Speaker DeLeo addressed the House membership today to let them know his priorities. Comments as prepared for publication here.
If you read them, you’ll see that the Speaker is ruling out tax increases in 2015. Because any bills to change tax laws have to originate in the House, that’s a lot of nails in the revenue coffin for the coming year.
But that’s only one of the topics he discusses. BMG Hive Mind, have at it.
The Speaker did not announce his decisions about committee chairpersonships and other leadership matters today, as had been expected. Which means that those of us who think that the representatives who voted in favor of maintaining the term limits that Speaker DeLeo once advocated ought not to be punished for their votes can register that opinion with the Speaker: The Democrats voting to keep term limits (all the Republicans voted to maintain term limits): Ayers, DiNatale, DiZoglio, Dwyer, Dykema, Hecht, Provost, Rogers, J., Rosa, Timilty. Some of these reps probably did not vote to keep the Speaker’s term limits on the ground of their progressive principles, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
“We will open the lines of communication between business leaders in your districts and the Legislature.” How do you open something already open?
A lot of it is focused on the grubby left behind parts of the state that don’t have all the vivacious economic activity and go go wealth creation that has been the situation here for a while.
He’s talking to the aging people in dystopian burbs and decayed mill towns who have offspring with narcotics problems. While it isn’t clear what, exactly, will be on the plate for them, his basic contempt for the outlooks espoused here is economically expressed by utter indifference to them and an absence of mention.
It makes sense.
A triple decker around here ended up being a cash cow as it appreciated from 70 thousand 1985 dollars to 800 thousand 2005 dollars while the same structure in Fitchburg or Pittsfield is still barely worth 100 thousand and is much more at risk for a cost slide if another recession hits.
It’s as if the speech is saying.. “look Boston, you made out like bandits and have no idea how lucky you are, shut up already.”
the need to make the liberals who walk in lock-step with DeLeo feel the approbation of their constituents. The Kaufmans and Linskys of the world need to know that we see them supporting the DeLeo agenda that will kill the MBTA and much of our transportation system. Somebody might object as she defends her buddies in the lege but, really, who cares?
I have lost a shade less than $1000 in billable hours in the past two weeks because of the T melt down and the dumb-ass Pats parade. I would welcome paying $100 more per year in taxes to save our transportation system and I am guessing a lot of other households would agree. Two dollars more per week to keep my business intact is nothing.
And now we have a handful of idiot Republicans gearing up to do a ballot question to reduce the sales tax, masked by the carrot of a ballot question to re-introduce term limits on the Speaker. Heads up, folks, the SJC ruled around 1984 that the Rules of the House, the Rules of the Senate and the Joint Rules of the House and Senate are beyond the reach of the electorate by ballot question.
Ignore the entreaties of the Republicans who pretend to be reformers with the anti-DeLeo ballot question. Fight them as they try to reduce the sales tax to 5%, which would be the death of of our core public services. Let your legislators know you expect an equal or larger level of initiative on their part to fully fund the services we need and deserve. Don’t forget to make fun of the assholes who want to cut taxes further and who are trying to get signatures from you when you are shopping.
DeLeo has been spending time in Springfield. One of the other elements of my Google Plus home stream is a run of news feeds from NECN and Western MA.
The cheapskate insurgency from Chicopee was outspent by their opponents on the gas tax initiative as Paul Simmons handily noted.
I was stunned by the scope of the repudiation.
The Chicopee Cheapskates spent around 90 grand. Tax advocates spent more than 2 million.
It is a restive pissed off electorate beyond the wealth fest in metro Boston’s upscale zones. I bet lots of em barely clear 40 grand a year and are unlikely to have much sympathy for those in a nicer spot on the economy food chain.
I don’t know how the left behinds are going to be persuaded that feeding the Boston Glitz monster so it can continue to lord over them is an appealing idea.
It’s a kind of meta symmetry. We ignore their problems and they don’t care about the T. I’m not saying it is right, or good or that I agree.
I’m mainly pointing out that the profound self absorption emanating from metro Boston is not a way to win hearts and minds.
I’m not buying this pitch.
What we did NOT ask the electorate is “Should the top one percent pay significantly more in taxes so that the vital government services be restored to the rest of us”. Rightly or wrongly, I think the gas initiative vote reflects the reality that the gas tax once more hits those least able to pay it. I suspect that had the ballot initiative been “Owners of private aircraft shall hereafter pay an aviation fuel tax of $10,000 per gallon. Commercial carriers are not subject to this tax”, we might have seen a different outcome.
Springfield as “the ‘Winthrop of the West'”? Are you kidding me? If I lived in Springfield, I’m not sure whether I’d view that as a compliment or an insult. I’ve been to Winthrop. In some sense, that choice of metaphor by Mr. DeLeo says all that needs to be said. Talk about “self-absorption”! Has anybody on Mr. DeLeo’s staff asked residents of greater Springfield if THEY cite Winthrop as vision for their future?
Investing money to save the MBTA is not “self-absorption emanating from metro Boston”. Like it or not, the bulk of the state’s revenue, the lion’s share of the state GDP, and the bulk of our population are all concentrated in the metro Boston area.
This argument is like the hands and fingers telling the heart, lungs, and brain to stop hogging all the blood. When we kill the MBTA, we kill metro Boston as we know it today. That will be catastrophic to regions like Springfield that are already suffering.
Mr. DeLeo, however, will be long gone by then — no doubt enjoying retirement in a gated Florida compound where he can avoid the state’s gift and estate tax.
And self absorption isn’t partisan, it’s endemic. It is just expressed in different ways so you get all these conflicting monads grinding away at one another.
I’m trying to explain a dynamic because it beats spinning your wheels about what should be done without much insight into how it has come to be.
And even in this lion share concentration zone of maximum importance, it is fairly decentralized, while Boston’s role within its borders has been in decline.
495 is its own run of large firms, the old 128 tech highway ring has lots going on and very little of this stuff works with the T. If it isn’t an option for someone they are unlikely to root for it.
And this decentralization has never been in sync with the T route system.
I have repeatedly said I am a fairly intensive user of the entire system, the T and its satellite operations beyond its route range. I am a major beneficiary because I’m in Cambridge. I don’t drive and am a 10 minute walk from Central Square.
But I do make an effort to imagine how others who aren’t in my situation might think as a proactive way to resist this endemic tug of seeing it all as my world that the rest of you just live in.
Winthrop is a tombolo. Springfield is a flood plain along an old fault line.
I don’t know why he came up with that idiot pander bit. I did mention I thought the speech was a crock other than as an insight into what he cares about.
what you’re referring to with regards to Chicopee. As a city, Chicopee is much better off than many of the people who live there. It’s a middle-class city, but a mostly blue-collar middle-class. As a realtor told me years ago, Chicopee is a city where people don’t move out as soon as they get the chance. There are poor sections and industrial sections, but the schools are decent, and people don’t leave as they do in Springfield. Chicopee is also considered a bellwether for big elections.
The people behind the repeal of the gas tax indexing were from Eastern Massachusetts, and they are the same anti-tax wingnuts we’ve always had. Carla Howell, some Baptist minister from Attleboro who ran for state rep, a small group of hard-core anti-tax movers and shakers.
It was cited yesterday in a news feed as preparing a ballot initiative rolling sales tax back to 5%.
They were the group that were successful in preventing inflation indexed gas taxes according to Channel 22.
http://wwlp.com/2015/02/11/ballot-group-seeks-to-reduce-state-sales-tax/
I think the newsfeed is wrong. WWLP is located in Chicopee. I think that’s just the byline. They don’t identify the group or its location. The other thing is that WWLP doesn’t do much real reporting, and I can’t find any other source reporting this.
These are the same people as the Tank the Gas Tax group. During the election, I looked up who owned their domain. It was Carla Howell. Joshua Ostroff was traveling the state debating against repeal. His opponent in Western Mass was Rev. Jeff Bailey of Grace Baptist Church in Attleboro. Bailey ran for state rep, and according to the Sun Chronicle,
This is all CLT and it’s ilk. Nothing to do with Chicopee.
At least I had something to examine.
They flood my G Plus stream with all sorts of News minutiae of the region, the debate over an old school in Hadley, crime problems in Springfield, a DeLeo speech out there etc. They seem fixated on Wilbraham for some reason.
NECN also uses G plus but it’s more a mix of top stories, regional and national.
local news is like, but ours is pretty bad. I think they follow the local press, receive press releases, and read SHNS. Then they send someone out to talk in front of whatever scene they think is related to the topic, then then they interview literally random people on the street about what they think. One of my students who graduated from Emerson is cutting her teeth at WWLP.
I know it’s some sort of format they follow, kind of like the KISS-FM or The River radio formats, but it really isn’t very informative.
Rep Diehl, Rep Lyons, etc. Conservatives for sure, but elected officials.
The North Andover RTC gathered 10,000 signatures themselves. Maybe not your running buddies but hardly wing nuts.
of wingnut, I guess. CLT’s people are nutty wingnuts.
Anyone who wants to roll back the sales tax is, in my opinion, a wingnut. Given my acquaintance with local budgets and the state budget, I’m one who thinks we need more revenue, not less. I may be a libtard or something, but cutting taxes is an extremely bad idea when the budget is coming up very short on operating expenses alone.
There’s a whole lot of different people out there, and most of them are not that kooky. I have acquaintances that changed their registration to unenrolled because they think the MA GOP are too far to the left. I know Fisher supporters. These are the wing nuts. Carla Howell is more out there than CLT, who are certainly anti-tax but also pretty logical in their endorsement methodology, which at times selects D’s over R’s.
Diehl and Lyons? You have got to be kidding. These are among the worst of the worst.
Maybe not your choice, but the people of their districts voted for them not once, but now three times. Sorry democracy is not a priority for you.
Somebody listens to Rush Limbaugh or he wouldn’t be on the air. Somebody watches Fox. The mere fact that wingnuts get elected does not, in my view, have any bearing on the observation that they are wingnuts.
includes the right of the people to elect wing nuts. I accept that and simultaneously embrace my characterization of them. The voters in their respective districts chose extremists to represent them. They were fair election and your boys won. Alas, they will plague the entirety of the Commonwealth.
That’s why Dems need to toughen up in the era of BakerLeo.
Go-go MA is pumping money through the rest of the state. Maybe don’t shoot that goose that’s laying the golden eggs.
Go-go MA?
It’s the period where lots of money can be made by those who are positioned to make it.
Think of how moribund Boston was in the 70s and 80s compared with now.
I don’t know if this particular phase is sustainable or cyclical or what vulnerabilities it may have, like Bio Pharma deciding to move to New Jersey.
I’m just trying to draw the contrast between this area which has had tenfold asset value inflation in 20 years and the rest of the state that have been stuck in a more meager pattern.
chris-rich explained it. I like his use of the term, sounds like it should be a gentleman’s club in Saugus.
King Arthurs or The Squire were examples of days long past.
Golden Banana is a thing of whimsy. And I swear those dumps have to be the most depressing pits one is ever likely to waste money in.
The reek of lysol and cigarette smoke intertwined while the air of menace from second string mob torpedoes waiting in the wings easily made for the most wretched possible environment for a woman to eke a living.
It was the men who eked a living there (I think it has since reverted to a “regular” strip club, though keeping the name).
The name was intended to convey the, um, brand.
I never visited it but recall it eventually reverted to type when the owners discovered a lack of interest in the guy side.
My experience with those things was mainly the Combat Zone when I was in my twenties. I’m old enough to remember when they still had actual musicians backing up the strippers, usually a tenor sax and Hammond organ trio with cocktail drums doing tunes like “Shiny Stockings”
Once cassette decks showed up, the dancers would bring in their own music like the Eagles doing Hotel California.
It may have been guys at one point, but by the time the ’90s rolled around it was women who were doing the dancing at the ‘Nana.
Maybe the most famous living cellist.
on the trio he did with Santana and India Aire on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
And his deep bowing has always made me bow down.
It was owned by a guy I knew who worked at DEC. He liked to compose microtonal music and talked Ma into trying to perform it.
Ying Ying Ma lives directly below me. She’s from Somerville.
The Ma clan is fairly extensive in China and the word can mean ‘woman’ or ‘horse’ depending on how it’s inflected.
” ? “
The place exudes importance and pumps it. It’s here for a reason and isn’t going anywhere. The goose will be waddling for a long time and the eggs end up in pockets other than the under served public
Sharing revenue is fairly indirect and usually has strings in local aid formulas that become levers for Beacon Hill leaders.
Besides, this is what I mean when I say “lording over”.
We hear the anxieties about the poor hosed schlubs who have to use the T to sell us our dunkies but somehow other comparably poor schlubs who are stuck putting a shitbox on the road are what, less significant?
That would be the self absorption. Boston’s poor schlubs are somehow more significant than the ones in Clinton or Gardner.
If you’re going to be egalitarian and solicitous of the those with lower incomes, it has to be across the board, everywhere, at all times in all cases. You can’t just use. And Boston can’t just dismiss the areas outside its sphere due to greater importance.
What kind of progressive is that, a convenient version?
Generally this is turning into a classic Chicken Little outbreak as Al Giordano would describe it. The T isn’t going to be dismantled. It’ll probably suck more than t does now, before it gets better, if ever, but really, I find it generally there when I use it.
I am lucky enough to use it outside of its rush hour cycles and then it is fairly congenial. I don’t expect it to ace an unprecedented string of blizzards in 7 day intervals.
Middle class and rich folks ride the T too. Yet this isn’t about whose schlubs matter most.
I get your argument that DeLeo is working the classic Massachusetts vs. Boston trope, but he also has to pay the bills and he surely knows where that money is coming from. Screwing Boston screws DeLeo. You got to feed your cash cow. That’s just common sense.
I’m addressing local yokel progressive chauvinism about who matters more.
That’s what I find so hilariously childish and unevolved about some regularly braying parties here who make a club of solicitude for the poor in order to bash the rest of us with their purity.
And the flaw I spotted in that argument was selective solicitude. No worry as I’m pretty confident it isn’t your shtick which tends more to that frivolity you espouse.
In keeping with that spirit… Yay Boston… rah rah rah… It’s our world and everyone else just lives in it. Also too… Nyah Nyah.
Even the Substance Abuse section of his speech is half baked, as a comprehensive plan will be better funding the mental health programs that deal with substance abuse issues. Where is that revenue going to come them? You can’t stop substance abuse just by making it illegal.
That’s beside the point. It’s main value is a slice of time sample of which bunch the Speaker feels a need to pander to and it ain’t anyone here.
I recall Scott Brown remarked that “Now is not a good time to raise taxes” on the wealthy class during the last recession. I wrote him a letter and asked him a question. Simply put, if “now” is not a good time to raise taxes on the wealthy, that assumes that there is, in fact, a time that is good to raise taxes on the wealthy.
When is that time?
I’ll ask the speaker the same question.
If 2015 is not a good year to raise taxes on the wealthy with a graduated income tax, what year is a good year?
But it’s a fraud, of course. In the GOP’s view, there is never a good time to raise taxes. But “not right now” is a much easier political case to make: “never” is more complicated, but “not right now” lets you say, well, the economy is still struggling, etc. etc. Anti-tax Dems like DeLeo have adopted the same strategy.
The champions of the successful ballot question undoing the law that raised the gas tax automatically to keep up with increases in inflation used as one of their arguments that it is necessary for legislators to retain their judgment as to when tax increases are appropriate.
However, most of these champions of discernment had earlier become signatories to the Americans for Tax Reform pledge NEVER to vote for a tax increase, and so had already handed their own judgment over to Grover Norquist. (If you’re interested, they’re here.)
I hate when you guys pass this off as a Republican thing. Oh, those Republicans financially crippled the MBTA. Oh, those Republicans are anti-tax.
The reality is that Republican strategies are meaningless here– whether they be clever or not– because Republicans don’t exist in sufficient numbers to implement them.
These are Democrats. These are YOUR guys. These aren’t Republican strategies– they are the strategies of the Democratic supermajority in the Massachusetts Legislature.
The GOP is up front about it and makes it a sales pitch while the DeLeocrats try to do it on the sly and pretend it is unavoidable.
First, because Republicans are completely politically marginalized. Our govrrnment has been under the control of Democrats for a decade. DeLeo is a Democrat- the same group most of you volunteer for.
Second because it lets BMG engage in unhealty FoxNews style blame shifting: We support Democrats. We love Democrats. The convention nominated X, and even though X shares zero of our priorities or values, other than some no-risk positions on womens and gay rigjts, we will support X because he will be easier to talk to. Then when X proves not to share your values, and X’s actual values have negative consequences, you blame… Republicans.
You might as well blame the Easter Bunny.
The MBTA has had no investment for decades because the Massachusetts Democratic Party does not care to invest in the MBTA, and therefore gives its support to the politicians who just handed DeLeo the ability to make that decision, again.
It is orders of magnitude more despicable. The local GOP is fairly well neutered, which is fine.
I get the sense the public is pretty well sick of both, hence the reluctance to declare affiliation.
It’s like a choice between the Democratic ward heeler who steers the grift to cronies or the Republican corporate who steers the grift to ideological convenience schemes and privatization stunts that become new forms of corporate welfare and so on.
In a way, the GOP here behaves like some Muslims confronted by disgust at ISIL beheadings, they try to dodge it and pretend it isn’t real.
“What… you’re still blaming George W Bush?”
It isn’t your fault that Louie Gohmert ended up in congress but you will be tarred with the brush and deserve it.
While there are a significant number of Democratic pom pom wavers who will fluff any idiot the party tosses into the ring, the larger mass of unaffiliated skeptics are mainly stuck with trying to decide which party is the least loathsome and that’s usually where you come up short.
And so are the people who helped him break his word to the people by eliminating term limits. At least, that has been the tenor of recent discussions. In general, I’d say the Democrats are not very popular on BMG — although certainly Republicans are less so — but progressive Democrats are popular.
The Massachusetts Democratic Party is popular on BMG. Most support Democratic candidates, notwithstanding the fact that such candidates will support DeLeo, because such candidates and DeLeo “will be easier to talk to.” Then those candidates, and DeLeo, bring forth such policy triumphs as the introduction of casino gambling to the Commonwealth.
We are also treated to streams of awkward and lame defenses of crap like the Speaker For Life bit: aw gee, if X ever wants to accomplish anything she has to play along on this, and might get a bad parking spot, so what can you do?
Then, come campaign season, every single Republican is abhorred here because some kook like Michele Bachman says something offensive on Fox&Friends. DeLeo might be bad, but that Republican candidate might be worse! So we better get in line and defend our party unity! So you support DeLeo, and Nothing. Ever. Changes.
This is absurdly counter-productive to what I believe most of your best intentions actually are. It might be the case that the Republican might be worse. So what? It is nearly certain that most of those Republicans would proudly hold office for one lousy term, and then get bounced by a Democrat who would actually have to act like a Democrat in order to do the bouncing.
It is a trade off: Might Be Worse But Might Actually Get Better vs. Status Quo Forever.
Some may be targets of primary challenges, but many fit their district quite well. Come general election most of our choices are binary – choose the Dem or choose the GOP, and one of them WILL win. Progressives aren’t likely to prefer the GOP candidate so what’s left? Staying home or blanking the ballot line is an abdication and thus a non-starter in my book.
Credit the right-wing Republicans. They have moved their party significantly to the right, by withdrawing support from candidates they perceived as unreliable. This cost them elections–Republicans lost!– but you can bet your last dollar that after the next Republican who re-took that seat, as well as every other Republican, learned a valuable lesson, which is that they cannot win without the support of their most conservative wing. They have been stunningly successful, for a prolonged period of time, and on a scale far greater than the legislature of a medium-sized northeastern state.
I have no idea what progressives are “likely” to support. I can only see what they actually do support, with the votes that they actually cast, the high-minded words that spew from their mouths notwithstanding. Those things are:
1. Flat Tax;
2. Income Tax cuts and revenue through sales tax increases;
3. Reduced infrastructure investment;
4. Reducing collective bargaining rights for public sector unions;
5: Corporate casino gambling;
6. Increased police surveillance power.
As things stand, the “progressive” vote in Massachusetts is, in its entirety, a vote in favor of the entrenched, center-right status quo which, in almost any other state, would be the product of a strong GOP majority.
…what should have been winnable elections by nominating the likes of Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Angle, Richard Murdoch, etc. Again, though, once you are in that voting booth in November you have a decision to make and like I said, blanking the line is not an option for me on principle.
As it, is the craziest social conservatives are Democratic old school Catholic pol hacks like Garry, Miceli,Linehan and the rest just like Tommy and Billy before them.
Control of the Senate for two years? Now they have the Senate, and with the most conservative majority they have ever had. And control of the House for the foreseeable future– at least until 2020.
You and other MA liberals would not do this, and so you support a flat income tax with a low rate, and raising state revenues to compensate for lower income taxes through regressive means such as sales and gas tax. Because you are more interested in having your party in power than in what your party actually does with that power.
For that you need a veto proof majority and they had a fairly favorable set up in 2014. So it’s shaky.
And the house is its own mess. The next couple of years will be fun. High school observations about the fondness of a party for staying in power are nearly as astute as noting the color of a cloudless sky.
Your team just sux at it here. They get a bone every now and then, and they go for some kind of melodramatic over reach like re organizing the executive or concocting financial engineering schemes that choke as they age. The public predictably regrets letting Team GOP run the show and it’s out on its ass or thwarted like Elmer Fudd once more.
It’s another form of narcissistic self absorption, only a more spiteful kind of isolation than the echo chamber delusion that can afflict team Democrat.
The ward heeler caucus really just is your team with different hats. They have internalized all these platitudes you mention and are running the place into the ground.
Your team won indirectly because Team Deleocrat grabbed all those shitty ideas and ran with them. You got nothing to show for all that hand wringing and platitude pedaling.
But yes Team Deleocrat is still running the show.
After all, Massachusetts have had one for close to twenty years, and still think everything is the Republicans’ fault.
It matters because the GOP in the Fed is a hollow majority if their jackass concoctions get filibustered or vetoed.
You can gloat about symbolic stuff til cows come home but there are numbers involved to actually accomplish anything and the GOP isn’t hitting them.
But if it makes you feel better, go nuts.
Massachusetts is NOT the fed. I don’t remember a filibuster here, I’m not sure the MA legislature even allows it.
The correct point that CMD makes is that Democrats have had a veto-proof majority for most, if not all, of the time I’ve lived here (since 1974) and we’ve:
1. Handled taxes and the economy in a way that is more Republican than Democrat, and
2. Pointed a finger at “those awful Republicans” whenever an objection is made.
At the end of the day, money is power (sadly), and in most things involving government and money our “Democratic” government looks, quacks, and swims like a Republican duck.
it is a profound mistake to dismiss CMD as just another Republican.
He is not.
You often say Garry fits her district-let her loss to a Republican then!
Our super majority is operating as an incumbent protection racket that enables center-right Dems to govern that way with progressive cover. It’s an alliance that has repeatedly succeeded in stymying progressive governors or electing center-right Republicans who work just chummy with the leadership. I would bet dollar for dollar DeLeo was excited he got Baker “a man I DNA work with!” I bet he said. Didn’t lift a finger for Martha did he? Killed Deval’s second term didn’t he? How’s he any better than Boehner and why should I keep voting for people that want him to be speaker for life when the GOP at least held the line on term limits (in a self serving fashion).
I’ll take a Winslow or a Jones over a Garry or Miceli any day of the week. Either way you are gonna get center right votes on fiscal policy, but at least those GOP house members are socially liberal and against patronage.
The rep told me we should be grateful DeLeo protected transgender rights form his right flank-aka those very same Democrats. Mixeli’s challenger was pro choice, pro gay and pro open government. Don’t tell me he wasn’t a better option.
because legislative districts are not homogeneous. Gene O’Flaherty, now legal counsel to Mayor Walsh but formerly the state rep from Chelsea and Charlestown regularly berated the large bulk of immigrants in his district but he won election because his Irish bravado and bullying attitude played well with the small minority that voted. He sure as heck did not represent his district’s majority interests.
OTOH, three decades ago we had the brilliant Sen Alan Sisitsky in Springfield (Cornell B.A., Harvard M.A. and Yale Law J.D.) who was likely far out of step with his constituents but was a great presence in the lege. He was replaced after his mental breakdown by a string of Democratic idiots.
The smart and infinitely kind liberal Paul Kollios, a quiet champion of the downtrodden and who hailed from a so-called conservative Worcester district, was a glorious member of the House who most would say was out of touch with his district.
Let’s acknowledge that even so called “conservative” voters and districts have hearts and liberals can win if we just learn to talk with them and not dismiss them.
But please, christopher, help throw Collen Garry the hell out of Lowell politics.
Ms. Garry is an embarrassment to whatever party she claims to affiliate with.
I like jconway’s suggestion — if she represents her district, then I hope they elect a Republican. The Massachusetts Democratic Party would be better off without her.
signed the Grover Norquist anti-tax pledge, while Tom Golden is a gung-ho dolt. I won’t get started on Dempsey as I have an appointment in two days and I might not be finished in time.
Lowell and the Merrimac Valley have so much going for them but they mostly elect people who play to the no-tax rah-rah game. I know that the border towns have a hard time with the sales tax differential with New Hampshire but I don’t think that explains why working poor people choose legislators who…don’t like the working poor.
The Meldrim Thompson version of New Hampshire went away decades ago and the Sununu version is in remission.
It probably ties to turn out. Do the working poor of Lawrence and Lowell turn out as often as the axe grinders with tax obsessions?
The place has lots of contradictions of which my favorite is the many recipients of corporate welfare from jobs at Raytheon and related defense contractors in the region.
They are confident that their chunk of the fed pie is semi sacred, so they can easily favor hosing someone else.
They are much more accomodating of Democrats. However, the income and sales taxes are still considered sacred cows and assumed to be political suicide to advocate introducing those. That’s what people on this side of the state line see.
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I haven’t forgotten Deval Patrick.
He had the courage to offer a proposal in 2012, a proposal that would have significantly changed all this. He was publicly embarrassed by Mr. DeLeo.
CMD is absolutely correct, this is OUR failure.
If the MBTA was in such critical shape, why was that proposal full of expansion plans?
Would that not have been the time to make the case that we need to fix what existed?
No, of course not because that’s not sexy.
Note this line from the same article.
How quickly we forget.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/01/15/governor-deval-patrick-proposes-billion-rail-and-transit-betting-big-like-dukakis/shHT8QrzuK6FV5axKh0m5H/story.html<a
I get that you didn’t like the proposal from Mr. Patrick.
Care to cite an alternative proposal from the GOP? Any proposal. Anytime since 2000.
It’s just a different posturing pattern that doesn’t resonate well with independents unless it runs in stealth mode.
The real tell is our Congressional delegation. Staplecrotch McBarnjacket was the last GOP hurrah as far as Capitol Hill is concerned.
If they could come up with someone like Frank Sargent or Elliot Richardson, people would probably be psyched. Ed Brooke would rock.
Eisenhower was probably the optimum for the GOP and it has been a greasy downhill slide of weasels, recast used car dealers and nut jobs ever since.
And it is our good relations with the Fed that have been a saving grace through the DeLeocrat sandbagging epoch. It’s a good thing Duval Patrick had an influential college friend.
The Fed has been a pretty good source of funds for that ambitious run of repair jobs don on various commuter rail lines over the last 8 years and that’s with hostile GOP loons trying to thwart things in DC.
It may even have been a part of the DeLeo calculus that money will come from the Fed, so it isn’t urgent to put the tax screws to the public just yet. I’m not saying it was a good or bold idea, it’s just an optional explanation.
,
as it is my sense that the GOP is at a minimum actively supporting the evisceration of our transportation budget when it is not actually leading the charge, last year’s tax debate being the biggest obvious example, and now the effort by Diehl & Co to strip another billion dollars from the state budget with their ballot proposal.
The anecdotal stuff that ends up in the mass media won’t come close to covering the needs of the Commonwealth. Clean them up oh grand solons on Beacon Hill, please do it now, but that is not the biggest problem. It was Baker and Finneran almost 15 years ago who are sinking us.
Peter, I know you are an honorable person with whom I have political disagreements but it is a stretch to write that the GOP has produced legislation that will deal with the enormity of our transportation problems, whether it is public transit or on our roads. In any case, we will all foot the bill in one way or another.
we’d have no train out here. I wouldn’t have minded seeing the money added for repairs, but it might have made everything out of reach. Though if you’re throwing chunks of $40 million around, it’s not hard to see how throwing a couple of those toward repairs, etc. (I supported Patrick, but I still have reservations about his effectiveness).
In Springfield, we have recently restored good rail service from Vermont south through Springfield to Connecticut. Springfield is also renovating an old train station and looking forward to an MGM resort casino. These moves, in addition to a Chinese company coming to Springfield to build rail cars, may actually spur some growth out here. We’d like to renew train service from Springfield to Boston as well.
I know the majority of people live out there, yada, yada, yada, but our growth also helps the state’s bottom line too.
One tenet of old school liberals and commies was something like ‘from each according to their ability to each according to their needs.’
That should be the focus … not ..”Nyah nyah we’re more important than you are.. so suck it”
That is the real disaster to me. It is people here in metro Boston deciding to marginalize the rest of the state because..” Importance!!!”
And even in the sacred metro zone there is a kind of importance sorting that has been going on forever. A friend of mine and I used to do a kind of fluxus skit about it…
Goon 1: ” “I’m from Malden..”
Goon 2: “Yeah.. I’m from Medfid…”
Each person then just keeps repeating that with different inflections and voice caricatures until bored… usually a few iterations would drive the point.
It is considered strange in parts of the country that aren’t Commonwealths.
And despite Boston importance and the people numbers and money numbers, there are still plenty of people across the state including the sacred metro area who find it all repulsive enough to vote when the important sorts are too busy basking in this importance and don’t exercise their franchise.
They wake up from an importance hangover and discover Charlie Baker in the driver seat while they were bingeing. What better way to repudiate your lack of importance than to get out and vote while the other side is agonizing over their candidate’s purity?
Repairing the resultant broken good will should be a core element of a progressive approach.
And a great way to start is to see the whole place and all 351 of its cities and towns as assets to be appreciated.
The outside of Boston reps who stood against Patrick’s plan are the one now holding an empty bag. The Green Line extension is happening. Patrick’s last act was to sign a binding agreement that locks in the whole plan, including $1.3B in federal funding. Alter the plan, lose the federal money. Cancel the plan, pay even more in damages.
The Red, Orange and Green lines are getting new cars. It’s going to take the better part of a decade for them all to go into service and too many obsolete cars will still be operating on those lines, but the state’s signed on the dotted line for a fleet of new cars. Interestingly, you know which line isn’t getting new cars? The Blue Line, which goes out to Revere, represented by Bob DeLeo. The Red-Blue connector and the Blue Line extension out to Lynn also are dead in the water at this moment.
The DMU trains and the new station in Allston, that’s happening too. Patrick put a lot of projects on the table when he made his big proposal. When the Legislature chopped it to pieces, he cherrypicked who’d get the remaining goodies. DeLeo and his outside 495 allies ended up with a very short stick. If the only thing they cared about was nobody’s tax rate got touched, then I hope that keeps them warm at night. In the meantime, the overwhelming percentage of the transportation investment in this state is locked in for metro Boston.
Patrick had a Plan B, and we’re getting it. The MBTA still has pressing needs and it remains saddled with that preposterous Big Dig debt foisted upon it by Charlie Baker. T delays and funding problems aren’t going away. Yet the real loser in the battle for our precious transportation investment dollars will be highways. The gas tax indexing that got turned away at the polls, almost of all those forfeited funds are going to translate to lost pavement. I bet that’ll thrill suburban independents.
It was the indexing that opponents had an issue with.
Note the comments by DeLeo that started this whole thread. I’m not sure he realizes how badly he got played by the former Governor. From your above post, I’m not sure you do either. The gas tax indexing is an addendum to the larger issue.
Instead of guffawing about Deval’s wishlist and how he didn’t get it, I suggest recognizing that he got a whole lot. More specifically, he locked in the parts that DeLeo and Baker surely would have ignored while leaving the stuff they might feel compelled to do. The reality is Patrick both expanded the MBTA and addressed the need for new cars. He didn’t choose either/or. He did both. More needs to be done on both fronts, but Patrick outfoxed DeLeo. Your talking point is as moot as DeLeo’s “read my lips” stance. The T is going to expand and it’s going to get new cars. What’s on the table is everything else.
Oh, that’s rich.
the repeal effort was vastly outspent and still won. Note the link here clearly has the word “automatic” in the logo.
Who should be haw-hawing?
I think all of your pals in the legislature as well as the Baker’s opponent in 2018 should run on the platform “Higher taxes and more government benefits” and you’ll see what the voting public thinks of the median BMG viewpoint.
We all know what Baker’s going to do. When faced with budget shortfalls, he’s going to cut – not just fat, but muscle and bone too. DeLeo will hand him the House vote while he does it. Rosenberg will pick and choose his battles in the Senate.
Yet Baker’s hemmed in in terms of what he can cut. Patrick did a bang up job of signing contracts on his way out the door. The state is committed on a whole host of transportation initiatives that Baker can’t touch. So Governor Charlie is going to have to make cuts elsewhere, and I suspect the folks who mouth platitudes about small government yet rely upon a fairly robust government aren’t going to like it. It’s going to be really interesting to see how far the tolerance of indy voters extends when they’re driving on crappy roads and looking at even higher property taxes because local aid is being slashed. If the cost of state college jumps that’s going to drive middle class voters to the brink of rebellion (I’d argue that was the issue that made a second term for Mitt Romney an impossibility).
Anyway, four years of getting slashed is going to enrage plenty of people. Got a feeling we’re going to see a pendulum swing back toward the median BMG viewpoint.
Once the snow melts everyone’s mood will pick up.
Note that in other blue states “slashers” like Christie and Walker seemed to have no problem getting reelected.
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I’m sorry, but the stance of the GOP towards funding public transportation is a matter of knowledge and public record. It is not “opinion” or “thinking”. The MA GOP thought that slashing taxes would “create jobs and grow the economy”. Some of us knew (and know) better.
Some of us KNOW that the strategy of defunding public transportation — spearheaded by the MA GOP since at least 2000, aided and abetted by “Democrats” unworthy of the label — has created the current crisis.
Some of us do not.
Deval Patrick and Barack Obama have been friends since both were in Harvard, around the time I had a jazz radio show at WHRB.
And that friendship has been very beneficial to the Commonwealth when you have the mandarin eunuchs in the Legislature sandbagging on revenue.
Deval Patrick gets in arenas where DeLeo can’t even buy a ticket. The T has a page of ongoing capital projects and the role of Federal funding is impressive. These are special relationships and skills that Charlie Baker is unlikely to ever gain unless Jeb Bush or some other GOP abomination ends up in DC.
That’s the problem with all of our low class political hicks here. They are nobodies the minute they cross the border.
Patrick has stature, in addition to being the son of a sax player in Sun Ra’s Orchestra.
and his Arkestra!
Patrick was Harvard College ’78, Law ’82
Obama was Columbia ’83, Harvard Law ’91
They are friends.
And I got it half right. I was at HRB in 79/80.
Like it or not, in even the rosiest scenario it will take something like a decade to actually begin collecting additional revenue from a graduated income tax. We’re talking about a constitutional amendment, ratification, endless and protracted court battles, all requiring long-term and unflagging public support. It’s not responsive to our current problem.
We need an immediate and substantial increase in the personal income tax, combined with a corresponding income-limited increase in the personal exemption. We need an immediate and substantial increase in the capital gains tax, again with corresponding income-limited exemptions.
We can do that right now with a straight-forward vote of the legislature. If the “Democrats” in the legislature vote together, the legislature can override any veto.
Charlie Baker and the MA GOP is acting exactly as expected. We can’t change that. We CAN, however, change what our own party does with its total domination of the legislature.
This ball is in OUR court.
The case isn’t nearly as clear as people seem to think it is that a conditional amendment would be needed for a progressive income tax.
by simultaneously increasing the tax rate and implementing a collection of other policies including increasing the personal exemption, the earned income tax credit and other policies that disproportionately benefit low wage employees; increasing the capital gains rate; or increasing the tax rate on unearned income.
However, the the rates on various categories of income cannot be made graduated, as is clearly spelled out in Article 44 of the MA Constitution and most recently reiterated in 1984 by the SJC in the Salhanick decision. See
http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/391/391mass658.html
in the mind of David. But what’s David know? He’s only clerked for multiple Supreme Court justices…
There’s no reason not to at least challenge conventional wisdom and put a true progressive income tax to the test. Let the SJC say no.
share the opinion that the SJC was incorrect originally in deciding that the income tax uniformity doctrine was based on a faulty interpretation of what constitutes income from property. We also agree that, in his words:
it also must be acknowledged that Raymer has been the settled interpretation of Article 44 for a long time, and that in a couple of instances the people have been asked to change it via a ballot question, and they have declined the invitation. Ninety years later, it does not seem unreasonable to conclude that, even if the original interpretation was wrong, it’s now generally understood, and it should be the people rather than the judiciary that makes a change.
The Court has made it clear that the only parties that have standing to sue the Commonwealth on these tax issues are those that have been harmed by a public policy (i.e., wealthy people who are being taxed at a rate higher than the lowest rate), so there can be no suits against the Commonwealth challenging the standing interpretation of Article 44 until the legislature passes a grad tax and it is signed into law by a governor.
I will not be holding my breath waiting for DeLeo and Baker on this. All political actors will say that there needs to be a Constitutional amendment to authorize a grad tax.
Rosenberg is a long standing supporter of a grad tax Constitutional amendment and IIRC he filed such a bill this term. I hate having to keep adding cautionary notes but the last time we put a Constitutional amendment on the ballot, we outspent Barbara Anderson and the anti-tax crowd by more than ten to one and still got our asses kicked. The public sector unions that paid millions for our campaign are not likely to step up like that again.
Different than anything I said? I’m not holding my breath, either, just starting conversations, trying to change people’s minds one at a time.
For example, you. You went from unilaterally declaring that a progressive income tax is unconstitutional to readily admitting it could be constitutional, but we don’t have a legislature (currently) willing to test that. That’s a big step to make within one post.
So let’s continue the conversations and make sure that at least on BMG, people universally understand a progressive income tax may very well be constitutional now, today, so we can start pushing legislators to pass one and make the SJC tell us we can’t do it.
That should be the standard thought on progressive income taxes on BMG, among liberals and progressives.
Let’s be loud so we can start changing minds on Beacon Hill and in the general public.
I want to disagree with you that I changed my opinion on the issue of constitutionality and actually take a stronger position than you on the subject. I did not “readily admitting it could be constitutional.” I wrote that it should have, long ago, been ruled constitutional but too much water has passed under the bridge. Point by point:
– I do not believe the authors of Article 44 of the Massachusetts Constitution intended it to prohibit a graduated rate on the income tax;
– the SJC has ruled fairly consistently they disagree;
– we have a political history of voters rejecting the grad tax which likely leads the SJC to say that it DOES require a Constitutional amendment to change the ban. The SJC will likely pay great deference to the voters choices;
– nobody has standing to challenge this issue in court;
– there are likely ZERO legislators who think they can enact a grad tax without a Constitutional amendment, and there is an equal ZERO chance such an enactment would be signed into law by the Governor;
– it would be far easier, yet still a massive undertaking, to get any tax increase with progressive exemptions and deductions, through the legislature and the Executive branch.
No, I have not changed my opinion on these subjects. Maybe you can blame me for having an unexamined mind but after 40 years of working on these issues, including winning a related case in from of the SJC and losing another one, I am “keeping it 100,” consistent based on my experience.
if ‘the voters’ put a progressive income tax on the ballot — even if that’s to lower the income tax by a hair for the bottom 90% (let’s make it a popular question) — is the SJC going to stop it?
All anyone would have to do to have standing to test it is get 10 signatories and send the question to the attorney general for a ballot initiative.
If the AG’s office rejects the question, you’ll have the standing and the SJC will be put in the position of weighing which voters to pay deference to — the ones from 1991 or the ones who’d like to vote on the issue today.
What reason would there not be to at least test the waters on this – and get an answer once and for all? The worst that could happen is the SJC says no and it’s back to the status quo. Make them say no.
Ten signatures on a ballot question does not give anyone standing to sue the Commonwealth on Constitutional grounds.
You do not gain standing to sue the Commonwealth by getting a question on the ballot and definitively not for filing ten signatures to start the process. The SJC will not reject a Constitutional amendment on this subject, nor would it likely reject statutory language on it either, but it would be challenged and likely thrown out by the SJC once a graduated income tax was enacted without a Constitutional change.
It takes about 68,000 certified signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot. If the legislature does not adopt it on a timely basis, the proponents need to gather another 12,000 signatures. Then the amendment goes to the ballot.
The last time we tried this, former Rep Marzilli filed both a Constitutional amendment and what we called a “shell bill” outlining our intention to provide a tax cut to a majority of taxpayers, neutral treatment to the next bracket and modest increases for the truly wealthy. The shell bill was revenue neutral and was filed only to introduce fairness to the tax code, not as a revenue raising measure. We thought the bill necessary to show our intentions about who would pay more and who would pay less.
We did not put a tax rate into the Constitutional amendment for the obvious reason that it would become effectively permanent regardless of the circumstances in the state.
I do not know any person or organization that will follow your path. If you have $100,000 to mount the legal challenge on the ten signature issue, then go for it. If you win, I will be first in line to congratulate you. If you have the $700,000 needed to gather all of the signatures need to get a Constitutional amendment on the ballot, go for it but make sure you know someone who has $7 to $10 million dollars need to run a full out ballot campaign. This ain’t beanbag and the public sector unions that funded the last effort will not ante up this year.
If I had $10 million to spend on MA politics, I would use it via an independent expenditure effort to crush the DINOs and elect real Democrats to the lege. YMMV.
A correction is needed in my post. In the second sentence in the second paragraph it should read
“The AG will not reject a Constitutional amendment on this subject” not the SJC. My bad.
Apologies for not realizing your legal background beforehand. I thought your username was in reference to sports. (“The best defense is a good offense.”)
but it is true in politics, too. I do not like to engage in politics from a defensive position and even when I am in a minority, i want to bring the battle to the other side. If you choose the turf, you are gaining an advantage.
so please do not let my words discourage you from thinking outside the box. There is precious little of that amongst Dems, especially on the Hill.
ain’t I getting any respect from the people who are watching Larry Wilmore who asks us to “keep it 100.” I am the old guy here and expect at least a few of you young whippersnappers to get the reference.
More the reason screw any attempt at a constitutional amendment. Why the heck would anyone pass a constitutional amendment if we don’t need the damn thing?
Just work toward passing a progressive income tax. Let’s start work on that today — and if we can’t get the legislature to budge on it or make progress within 5 years, then instead of having a constitutional amendment that would allow something that’s likely already perfectly okay to do, just start something like a ballot initiative that lowers taxes on 90% of the state and increases them for 1%.
Easy, simple, done.
…upthread in the quote you cited in the context of a SJC decision that makes prohibition of a graduated income tax settled law absent an amendment to the State Constitution:
Regarding pro-graduated tax ballot initiatives in general, Judy Meredith also addressed the issue in another thread, involving four campaigns to:
All of which makes it highly unlikely that the Legislature as a body has any desire to address the issue in isolation. There’s nothing in it politically for the vast majority of Members – in either House – to act proactively, and considerable in the way of downsides.
As of this time progressives have neither the constituencies; nor the credibility;, nor the political competence to institute and implement a graduated income tax in the Commonwealth.
ballot initiatives change the dynamic by leaps and bounds once you’ve collected your 120,000 signatures or so, through both collection phases.
The SJC would probably already have been forced to weigh in on the issue before all those signatures are collected, just like the casino question.
If Beacon Hill were confronted with a situation where a ballot question could decide what the tax brackets are — or they could, by passing a compromise before it goes to the ballot, I think you may very well see them suddenly interested in passing something.
Even if they didn’t, at least the question would be answered then, once and for all — and if it’s answered positively, someday, some speaker and senate president will be confronted with making cuts the public won’t accept or increasing taxes on the 1%, and they’ll increase taxes on the 1%.
It seems weird to mobilize campaigns to raise revenues from the random public before spending far more time getting to know what they care about.
And it moves from weird to foolish to panhhandle them in order to leverage Beacon Hill into taxing them. What do they do say… “hey, give me five bucks so I can talk Deleo into raising your taxes by another 100.”
One of the more interesting projects Walsh began last year was to send a bunch of situation auditors to find out everything possible about the condition of basic elements of the city to deploy in some data driven model. His aim is to get Boston out of Menino’s archaic paper world into a modern digital one.
And look at how Barn Jacket got himself a stint in the Senate by going around the Commonwealth to maintain the appearance of being interested in the locals.
Wouldn’t it make sense to find out what people in Brockton or Greenfield, Sunderland or Salisbury have on their plates and what they care about?
It would probably be worth more than money to do some kind of comprehensive engagement instead of tossing around set piece ideas for getting money devoid of any connection to the constituents who are ultimately expected to cough it up.
I fear you miss the dynamics of who pays more and who pays less.
Massachusetts has about 6.7 million residents. About 67,000 of those residents need to pay more. About 35,000 of those residents need to pay a LOT more.
It seems to me that the question to ask those people in Brockton, Greenfield, Sunderland, Salisbury and elsewhere — to the tune of about about 6M of them — is:
Are you willing to demand that the 67,000 wealthiest residents of this state pay more in taxes so that you can pay less, while increasing the government services you receive?
I suggest that the answer to THAT question is a resounding “YES” — and that answer is why our Democratic Party leaders are so fearful of asking it. Those people in Brockton, Greenfield, Sunderland, Salisbury are not buying $1,000/head tickets to fund-raising events in downtown Boston — for EITHER party.
Mr. DeLeo and Mr. Baker receive the bulk of their funding, and therefore owe their loyalties to, people in that 35,000 segment I mentioned above. Those people whom our leaders are actually listening to DO NOT want these questions discussed. That’s why our leaders — and our mainstream media (who also depend on that same 67,000/35,000) — do all in their power to keep these embarrassing questions off the table.
They succeeded very well in the most recent statewide election.
And the craven mindset that drives them. You do notice these things when you’ve been here since 1955 and pay a minor amount of attention.
I’m talking about the role of canvassing and ascertainment to bolster the low recognition of aspiring progressives and the low opinion of many Massholes who do recognize them.
It’s the initial outreach exercise and it can’t be done with a hand out reached that’s asking for money.
That is the money quote of this comment and perhaps even the thread.
Our Democratic Party is FAR more effective at asking for money from the masses than at actually CHANGING the economy to work for those same people. I receive dozens of emails each day, each with subjects that compete to be eye-catching, and each a different wrapper around the message “send money”.
It our party poobahs reversed that, and actually put more money into the pockets of the masses (through increased government goods and services funded by taxes on the very wealthy), several things would happen:
– Economic activity would increase because — duh — consumers would have more money to spend. Our economy is not struggling because consumers are saving too much, it is struggling because consumers HAVE NO MONEY to consume with
– Tax revenues would increase because economic activity would increase. An income tax, sales tax, or capital gains tax generates revenue only if there is income, sales, or capital gain.
– Political contributions would increase because (a) voters would have more money to contribute, (b) voters would be happier with government officials, and (c) voters would have less to complain about
We collectively pay an ENORMOUS price for coddling our top one percent. Our party does a terrible job of communicating that reality to the voters.
I case I haven’t made it plain enough, I favor pitch forks, tumbrel rides and a guillotine for the oligarchs who stole America, but that’s just me.
Short of that, reverting to arrangements that thwart this deranged drive to hoard is a valuable start. One of the more popular posts over in my G plus world ran along the lines of how we heap disdain on wretches who hoard newspapers and cats but treat people who do it with capitol as if they are demigods.
As for the panhandling, I never understood it. I stupidly worked for a non profit liberal telemarketing phone bank years ago and the various non profits wanted nothing to do with in kind volunteer work. It was all about grubbing money.
But it’s kind of like expecting sex on the first date.
And smaller non profits I usually boost here reflexively avoid the public save for photo ops. But they too have their hand out. The sub text for the whole mess is “shut up and give us money”.
I went to a campaign rally with Deval Patrick this summer, and he was quite direct about how there are people for whom the Governor’s door is always open, but that voters had to choose whether they wanted a Governor who would listen to everyone else. I assume he was talking about those 35,000 people you refer to.
I agree with you (and uprated your comment) in general.
At the same time, I know Deval Patrick. He knows me. He remembers my name and he remembers the conversations we’ve had. We’ve met on several, verging on many, occasions — campaign events, special occasions, and some “town-meeting” events.
I am not one of those 35,000 elites.
I don’t have the direct experience to back that up, but I was impressed that he spoke so frankly about how easy it would be to live in a bubble and communicate with only a select circle of powerful people.
Only without the “powerful” part.
Mind you, it isn’t a phenomenon limited to progressives. We seek reflections of ourselves as a kind of default setting cause it’s what we’ve been taught and it fits propensities we have anyway.
Going boldly forth to seek new life modes where none of our tribe has gone before works on TeeVee shows, but not so much in actual practice even though it is a ball once you get the hang of it.
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..to hear about committee and leadership assignments?
for the Speaker to wait for either of a few events before announcing committee assignments: the vote on acceptance of his rules package, the February holiday vacation week, inclement weather, etc.
The committee assignments are handed out in a stapled sheaf of papers. A member can vote for the entire package with the check of one box or can take ten to twenty minutes to vote on each appointment individually. But no member can nominate another member to a position, a power reserved only for the Speaker.
The rules were not better under Keverian but the attitude of the members, their willingness to raise questions was much higher. This crew is truly gutless and even the same members who raised a little ruckus under Finneran have been bought by DeLeo by giving them a title and $7.500 more per year (okay, Kaufman and Linsky sold out for $15,000 annually but who cares).