Per State House News Service…
Sen. Anthony Petruccelli, an East Boston Democrat who started his career on Beacon Hill in the House, was on the other end of the line telling his boss that he planned to resign to join the downtown lobbying firm Kearney, Donovan and McGee.
While Petruccelli, the Senate majority whip, is certainly not the first to follow this path, his departure from the Senate and Rosenberg’s leadership team caught many off guard. He may have been fifth on the depth chart behind Rosenberg, but he was widely considered to have the potential to one day lead the Senate if he stuck around long enough.
Lobbyists had also come to view Petruccelli as a dealmaker in an increasingly ideological Senate. In addition to having a knack, according to some who worked with him, for being able to see his way through the policy and the politics of issues swirling on Beacon Hill, Petruccelli had the respect of many House members, whose position toward the Senate has become fraught with tension.
“Holy s#@$!,” one senator exclaimed when told Petruccelli would be announcing his resignation.
Petruccelli’s departure will remove a likely vote in favor of charter school expansion from the Senate at a time when the chamber’s leaders are considering whether the support exists to pursue charter legislation.
There is no indication of a date, but it looks like another special election will be in the offing. Also, just a nitpick on wording. In the first paragraph “his boss” refers to the Senate President, but that is not appropriate IMO. Legislators work for constituents. Presiding officers are not supervisors with the authority to hire, review, and fire. Even leadership nominations are technically ratified by party caucus.
As far as I’m concerned, a person’s “boss” is the man or woman who sets their priorities, tells them when to start or stop projects, tells them what the organization’s position is when dealing with outsider, and so on. Tenure in an organization is meaningless if the management of the tenured employee has the ability to order that employee to sit in an office and stare out the window full time.
Your definition has little to do with reality. Elections happen at most every two years, while the events that define a supervisory relationship happen multiple times a day. Saying that “legislators work for constituents” is analogous to saying that a service employee “works for the customer” — perhaps accurate in an ideal fantasy world, but utterly irrelevant to the actual world we live in. The likelihood that the voters of East Boston would replace Anthony Petruccelli is vanishingly small, no matter what he did.
The reason I find such nitpicks worth pursuing is that we have a major crisis in legislative leadership happening right now. Massachusetts voters and Massachusetts Democrats in particular (as the majority party in the state) are being disenfranchised by legislative leadership that completely ignores our collective opinion, in favor of their pursuit of self-serving and often corrupt (whether legal or not) agendas.
A significant part of the power and control that our legislative leadership wields is their effective (if not constitutionally proscribed) control over the day-to-day behavior of their subordinates.
In order for us to collectively rein in this power, we must first acknowledge its existence.
…to set his/her own priorities, consulting first with constituents before party or chamber leadership. Constituents have a direct say in their representation the way customers of most businesses do not in their personnel decisions. It was a bit visceral of a reaction on my part because it violates my innate sense of what representative government should be. If I were an elected legislator and a leader tried to act like he or she were my boss, I would not hesitate to direct him/her to the nearest lake in which to jump, especially if I were confident my constituents would have my back. I especially think a news outlet should choose their words more carefully, and it certainly makes sense as a matter of courtesy that the Senate President be among the first to know when a Senator intends to resign.
What is most unfortunate is that there is not a cooling off period before legislators can start lobbying. We need to do more to stop the revolving Door between legislators and lobbyists.
Too many of these examples are people getting hired, and presumably interviewing for, full time positions while they are in office. Usually they quit to join connected law firms or advocacy groups. In the case of Tom Finneran it was explicitly to remove an obstacle to that lobby’s policy concerns. I got nothing against Waltz or Sciortino who are doing good work for good organizations, but it would’ve been nice if they had served out the terms they were elected too before another sparsely attended special election or waiting several months until a regular election. Fitting this happened the same day as the Elkeys.
…are also practicing attorneys WHILE in office. I don’t understand how that is not an obvious potential conflict of interest waiting to happen. If it were up to me I would ban additional employment by legislators, even if as a trade-off we significantly increase salaries AND prohibit other employment during the term for which they were elected even if they did not serve it out. If someone really did have to resign for reasons other than a better gig there could be a monthly pension in place calculated at some fraction of the salary made while actually serving during that term.
in the state conflict of interest law (violations punishable by fine and/or jail):
But if former legislators are careful to avoid direct lobbying (like showing up in the building or leaving a phone or email trail), it’s hard to prove they’re breaking the law. And a year goes by quickly.
Legislators-turned-lobbyists usually spend their cooling off year performing “legislative strategy.” That means they inform their team about the best way to reach individual legislators while leaving the footwork and dialing to others at the firm. It is an old tradition, followed by, among others, Petrucelli’s predecessor, former President Traviglini and by former President Terry Murray. Of course they collect their full salary during this cooling off period since their insider knowledge and contacts still produce for the lobbying firm.
question. Bottle Neck Bob DeLeo won’t support a cooling off period.
What tickled me about his statement twas him saying he was excited to be joining the ‘private sector’.
Really? Lobbying while collecting your state pension and GIC health insurance is what you think the private sector is all about?
meeting like this!
We’ve gotten to the point where people who are good at government have a strong incentive to leave government. It’s as if someone good at football had a reason to coach rather than play.
if I plan to run for state rep. Aside from the fact that I have no desire to do so, the pay is enough to turn me off. I couldn’t afford the pay cut. A state rep makes much less than a BPS teacher.
…State Rep. Aaron Michlewitz is an early favorite to succeed Petrucelli, which of course would open up HIS seat, but given the timing may not mean a special election.