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Trav resigning … Get to know Terry Murray.

By

sez Frank Phillips, who also gives a nice introduction to Senate President-to-be Therese Murray. Must-read.

From what I’ve read and heard, Murray’s an odd duck. She’s definitely a social liberal — much more so than Travaglini — and well-liked among the progressives in the Senate. She’s a “ferocious advocate” for abused and deserted women and children. In his article, Phillips points out some areas of commonality between her and Gov. Patrick, like support of same-sex marriage and the closing of corporate tax loopholes. She would likely try to restore some of the cuts or level-fundings of social programs, which perhaps even Gov. Patrick would welcome, if it takes the heat off of him.

But she’s also known as stand-offish, insular, and prickly. (Peter Porcupine disagrees with that description). And she apparently, allegedly directed $11 million of taxpayer bucks to a pal who had bilked the state before. Add that to the already-present institutional tensions between the Senate and a new governor intent on consolidating executive control over spending (e.g. earmarks), and it just ain’t gonna be easy — not in a deficit year, not with the atmosphere as it’s been the last few months.

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Comments

  1. …as head of Senate Ways and Means?

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    This may be one of the biggest changes, with a new chair right at the start of budget season. I assume they’ve got the succession planned out, but I’m not sure who takes over.

      • I think that is one of the most likely choices, but it isn’t exactly rocket science to just look down the list on Ways and Means and pick the number 2 guy. Good call on questioning the legs of the story.

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        Since Fred Berry isn’t reported to be moving anywhere, Ways and Means is the best place for Murray to install her top lieutenant. Maybe that is Panagiotakos, maybe it isn’t.

      • Eh, I wonder just how much of that is real rumor or just wishful thinking.

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        Pangy’s OK, he’s horrible on the gay marriage issue (don’t get me started) but as Dems go, he scores great on the Mass Scorecard (Dem platform vs. selected voting record). Better than the rest of our delegation anyway.

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        But the real issue is, how does he feel about the tax loophole closing Patrick is proposing? I caught the item today that DiMasi says he’s going against it. On what side will the Senate fall? The Senate is usually the cautious status-quo half of the lege. Could those roles be reversed?

        • Finneran vs. Birmingham?  Please!

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          Besides, the SENATE is the ones with the pie-in-the-sky budget numbers every year!

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          Truth is, if diMasi kills it, send it off to die in a study or whatnot (did you see how the Municipal bill was partitioned into four parts?) – then the Senate doesn’t get to see it.  All spending bills originate in the House.

  2. She’s none of those things.  She is genuinely intelligent, and has a tough time suffering fools gladly in the schmoozing culture of the Senate, which is sexist as the day is long.

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    Just because a person doesn’t enjoy getting trashed at 9 Park or the 21st to prove collegiality doesn’t make them stand-offish.  As speaking as a expert, seeing I am a Porcupine, you’d be prickly too at some of the dreck you have to smile and nod at.

    • The drinking days of beacon Hill are long gone.
      Now you are stereotyping.

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      Actaully that is why  collegiality ain’t what it use to be.

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      Not just politics but every other profession.

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      nobody gets drunk with anybody anymore.

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      is that good? or bad?

        • Christmas party not the same as real drinking.
          So you saw one drunk.
          My friend, that does not make a party.

        • PP, you seem to know Murray pretty well and you’re on the Cape.  Do you think the Herald’s sigh of relief at having a South Shore person in the slot is at all meaningful?  Will she bring some new sort of regional perspective to the job, or is she as thoroughly pan-state as any pol can be?

          • Best thing about it is Therese Murray represents more rural area, which has been markedly missing from the Gov’s kitchen cabinet on municipal reform.  We have town meetings – ONCE a year – not mayors with fiscal authority.  A BoS can negotiate a pay raise, for instance, in good faith with firemen – and town meeting can void the negotiations if they think the raise is too high, and it’s back to the drawing board.  There IS no single authority; towns are answerable, rather, to a hive mind.  MUCH of legislation passed assumes a municipal structure which doesn’t exist in Murray’s district – so her voice and perspective is a very good thing for rural municipalities.

  3. Originally From Dorchester

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    Don’t underestimate that. It actually means something. For a little while anyway.

    • When I was first brought from Ohio to Massachusetts in 1971 by my then boyfriend–who was from Sudbury, although he was going to Ohio State University (the “big farm”)–we drove up some road (495? Rt 3?) and we encountered a sign for an exit to Billerica.  They jokingly asked me how it should be pronounced. I responded, surprisingly correctly, Bill’rica, figuring that the correct pronunciation had nothing to do with the spelling. 

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      After I moved to Massachusetts in 1979, I was watching one of the morning network TV gab fests and the hostess (a Diane Sawyer-Katy Couric type) pronounced it Bill-air-ick-a.  It was funny as heck.

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      From what I have learned, Datchestah was once the home of the lace curtain Irish.  It’s sad that it has devolved into such a slum–we had friends who used to live in the Codman Square area–but them’s the breaks.

      • Dorchester has been going through a huge transformation over the past 5-10 years with the most stark differences being seen over the past few years. Revitalization of economic hubs (think South Bay Center, Grove Hall, Upham’s Corner), newly reconstructed transportation networks (Fairmont Commuter Rail Line and Upham’s Corner station), huge condo sales and gentrification. Even Business Week had it as one of “America’s Next Hot Neighborhoods”.

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        Dorchester has changed a great deal from the “slum” that it was labeled with by people who didn’t care to learn about it. Growing up in Dorchester and it’s diversity was the best thing that ever happened to me.

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        -Andrew
        OFD, Upham’s Corner

        • but calling [a bigger Stop & Shop, Target replacing K-Mart, Best Buy replacing Toys R Us, and a Circuit City] a “revitalization of economic hub” seems a bit of a stretch to me.

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          It’s still a huge wasteland of big box retailers paying crap wages at irregular hours, offering little to the local community.

          • I replied to a poster with subject You obviously haven’t been to Dot in a while and now when I looked, it made me the author of that post.  When I hit reply, it has me replying to my actual post to the You obviously… post.

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            Strange things are afoot.  HTML problem?  Larger issues?

      • ….happy home-owning resident of DOT and I assure you, that I do not live in a slum.  Dorchester is the geographically largest and arguable socially most diverse neighborhood in Boston.  In fact, it is actually several neighborhoods, some better than others.  I live in a lovely brownstone in the shadow of some very beautiful victorian manors that are fastidiously kept by their proud and diverse owners. 

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        Was mit der zu starken Vereinfachung??

  4. Why don’t you just call her and say I will see you next Tuesday.
    Because that is basically what you said.

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    Not nice.

  5. …if she can figure out a way to derail the anti-same-sex-marriage amendment proposal at the next ConCon, I don’t really care what else she does.

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    Sorry to be so one-issued.

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    Travaglini as a frigging a$$hole for gaveling that amendment up for a vote on Jan 2, knowing that he would be out of the senate in a few months (it had been reported months earlier that he was looking for a better paying job) while allowing the health care amendment to be tabled.  He brought the gay marriage amendment to a vote because “let the ConCon vote,” while tabling the HCA, effectively denying the ConCon to vote? 

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    I’m sorry, give me a break.  That shows me that Travaglini is nothing more than yet another anti-gay Democratic asshole.  Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  6. Hard working and knowledgeable.  Earmarks…seem to be her (along with the rest of the pols) favorite topping.

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    I’ve been wondering lately why there isn’t more noise supporting the Governor’s elimination (reduction?) of earmarks.  That to me is the essence of politics as usual.  Fair and predictable budgets with transparency and accountability are still in my vision for better government.

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    Good to see a single Mom getting a shot as the Senate Pres.  I’d say there’s an uphill trend….Bulger > Trav > Murray.

    • As far as the Gentlewoman’s predeliction for earmarks – she represents an area which is routinely screwed over by the various Urban/Boston-centric formulas for redistributing wealth, thought up by rocket scientists like Ed Moskowitz, father of the new & improved Chapter 70.

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      Think of it as ‘pothole money’ for her rural district.

      • The recurring problem with blogging is there is no dial for the tone of posts.  I do have concerns about Earmarks and find it rather interesting that a self-proclaimed Republican is endorsing the use of earmarks to (of all things) combat the same actions taken by the current version of the Republican party on the national level.  That of course being the redistribution of wealth that was recently commented on here[http://www.bluemassg…].

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        The tone of my post was positive, at least in my mind when I typed.  I am genuinely pleased to see a woman with experience and work ethic take the Gavel.  The upward trend is a positive direction statement.  It could actually be worse than Bulger….of that I have little doubt.

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        And, you are completey correct in your statements about the Ch 70 formula.  It ROTS.

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        P² , I think we are on the same page with this one.

  7. OK, I admit, I was on my second martini, but I heard from a Beachon Hill insider tonight, that the transition from Trav to Murray may not go as smoothely as the Globe reported today.  Her coalition may be falling apart.

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