s will).
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I agree that Republicans, as a general matter, are better at keeping public works projects on budget (and hopefully, under budget). I don’t think Democrats are willing to compromise safety.
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I disagree with your third paragraph. Increasing the minimum wage is a policy decision that the real Republican party would support (just like rolling back the income tax in accordance with the vote of the Massachusetts citizens).
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Futhermore, Republicans, who support individual liberty and seek to reduce Government intrusion into our private affairs, should support the notion of gay marriage. It is certainly not constitutionally required; however, gay marriage is good policy.
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RightWinger
A real Republican
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Are you suggesting that Republicans are better at keeping public works projects on or under budget because they are willing to compromise safety?
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Please clarify–I’m dying to know.
Republicans do not and are not willing to compromise safety. The suggestion by the previous post was that Democrats are willing to compromise safety. I do not believe that Democrats are that vile.
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Republicans are just better at costing out projects. Democrats too often give in to Unions, which result in higher costs to the government. See, e.g., Press Release, OPEN BIDDING ON SCHOOL SAVES CITY $1.7M, available here.
U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, who threatened to resign if he didn’t get his $223 million Bridge to Nowhere, is a Republican. (Note, too, the Republican-friendly link I gave you to the Heritage Foundation.) Only because the audacity of such waste was so truly breathtaking did the taxpayer escape alive here.
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Well, though, I’m glad to hear that, were the bridge to ever be built, Republicans wouldn’t squander the $223 million taxpayers’ dollars for the Bridge to Nowhere by hiring union workers. Keep the cost down.
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Your suggestion that Republicans are better with money, budgets, anything financial, etc., is plain ludicrous given that your Republican administration in Washington spends money like drunken sailors. Hemorrhaging $180,000 per minute for this war in Iraq certainly does inspire confidence, as does the disgracefully corrupt no-bid contracting, e.g., Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown, & Root, your party loves to indulge in.
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Gimme a break.
I enjoy reading Democrats complain about the War on Terror, and our Administration’s attempt to fulfill needs overseas to support our troops. This simply reaffirms that Republicans will hold Congress in 2006 and hold the White House in 2008.
the big issue in the campaign becomes the “critical question” of who can best check and balance the legislative leadership, then we will lose. Period. David and others might be right that in fact a Democrat could best check the legislature, but this is a more in-depth argument that (even if accurate) is more complicated than the split party scenario that people intuitively grasp.
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I do agree that the Dem candidates should express their willingness to think independently of the legislature. But they also need to stress that they can work with the legislature to move Massachusetts forward. This could be framed in such a way to make it clear that, if Governor, the candidate will be the one coming up with great ideas (i.e. give credit to himself for the ideas) and will be willing to work with the legislature to get his ideas done. This is different than offering oneself as a “check” on the legislature.
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Apart from all this, the main focus of the Dems in this campaign needs to be convincing people that Healey is a typical Republican (always “dutifully standing by Romney”) in what should be a great Democratic year nationally. If done in conjunction with the “I’m an independent thinker yet willing to work with the legislature”, we can turn Healey’s partisan identification into a net negative instead of the potential positive it would be if the central question becomes finding a “check” on the legislature.
The only real check and balance on the legislative leadership would have to come from within. As it stands now, no governor- Democrat, Republican, or Mihos, can be an effective counterweight to the legislature with its current Democratic super-majority. There would have to be a major re-alignment, either inter-party, or intra-party, that would change the composition of the legislature such that the leadership would be held accountable to the membership, and not vice versa. (The Speakers and Senate Presidents have always been and will always be able to throw their weight around in the legislature- its just that in some eras they have had to be more judicious with their use of power, in order to keep the rank and file from rebelling.)
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p>The current era of strong House Speakers may be directly related to the house cut from 240 to 160. The smaller the herd, the easier it is to control.
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p>But then again, this presupposes that checking and balancing the legislative leadership is a good thing!
Bulger, the Corrupt Midget, ruled supreme under the Dome until the advent of Tommy Taxes.
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I don’t think it’s the size of the herd as much as the personality of the shepherd – and the viciousness of the border collies, too! (Yeowch, Lida!)
First of all, the raise was voted by the PRIM board, which has no legislative participation. In fact, the board is populated by three sources: the Treasurer, the Governor, and elected representatives of the pension plan participants.
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Apparently the decision to hire Travaglini was unanimous, which would therefore include both the Governor’s and the Tresurer’s appointees.
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At the time that he was hired, the state retirees newsletter indicated that “Travaglini’s salary is $224,000, one of the highest in the state. However, this figure is on the lower end when compared to the salaries of his peers in other states.”
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The Massachusetts constitution was written with concerns about enforcing the doctine of “separation of powers,” as noted in the link above, based on the experience of Massachusetts in the dark days of conflict between the colony and His Majesty’s Government as personified by the Royal Governor.
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By design, our constitution was designed to keep the branches of government out of the way of each other.
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By contrast, the Federal constitution that we all study in civics was designed with real concerns about the weakness of the executive branch that had evolved under the confederation. So the concept of “checks and balances” was designed to ensure that no branch could dominate the others. But this required some sacrifice in the area of “separation of powers.”
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This leads to some significant differences between the Massachusetts and Federal constituions. For example, the Federal Senate confirms judges and executive department appointments (the textbook case of “checks and balances”), while in Massachusetts the Governor’s Council confirms judges and no one confirms executive appointments.
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Since few (none?) of us learn the Massachusetts constitution in school, most people assume that our state must work like the Federal government. But this is not the case.
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This misunderstanding has clearly been fostered by the Republican Party in Massachusetts in recent years, promoting the theme of a Republican governor as a “check” on the Democratic legislature, a role that is not assigned by our constitution. Frankly, the only check comes from the governor’s veto power, which is easily overrid in the legislature when it is a partisan issue. That’s why I have to laugh when I hear Kerry Healey’s TV ads saying “elect me and I’ll lower your taxes” because she doesn’t have a vote when it comes to taxes.
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The job of the governor (and his fellow elected executive officers) is to govern the commonwealth. When Cahill and Romney’s appointees hired Michael Travaglini and raised his salary, that’s what they were doing: governing. If that seems so strange, it’s because that’s something that hasn’t happened enough in this state since Mike Dukakis left office.
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I believe that Deval Patrick and Chris Gabrieli both understand how to bring leadership to governing. I’m not sure about the others. Personally, I’m supporting Chris, but I think that this issue could be a big winner for the Democratic nominee if it is either Patrick or Gabrieli.
This sounds like easy fodder but
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1. What are his peers making in other states?
2. How good of a job is he doing?
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A quick Google search reveals that he is a Harvard and Georgetown grad and the fund made 15% more than it did the year before. 322k does sound like a lot, but it’s not like this guy is some flunky. It looks like he is doing a good job. Good people cost money.
All the states are different, and I’m sure the job descriptions differ, but it looks like Allen Hevesi Comptroller of NY] and sole trustee of the NY Pension Fund earned $149,766.
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The cost of managing the mass pension fund in 2005 was 52 basis points (.52%) on $35 – $40 billion dollars under managent. 52 doesn’t strike me as particularly low. Probably average, or, on the high side of average.