His leadership team is untested. Ways and Means delivered a stripped down budget. like he wanted. OK Bobby, now what? You do have a plan, don’t you? If you do then the leadership team and the members don’t appreciate you keeping it to your self.
If instead you are going to let the inmates run the asylum then nothing will get done And everyone looks bad.
Next week will probably turn into a lesson in how not to run the Mass House of representatives.
So far his plan is to let the house flounder and see to it that many members, especially freshmen, have a tough time getting re-elected next year.
They are out and about in their districts babbling incoherently to constituents who want to know what is going on.
You see Bobby, it is your job to give them something to say; something that gives the constituents confidence in the rep..
Bobby, leadership is not keeping tolls at current levels or bringing in slots.
But maybe bobby is not interested in being a leader.
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Hmmm. Bobby Deleo is a life-long resident of Winthrop, I think. has he ever lived in East Boston? I haven’t seen it mentioned.
Yet he is a proud graduate of the Boston Latin School. An exam school for students residing in Boston. And only for students residing in Boston.
Do we have a scandal here?
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Did anyone see the piece in Sunday’s paper about Jim Aloisi fooling people into thinking he is a Harvard guy? Jimbo, The Harvard Extension School is not Harvard. Everyone around here knows that. It may work in Kansas but it doesn’t work inside Rt.128.
It is your actions Jim that turn people off. This is another example.
Jim is the exception that proves the rule you can the guy out of East Boston but you can’t take East Boston out of the guy.
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Make no mistake about it. The tolls are cash cow supporting a jobs program. And that makes life nice for Jim and Deval and Bob Deleo and Terry Murray.
Nine penny increase on the gas tax will get rid of it and after a few years wipe out the Big Dig debt.
isn’t it suppose to be about the burden we put on our children? Let’s get rid of the tolls for them.
Few have mentioned that the turnpike has also shutdown a number of automatic ticket dispensers forcing drivers into fewer toll lanes.
Boy, I just love having my intelligence insulted. So don’t the voters.
Note to freshman reps. You are most venerable in your first re-election. After that you are good for a number of years until you get lazy and fat. Then they throw you out.
If I was a freshman rep I would be very much concerned about next time around.
Take the freshman for granted Bobby. See how long that lasts.
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I was so happy to see that Wyc Grousbeck ran the Boston marathon with a 3 hour time. Wyc was considerate of all us little people by getting a press release out within minutes of his finish. All bow to the altar of Wyc.
(Does he know that he often looks like a total dweeb dancing around his seats under the basket and making small talk with the c-list celebrity de jour he totes along to the game? Not cool Wyc. Just goofy)
Charley Jacobs, the grandson of an old time Buffalo bootlegger, is the only sports team owner in the city that understands it is not about him. Nothing wrong with an ego but the over inflated ones owning our sports teams are tripping over themselves to get mentioned in the Herald and Globe gossip pages.
What Lamos.
On most issues, it’s not a problem for the speaker to sit back a bit and let the legislators organize and dictate what their priorities are and what they want to debate and vote on.
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p>Revenue, however, is another matter. Legislators may tell each other that they support raising some sort of tax to cover budget shortfalls, but they aren’t going to go public with that fact unless they think there’s a chance it will actually happen. No need to stick your neck out if it won’t do any good. You’re only giving fodder to potential opponents down the road.
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p>If there’s going to be new revenue, it’s a two-way street to get there. Reps need to let the Speaker know what they want and that they’re willing to go to bat for it, and the Speaker needs to let Reps know that he won’t hang them out to dry once they put in the effort.
A few years back everyone was complaining how Tom Finneran had the House locked down, how he dictated the agenda, how the average member didn’t really have a say,and how everyone would laugh when Finenran would stand in front of the television cameras and say that he’s just one man in a room of 160 independent-minded individuals.
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p>And now DeLeo is getting criticized for listening to the whims and wills of the members?
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p>And since when is the Jacobs Family the sports ownership group that “understands its not about them?” Have you seen the cheap teams the B’s put on the ice for 15 straight years? Theyve done nothing but think its about them — specifically their bank accounts.
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p>So what if Wyc likes to have fun at his team’s games? It’s better than hovering over the games alone in a sterile luxury box while truckloads of cash are driven back to Buffalo and a hockey city has its heart ripped out. I’d rather have four Wyc Grobecks, four Bob Krafts, or four John Henrys than a single Jeremy and Charlie Jacobs.
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p>Stick to pretending to know about politics rather than sports…
Not fair, Ernie. You can’t chide DeLeo for lack of leadership just because he seems willing to listen.
pan and into the fire? Is there no alternative between Finneran and the polar opposite Ernesto is describing?
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p>I have no opinion on what DeLeo is or isn’t up to, but “there go the people, I am the leader, I must follow them” is no better than an Irish Stalin from South Boston.
These things are not mutually exclusive. As Ernie and others are saying, the rank-and-file need the cover of leadership for tough decisions like this.
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p>Perhaps Ernie is being premature; perhaps the reconciliation process will see the legislature and the governor take brave and productive positions that will shepherd the state through a difficult period. Maybe there’s something going on inside, and DeLeo is signaling reps to start working on a tax increase.
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p>DeLeo (as opposed to Finneran) wants to listen to his chairs, which is a good thing. But at some point he’s got to be the one calling for action. For all intents and purposes, he’s the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth — and therefore the prime mover of legislation, as Ernie says.
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p>I don’t know what an appropriate time frame is for this kind of action. But it doesn’t strike me that they’re being particularly hasty.
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p>Serious question. Why? Why can’t the process work, for lack of a better word, legislatively?
My guess: The speaker (for whatever host of reasons) has enormous power over the rank-and-file: committee assignments. So discipline tends to be pretty tight. Typically in the House, what you’ve seen is a degree of internal wrangling, but when the deal goes down, there’s no significant opposition. How many times have you seen a close vote in the House?
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p>In any event, if we’re going to get a tax increase, the rank-and-file members need the cover. They need DeLeo to take the heat for it. One way or the other, he needs to be out front — even if it’s taking someone else’s idea and running with it.
I don’t buy it. I think we’ve become accustomed to a speaker-centric system. It’s not actually necessary.
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p>Reps who want cover … should not run. I know that is not the way it works, but that’s how it should work: PUBLIC office.
Reps who want cover … should not run. I know that is not the way it works, but that’s how it should work: PUBLIC office.>>Jim
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p>I agree. If DiMasi provided cover, and DeLeo provides less, then we actually know more about where our reps stand on issues.
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p>And…Ernie…Reps are most venerable in their first re-election? Why? did you mean ‘vulnerable’?
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p>
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p>He went to BLS back when out of towners could pay the Boston Public Schools to attend BLS. So no. No scandal.
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p>Did the press release claim 3 hour-ish? His time was 4:16.
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p>Posted by Gary Dzen, Boston.com Staff April 20, 2009 04:37 PM
He actually said on the telecast that night he started the race a bit earlier than he was supposed to. His official time was just over 4 hours.
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p>I don’t usually chime in to critique what is posted on here, but this raised a big red flag to me.
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p>As a member of the House, I am grateful we have a Speaker who is willing to listen to all of us. I know it might seem much more comfortable for everyone if anyone in power stands up and says “I have the solution, follow me.” But in a representative democracy, the views and concerns of the representatives should actually matter!
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p>I hope folks in the BMG community look a little bit deeper and recognize what is happening in the House. Speaker DeLeo is giving members of the House the space to review legislation, draft and file amendments, debate with each other the merits of the various proposals, and come up with a workable solution as a body.
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p>I don’t mean to suggest everything has been made perfect overnight, but change is happening for the better in my view.
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p>Democracy can be messy and difficult, but it’s far better than the alternative.
Why not? That’s what BMG is for! 😉
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p>Seriously, thanks for the comment. As I said in my note promoting Ernie’s post, I think the question of what, exactly, the Speaker is supposed to do on big issues like these is a very interesting and complicated one.
The proof will be in the pudding… tick, tick, tick…
Deleo didn’t give you any say in the revenue free budget that came out last week. In fact the vice-chair of ways and means was shut out. And she , as you know, is not happy.
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p>You ask BMgers to look a little deeper. Than you ask for an alternative.
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p>I have looked deeper and I have an alternative.
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p>A speaker that does not want it both when he says he wants input from members.
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p>Deleo took the low hanging fruit with the budget last week then hides under the desk when the revenue work needs to be done.
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p>How about a speaker meeting with and listening to members and building consensus from within rather than having them heard through amendments?
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p>He should be embarrassed. As should all the dems in the house.
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p>Yes Rep. Sciortino, Democracy is messy and hard. Different however from sloppy and incompetent.
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p>
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p>Unless you worked in my office, you’d have no idea what say I’ve had, so please don’t make assumptions.
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p>This process isn’t over. If my voice isn’t heard by the end of this budget passing, then shame on me for not speaking louder or building support for my views. That is, in fact, my job as a legislator.
the Turnpike Authority mainly exists as a jobs program for the politically connected. There is simply no logical reason to have costly-to-collect tolls, other than jobs for friends, when around 10 cents a gallon could pay to close all the tolls and end that (dare I say it, hack?) agency… 10 cents a gallon won’t be noticed by anyone within a year.
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p>I doubt 20-25 cents would either, which is why we should go there so we can include new funds for our transportation system that badly needs it, both for public transit and our roads.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There have to be a million ways to collect revenue that don’t involve stopping people repeatedly in the middle of a highway. I’m not a fan of higher taxes, but if the choice is higher taxes when I’m already paying them or stopping me when I’m doing 65 (okay, maybe 70), I pick higher taxes at the pump or on my income tax form.
There is no reason to have tolls on the Turnpike. It’s just a road, like a hundred other ones in the state, run it like one. Don’t create a new ‘super authority’ and build in a new generation of pampered, self-perpetuating patronage hires. Just take the Turnpike and assign responsibility for it to the current Mass Highway Dept. If the state has debt needing servicing as a result of the Big Dig, then finance it through the entire state, not on the backs of drivers who happen to drive in a certain direction to get to work. Since we spent billions of dollars to speed up traffic through Boston, what sense does it make to then try to pay for it using a method which brings traffic to a halt several times a day. The time has come to dump the whole mess and stop rationalizing a system that has no reason other than to maintain a patronage empire.
Please work on the budget and not responding to most people on this blog, including myself, who could never be elected to anything and are armchair commentators and enjoy that status (well, i speak for myself). If you were smart Rep., you’d fire everyone (probably only one aide) because you never passed in your nomination papers on time and had to run a sticker campaign by busing in people from Northhampton and San Francisco to win. PLEASE doublecheck your math, etc when dealing with my public dollars as my public servant when you decide the budget.
If Carl reads a policy blog and contributes to it, good. People will know where he stands and can influence him. My state rep? Who knows where he stands? There are three reps and a senator representing portions of my community and I can only reliably predict ONE’s position on any subject.
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p>Carl claimed to be informed, and claimed to be involved in policy discussion; I must have missed the part where he claimed perfection. He was elected. Deal with it.