I don’t have any real favorites coming into the race for Speaker. I view them both as somewhat of a step back from the progressive stewardship of Sal DiMasi – the person who got us near-universal health care, marriage equality and eventually found important ways to compromise on everything from corporate tax reform to important environmental bills. The new guys aren’t that progressive and will mean this community and others will have to fight that much harder to get progressive legislation passed.
However, the idea that one of the two serious candidates for Speaker would accept help from the Republican Party to gain the gavel is not only disconcerting but unacceptable.
From the State House News Service (emphasis mine):
DiMasi was still weighing his options late Friday, but several House members said privately they expected him to relinquish the gavel within a week. DeLeo allies quietly but confidently predicted that the Ways and Means Committee chair would be speaker by the end of the month. Rogers said he was confident he would be the next speaker, and was reaching out to House Republicans in an effort to reach the 81-vote majority.
It’s no big secret that DeLeo has the inside track to the Speakership. But what I don’t know is how solid that majority is. Would Republicans voting for Rogers get him in? Who knows? While I wish both Rogers and DeLeo the best, the Democratic Party of this state cannot let someone rise to power with the help of Republicans. We must have the contest for the Speaker and let the best man win – but we must do so from within our own party. We’ve tried the alternative before. We’ve been there, done that, with the Former Speaker Finneran – with disastrous consequences.
Speaker DiMasi, say what you want about him, was a progressive hero who did a lot of good. We can’t afford to revert backwards from his policies, visions and progressive legislative goals. We have a health reform bill that needs fixing and more equality bills to pass. If a Speaker wins due to Republican support, many of the most important progressive legislation will never make it to Governor Patrick’s desk. This community must let it be known that it is unacceptable to anyone to support those who are supported by Republicans. If Rogers gains support from Republicans, his Democratic support must leave him – and those who don’t must be considered accomplices. And those accomplices must be pursued to the best of our ability, up to and including primary fights.
It seems to me that given how progressive the state party platform is, there should always be a strong Speaker candidate from that side of the spectrum. This candidate should be able to win the Democratic House Caucus and then ideally get every Democratic vote against the GOP designated human sacrafice. We obviously have an overwhelming Democratic majority, but can anyone determine if there is a progressive majority in the House? I know my own representative would not be part of it (and I don’t remember whom she is supporting in this race). Then again, maybe it’s the progressive side that should be reaching out to the GOP. I wonder how many of the House Republicans are of the Weld variety, and thus really should be Democrats. Some districts will only elect conservative Democrats, but maybe more primary challenges are in order.
incumbency
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p>and, no, we shouldn’t be reaching out to republicans to share a majority. on specific things we can agree on? sure. but we don’t violate party politics in a party-based movement.
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p>plus, again, keep in mind i’m talking about movement progressives, not your definition of progressives (which, as I’ve said, will confuse most people). The Sciortinos of the world would not be anywhere near a good fit with even this state’s Republicans.
Answer – all the Republicans [and there were more of them in those days] voted for Tom Finneran.
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p>Question: Who did Rogers work for as an aide when he got his first State House job?
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p>Answer: He was an aide to Tom Finneran when Finneran chaired House Ways and Means.
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p>Now, I am not at all sure that DiMasi will resign. For all I know, he will ride his own mini-teapot Dome aka Vitale out and stay. I hope so. And I hope DiMasi – and others like him – will take more cognizance of Mark 4:22 which says “anything that is hidden shall be revealed” AND remember, too, that anything that seems to good to be ok probably is not ok and the smarmy would be friends are seen in the future as the would-be leechs that someone like Vitale actually is and was once Vitale lost his sense of boundaries [which, legal or not, it seems to me Vitale did lose. One does not put one’s friends at risk, ever. Or one is not actually a friend but something far darker.]
Texas and Alaska are two states where the current Republican Speaker beat out an intra-party rival with help from the Democrats.
trying to avoid a repeat of it.
Crossing the aisle in my opinion should never be completely off the table, even to elect a Speaker. Of course, I prefer the House of Commons model of Speakership anyway. If a progressive candidate were to come up just short of the majority in preliminary counts, but could be pushed over the top by a couple of liberal Republicans then heck yeah he should do it. If it means dangling chairmanships in front of them as incentive, provided the committee jurisdictions are such that they agree with Democrats on the given issues that’s fine too. I guess we put different values on partisanship for its own sake. For me that value is just about nonexistent, but as I write this I’m remembering that you wanted to drum Lieberman out of the Democratic conference and strip his chairmanship as well. You may recall that I did not.
is an essential part of the system. it’s an aspect of politics I subscribe to. Other people feel differently. That’s fine. But a lot of people feel the same as I do – and I’m encouraging them to make sure that Rogers does not seek the support of Republicans and if he gets it, Democrats – if they believe in the Democratic party – have a duty to get off that train.
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p>We can have all the fights we want to as a party, I’ve supported many primary challenges (including against Lieberman), but after the primary is over, we stick to being Democrats. Gaining control of a legislative house through Republican support is not a house controlled by that party.
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p>If you find my partisan attitude surprising, please review the color this site is named after. Okay?
Sure, this is a “blue” site, but I’ve also gotten the sense that there is a specific policy agenda among its participants that goes beyond simply wanting a Democratic victory. Certainly I can tell that there is specific kind of Democrat you prefer, which is fine with me. In the Tennessee House, the Democrats are in control by a one-vote margin precisely because a Republican flipped on a leadership vote. Needless to say the other Republicans aren’t particularly happy with this renegade to say the least, but them’s the breaks. In Nebraska, the unicameral Senate does not organize by party. For me any value in party politics comes from it being a means to a policy end, but should never be the end in itself. BTW, I don’t necessarily disagree with you on the specifics of the Rogers scenario. I don’t know a lot about him, but I’m certainly not looking forward to the reincarnation of Speaker Finneran under a different name.
policy comes first. we just differ greatly on how you get there. bipartisan kumbaya moments are the exception. the rule, in general, is that the more DINOs, Republicans and others of that ilk, the less progressive policy gets enacted – which means a worse economy, worse schools, worse transportation infrastructure, fewer jobs, even less union jobs, less government transparency and efficiency and a stupid, no good health care system. All that is doubly so on the national level.
I generally agree with your premise, but not exclusively. I guess all I’m saying is that two can play this game.
But you neglected to mention the fact that in order to prevent a conservative Republican speaker, all of the Democrats voted for a moderate Republican, who then voted for himself, giving them a 1-vote win.
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p>Sure, in Massachusetts the Dems have a strong enough majority that they shouldn’t need Republican support on pretty much anything, but in a tight contest I don’t see a problem wooing across the aisle. I doubt Rogers is promising them chairmanships or specific policies. In fact, I think there are a few issues around open government and giving power back to non-leadership members of the legislature where progressives and Republicans have a common interest.
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p>Context is key. Here in Mass, Republicans are rarely the true opponent to the progressive agenda. They simply don’t have the numbers to put up a real fight. They obviously aren’t going to be an ally on most things that we want, but in the few instances where our interests might align, we shouldn’t shun them simply because of the (R) any more than we should automatically support someone else with a (D) after their name.
especially for filling in details I had forgotten on TN.
They could do whats best for Massachusetts.
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p>I hope every House Republican votes for whoever becomes speaker, then.
I think this is bad behaviour for a Democrat, but not ‘unacceptable’. The Speakership, it ought to be noted, (as well, in point of fact, as the Commonwealth as a whole…) was conceived without apparent regard to party affiliation and no rule that I know of requires party discipline in this regard.
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p>Nor do I think that the situation is analogous to that which prevails at the federal level: state Republicans haven’t been particularly obstreperous nor dismayingly obstructionist. Whereas, at the Federal level, the stink of Gingrich and the slime of Delay, et al, continues to pervade the Republican party. I certainly think that, should any Democrat in the US House of Reps attempt to make common cause with the corrupt and feckless Rubber Stamp Repubs still in situ, such would be truly unacceptable. In the state house in Mass, however, these patterns don’t hold: the Mass GOP is decidedly more fey than feckless…
but the party base isn’t voting, pushing and funding people who will use republicans to get in power. Many members of the base will be severely angry if someone seeking the Speaker’s gavel try to use the minority party to gain control of the majority. Simply put, there will be consequences. We’re a long way from the days of Tom Finneran. This is a different state and a different party.
From Rye –
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p>What’s next… “The only good Republican is a dead Republican”?
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of the reason why politicians who put their party ahead of the thing they are supposed to be governing are, in reality, unfit for public service of any kind.
full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. In case you’ve missed the last 20 years, we’ve had the opposite problem. There’s been tons and tons of “bipartisanship” and the policies that have resulted have been killing this country, especially the middle class. People who think “partisan” is a dirty word, or who think that people who seek it don’t do so because they care about the country, are complete dunderheads.
Fresh off apologizing to Chuck the ChimpsChump on the insufficient ideological purity of Democrats, I can say that there are a number of issues on which better Democrats less afraid of big bad conservatives and less eager to compromise could have benefited the country enormously.
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p>Those of us whose partisanship approaches zealotry don’t believe we are doing it out of self-regard or tribal loyalty. In fact, many of us come from decades of disappointment with the Democratic Party. We really do want what’s best for our country and nonetheless regard Democrats, at once muscular and thoughtful, as the best instrument for attaining what’s best for the country.
All I said was that I won’t accept Democrats I vote for to work in concert with Republicans to get a Speaker elected, because that Speaker will owe Republicans and be forced to govern from the center or even center-right. We saw what that kind of Speaker was very clearly with Finneran. It wasn’t pretty.
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p>I’m eager to see the Republicans work with Democrats when they’re able. For example, the Republican Minority leader of the House was an early convert on marriage equality and that was something I’ve always greatly admired. He’s a moderate who’s better on some issues that I care about than many of the state’s DINOs. He had a general election campaign this year and I didn’t get involved in that race, despite the fact that his district is not only close to mine, but I have family that live there and could have stayed had I wanted to be involved. So it’s very telling that I didn’t get involved and put my effort into other races.
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p>All that said, the battle for Speaker is an entirely different – and, yes, partisan – fight. We aren’t Tennessee. We don’t have Republicans about to take control. Under those circumstances, of course things would be different – and of course I would have wanted to see the peace deal the Democrats in that state created. But, thankfully, we’re not only not that desperate here, we’re continuing to elect more and better democrats. I want a Speaker who reflects that, not one who owes Republicans for the gavel.
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p>Thankfully, all this is moot, because DeLeo is going to win – but it’s an important message that House Democrats hear for the future. We will not accept another Tom Finneran situation.
This absolute power thing by you dems is just not working. I don’t think an awful lot of us are close to where we were two years ago. Not making enough revenue? Raise more taxes and fees. Cut the most vulnerable population in the state, they don’t vote. Cut the most well-funded, the elderly programs? No way, they vote. Social Darwin at it’s purest? You people suck.
No other flowery way to phrase that.
it’s called democracy. if we don’t have the best ideas, we won’t win. the core at the heart of what it means to be a democrat is to create solutions that improve everyone’s lives, that recognize that we’re all in this together. It’s the other party that thinks we’re all alone and only the strong (ie rich and privileged) will survive. That was the notion that was thoroughly rejected this past November, with Democrats winning the white house, not to mention the House by the widest margin in decades upon decades (+10.5%).
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p>How many times do I have to tell you this? You have a sad grasp of social darwinism, especially as it applies to United States politics. Many Republicans don’t even mask their devotion to it – and you try to call the party that champions public education, transportation, medicare and social security the Social Darwinists. You’re not kidding anyone, it just makes you sound crazy. The fact that this is a pattern implies that you don’t just sound it.
That the election of the Speaker carries with it implications for how the House is run, and that is an area where, I contend, progressives and Republicans share common interest. We both want more openness, more participation and accountability from individual legislators, and less power consolidated in the hands of leadership. We want committee votes posted online. (We want committee votes taken, period.) We want more access to information.
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p>If the progressives and Republicans got together and demanded a speaker with these qualities, they might be able to pull off enough votes to get someone good. But right now the progressives are too split between Rogers and DeLeo and everyone is already committed anyway.
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p>Before the next speaker fight, we need to get our ducks in a row, keep our people united, and come up with a plan to get the right person elected Speaker. And if that means working with Republicans to assure transparency and openness, then so be it.
in the speaker’s race. It is, after all, a democracy. Whether we like it or not, these people are dually elected to their respective seats and have a right and responsibility to vote for the speaker.
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p>This small body can make a difference, as they did when Tom Finneran became speaker.
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p>One does have to wonder why this should even be an issue. Why is it even that close? Perhaps the current “progressive” candidate isn’t exactly appealing for a host of reasons, which is creating the opening for a backdoor coronation? Maybe that’s a conversation worth having?
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p>Personally, I don’t blame members for looking outside the “heir.” He’s got enough baggage to make the more squeamish members recognize they may be doing this again in another few years.
members can’t?
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p>I only say that voters have rights too – and many voters will be angry with any democrat that colludes with republicans to create a House led by someone who owes the minority favors. We’ve seen that before and almost no one liked it. If you are implying that voters don’t have that right – and that I don’t have that right – then it is you that is trying to squelch democracy.
but I do understand elected bodies. Horsetrading is all about committee assignments and leadership positions – which give legislators tremendous leverage in delivering for their community. That’s where the rubber meets the road.
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p>I think the average voter doesn’t give a rat’s patootie about “collusion” with the Republicans. They’re too busy right now trying to pay the bills. What they do want is ethical and responsible leadership…which hasn’t been in evidence on the Hill of late. I have never seen an incumbent tossed out due to “colluding with the enemy.”
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p>Personally, I hope the most ethical, smart and humane person wins the speaker’s seat. That should trump everything else.
…the role of Speaker needs to change. I know I’ve said this before, but the Speaker should be the presiding and chief administrative officer, but nothing else. Committee chairs should be elected by the House; offices should be decided by lottery, seniority, or committee assignment; any legislation that clears committee should have full debate and vote in the House. In short, it needs to be impossible to fear retribution for not supporting the winner, which also punishes constituents who have nothing to do with the Speaker’s election.
I’m not opposed to a weaker speaker’s position, but I will point out that, if you can get the right person in, a powerful speaker is a tremendous asset.
is usually a good predictor of future performance. We’ve had three ethically-challenged speakers in a row. Does the current occupant of the office give you more comfort?
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p>A wrong person in the role creates a “shadow government” – one over which the voters have no say. He/She has nearly absolute power. Good pieces of legislation lay rotting in committee until the “word” comes from on high. Good legislators are bullied because they don’t want to “play the game.” Reputations are sullied when the leadership runs amok.
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p>What kind of crazy are we to tolerate this? I agree with Christopher – this needs to reformed.