Looks like the Senate has had about enough of the Governor’s Council and is mulling alternatives. They don’t want the job of confirming judicial nominations themselves.
(Who will tell Christopher?)
Please share widely!
Gov’s Council to get attention it deserves?
Democrat Senators plotting to reduce the power of the electorate.
Killing off voter initiative, and citizen legislative filings is in their sights too.
When conservative Dems, progresssive Dems, and Republicans all agree…
Next-to-last paragraph from link in post:
Read the article before commenting. Might help.
Let’s hope they make some headway with this thing. The thing is a colossal waste of money. The behavior of some of the bigots on that thing this last go round was absolutely appalling.
I don’t know if MA should keep the GC or not. I don’t know enough about it. The argument for keeping it or getting rid of it should be focused on finding the process which results in the best cohort of judges.
If that process costs a few hundred thousand bucks a year, it’s worth it. If that process doesn’t require the spending of a few hundred thousand bucks a year, then of course we shouldn’t spend it.
But let’s focus on finding the right process, not on the teeny tiny portion of the MA budget.
My problem is that the people getting elected to the GC are increasingly lower in intellectual caliber, not because they reflect the overall gestalt of the people but because this obscure office can work as a fixation for those with an agenda. Witness the prurient idiocy of the last confirmation. What happens if this group continues to fly under the radar and acquires a critical mass that would rule-out, in advance, the selection of someone as qualified as Barbara Lenk? The GC has become an elective office that has the distinction of becoming Dog Whistle Central. The stakes are much too high; this thing needs to go and something better (or nothing, i.e., the Senate) must replace it.
How about putting it to a referendum? Seems a little didactic otherwise.
democratic means was somehow didactic.
Getting the Council out of judicial nominations requires a constitutional amendment, so it will eventually have to be placed on the ballot in order to take effect. So if the voters of MA really want the Council, they’ll get to say so.
Pity that President Murray herself gavelled the ConCon closed without allowing a vote last June, which would allow the electorate to decide.
This will be a thorny problem for the Majority Establishment. How can they allow the GC vote to proceed if they don’t choke off the ConCon to prevent other things like independent redistricting which share the agenda to be voted on?
I sometimes can’t help but imagine that “peter porcupine” is, in reality, two separate people, utterly hostile to each other and each occupying wholly different spheres of political thought, acumen and experience, sharing one keyboard by alternately typing words.
I’m serious: there are so many thoughts, none complete, and disjoint attempts at sniping, here (and not for the first time) that I’m reduced to the plaintive request: please, if you’re going to say something, please please please take the time and effort to say it coherently.
Every Session, any bill that involves a change that would affect the State Constitution is referred to the Constitutional Convention. This includes things like a progressive income tax, independent redistricting, and of course, abolishing the Governor’s Council.
There has been an article to abolish the Governor’s Council on the agenda of the Constitutional Convention for at least a dozen years, and probably longer.
But, beginning with Birmingham, the Senate Presidents have gaveled these CC’s open and shut without allowing a vote which would allow these matters to proceed to the ballot. Gay marriage began this, but it has also affecting progressive causes like a progressive tax rate, and of course, abolishing the Governor’s Council.
My comment was in response to David, who noted that a vote would have to be allowed. I agreed, and offered the opinion that Senate President Murray has a lot of face for complaining about the Governor’s Council when it is her own action of gavelling the CC closed without allowing action that has prevented the vote – which in my opinion would be passed by the electorate in a New York minute.
I said it was a problem for the majority in that many other things, like independent redistricting, that the electorate would ALSO pass in a New York minute would ALSO then proceed to the ballot, and they do not want that. Yet allowing that to happen is the only way to get the Governor’s Council abolished.
I am sorry for having confused you.
… thanks for taking the effort.
It’s not a question of apology. If you’re here to discuss you ought to make the effort to be coherent. I wouldn’t have said anything If I didn’t think you were capable.
to when the Governor was appointed by the King!
… since the rest of the state government only dates back to the adoption of the Massachusetts Constitution (1780) which was written in response to throwing off the shackles of the King! Chapter II, Section III must have been the one section that Ole George III wrote… Seems like an awful big thing to let slip through the cracks…
If the Legislature weren’t so prone to hire hack friends and relatives would there be any need to have this discussion?
Getting rid of the Governor’s Council has nothing to do with hack hires.
I wouldn’t throw too many stones – wouldn’t want to crack the glass Barnstable County Sheriff’s department.
My comment on RMG..And for the record, it is my view that Perry never should have been offered the job in the first place.
http://redmassgroup.com/diary/11745/patrick-vetos-perry-job
http://redmassgroup.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=11213
David lives in Essex county, and resents being lumped in together with any other county.
(And I agree – what does this elected position have to do with ‘hack hires’? The GC members aren’t legislators, and don’t have that much pull)
My point is rather simple. Who will get to appoint judges when we can’t count on the Governor and the Legislature to not play the patronage game.
Oh yea, Perry should not have been hired, nor should Brock Cordiero.
As a member of the MA GOP Exec Comm do you condone the hiring of Jeff Perry to a created position and do you think it appropriate to have a Sherrif hire a GOP Stae Committeemen as a “government liason?” Hoping the answer is no because if the answer is yes then the MA GOP may be a bad as the MA Dems on the patronage matter. That kinda sucks PP.
Seems like too small of a panel and too little accountability. I’d favor having the State Senate confirm the Governor’s nominees. The Globe article today, though, indicated that neither Therese Murray nor Brian Joyce is supporting this idea, out of concern that the change not just look like a Senate power grab.
I don’t think the SJC’s Chief Justice should be involved, since that would mean he or she is confirming (or not confirming) his/her colleagues. Feels like self-dealing. I think the A.G. is an OK idea. Not sure about the head of the Mass. Bar Association either – that’s a private body that has no public accountability at all.
Clearly, they’ve got some work to do.
…and is about to blow a gasket:)
This “non-partisan professional” scheme is worst than the current system. At least the GC is elected primarily to confirm judges. There is nothing seriously flawed about the current system that we have to throw off centuries of political heritage. I still think it also has the advantage over the federal system that allows the Senate to tie confirmations to other legislative deals.
and she’s a Democrat, so it’s not specific to a party. Have you read her statement? It’s bizarre and pretty much sums up why the Governor’s Council should go away.
This is Coakley’s and Blodgett’s statement for some background from people who know what they are talking about:
I agree with david upstream that the MA Bar Assn doesn’t feel right, nor does the SJC C J. So, who else? Perhaps the dean of a law school in MA [rotating, of course]?
When Governor Winslow starts ramming through ultraconservative justices because there’s no accountability, most of the people advocating abolishing the GC here will regret taking that position.
The State Senate is really the only alternative that’s even marginally acceptable, and if they get this power it will be abused for patronage deals.
The AG has to bring cases before the SJC. HUGE conflict of interest. Deans of private law schools have no public accountability, just like the Mass Bar Assn. The Dean of UMass Law School can be pressured too effectively by the Governor to have any independence, since the trustees can fire the Dean and the Governor appoints 17 out of 19 trustees.
These decisions need to be made by a body that is independent, publicly accountable, and not subject to a lot of logrolling. That’s the Governor’s Council. Take away their salaries if you really want to be a cheapskate. We have plenty of volunteer commissions that function just fine. But don’t take away their power. Are there idiots on the GC? Yes. Are there idiots in the State Senate? An immigration amendment worse than the Perry amendment passed with a 3/4 majority last year. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
There’s a really easy solution to this problem:
Step 1: Don’t vote for idiots for Governor’s Council
Step 2: Encourage your neighbors to join you in not voting for idiots for Governor’s Council, the same way you would in a legislative race.