During his campaign for the State Senate, he supported Governor Patrick’s casino plan. On Thursday, he voted against it.
Murphy, who publicly supported Patrick’s casino plan in a recent state Senate bid, could not be reached for comment.
Can we get an answer here? Rep. Murphy would post on this site during his campaign. I hope he still wants to use this site to communicate with the public.
Now, many on this site have put forth passionate arguments about casinos. Hopefully this post does not revive that battle in the BMG community.
Whether you are for casinos or you are against them, we all should want our elected officials to keep their word. Right?
Representative, what happened?
Please share widely!
Thanks for the question Rex. First, let me say I am happy to be one of BMG’s “own” however I am sure that makes some people happier than others. Although I have not posted here since the senate race last fall I continue to be a regular visitor.
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p>The short answer to your question, “what happened?” is five months.
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p>Since the end of the senate race against Jim Marzilli (my senator), Ken Donnelly and the rep from Woburn I have had more time to research the bill and the issue of casinos in general. The Herald (and many others) make the easy and uninformed jump from my appointment to vice chair of the capital bonding committee with my change of heart. That simply is not the case.
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p>If the senate race ended a week before the vote on casinos and I received a promotion from the speaker before the vote I, quite frankly, would have ignored Rex’s question and moved on. Under that scenario I would be hard pressed to defend my vote on anything other than a quid pro quo.
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p>If we wanted to re-hash the issue of casinos this is where I would cite various statistics to support my opposition on various levels and supporters on BMG would post back with their statistics to support their position. I would just assume not go down that road at this time as many folks on BMG have done that in the past several weeks leading up to the vote.
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p>Despite the observations and comments by some on BMG in the past I take my job very seriously and do my homework. On the casino issue it was not terribly difficult to do the homework due to the amout of information we were inundated with on both sides of the issue. Like most of my colleagues, I read it all. During the senate race my response to the casino question was sincere, however, not as well informed as it should have been at the time.
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p>Let me also state unequivocally that the speaker never “twisted my arm” or spoke to me at all on this issue. It did not come up prior to my appointment as a qualification of getting the post and I have never had a one on one conversation with him on the matter. Some may choose not to believe me on that front-that is your right. However, I would humbly suggest that if you ask around you will find that most people know me as a straight shooter. I have no reason to lie to anyone or “misremember” anything.
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p>Again, Rex, thank you for the question. It is good to be back. I look forward to continued debate on the matter.
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p>Best regards,
Charley Murphy
State Representative
21st Middlesex District
Bedford, Burlington, Wilmington
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p>All I can say is that while I was opposed to casinos while you were running and after, nobody had all the information that came to light after the conclusion of the race. The studies from academia, from business interests, from the Governor, others as well as a wide range of non-study reports.
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p>I disagreed with your position during the campaign but am glad you read the information and came to your own conclusion.
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p>While there are certainly politicians who pander to various special interests in order to get elected (anybody remember Mitt Romney’s presidential bid?) and others who hold their positions even though they’re clearly wrong (anybody remember George Bush on, well, just about everything?) I do believe that politicians, just like everybody else, should be allowed to change their position based on information.
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p>Fair enough. BTW: Not many politicians will nowadays own up to their mistakes with this level of honesty.
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p>Frankly, I can accept this position as I am changing back and forth myself on the issue being torn between “for” (a matter of civil liberties, no nanny-state) and “against” (do we really want Massachusetts to be known for it’s casino’s?).
I appreciate the honesty in saying that you changed your mind because you studied all the available information and came to a different conclusion. I say that not only because I came to oppose the Gov.’s casino proposal [which did become my position]. In part, my own opposition stemmed from the impact of the “Greektown Casino” on the Greektown neighborhood in Detroit, which I say first hand. I am a native of Detroit, by the way; that IS where I was born.
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p>One reason the question as to the committee charimanships could come up is that there doesn’t seem to be an easy way for the public to track who is appointed to “what” and “when” those appointments occur. The State House News at $2400 a year, is way too pricy for most folks including ME, and only available on a limited basis at certain libraries, like the Social Law Library downtown [and most of us are NOT in downtown Boston most days].
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p>I would be really interested to know what other committee charimanships and VP Chairs changed in 2008 – either in a comment to this thread, or as its own post.
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p>Could someone with access to that information please inform the rest of us?
A list of committee charimanships and the additional compensation associated with them would help mitigate some of the Beacon Hill fog. Jim Caralis are you listening?
Representative,
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p>Thanks for responding, I appreciate it.
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p>I haven’t seen the vote breakdown from elected officials, that are in “leadership”, but I assume most voted against it.
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p>Do you know how many committee chairs there are in the House and how many voted against casinos? I wonder the same about vice-chair positions.
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p>I ask because of the article on Sunday where they said you changed your position and then today the Herald said three more Representatives that had supported casinos in the past voted against casinos last week. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence. But I also know that newspaper articles don’t always tell the entire story.
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p>I am not accusing anyone of anything. It could be a great coincidence. But these newspaper stories are saying that everyone seemed to change their public positions to be against casinos. Is that true?
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p>Are there are other members of leadership that voted for casinos?
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p>Since you are living up to your reputation as a straight-shooter, maybe you can help me out.
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p>Thanks
Didn’t it fail by like 80 votes or something huge like that? I can see the appearance of twisted arms and chairmanships if a vote was really close, but if it isn’t gonna be close, then why would DiMassi waste any of his quids on that quo?
I have some familiarity with the Capital Bonding Committee, or Long Term Debt as it used to be called.
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p>In the five months you have served, what qualifications do you have to analyze complex financial contracts? You have training as an attorney, not a banker or financial professional, and your only prior political experience was the Burlington Conservation Commission.
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p>You serve on no other committees; what are your financial qualifications to analyze debt legislation?
Or does he have resources to help him consider such things? Collegues, staff, wikipedia.
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p>Certainly you would agree, Peter, that there is a certain level of learning on the job for any elected official. You can’t expect every legislator to be an expert in every aspect of the government, can you?
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p>I agree, having more candidates that are well rounded is desirable. But in a representative democracy, we can only select among the volunteers, no offense intended to Rep Murphy.
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p>Federalist 57
with a question like that, I’m assuming you voted for John Kerry for president in 2000.
By and large, Governors – like Bush – make better Presidents than Senators. I am not alone in this thought. The fact that we have three Senators in this race in 2008 is one more reason I think the outcome will not be rosy.
That’s it?
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p>Six legislators are given lucrative new leadership posts and just happen to also change their votes.
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p>When challenges, Murphy logs into BMG, says that had nothing to do with him changing his vote and everyone just takes his word for it???
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p>Unbelievable.
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p>This guy was bribed, just like the rest of them … business as usual in that den of thieves.
Weebles, just in case you didn’t know, Rep. Murphy was formerly Vice-Chair of the Judiciary Committee before being reassigned to his current post on the Capital Expenditures and Bonding Committee.
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p>I don’t think a lateral move from vice chair to vice chair constitutes a bribe by any stretch of the imagination.