Rep. Russell Holmes (D-Mattapan) is launching a quixotic, but morally necessary, challenge to business as usual on Beacon Hill. He makes a valid point that passing leadership from one status quo defending white male to the next freezes power in place and prevents issues that the state has an obligation to address from being heard. Particularly around budgets, immigration reform, and issues like criminal justice reform. He’s also one of the few reps to tell it like it is on what really goes down. I wish him the best of luck, and hope to see the real progressives come out and back him. Along with moderates like John Rogers who is backing Holmes precisely to protest this unfair power structure.
Keeping Power White and Cautious
The succession plan appears to have been crafted long ago. Mariano, a member of House leadership since 2009, has been a speaker-in-waiting for years. And now Michlewitz — who began on Beacon Hill as an aide to then-speaker Sal DiMasi — is about to be anointed as the next speaker-in-waiting.
If it all sounds a bit insular, as though a handful of white guys run the House, there’s a reason for that. That’s exactly what’s going on here
The Ugly Truth
Why, I asked Holmes, do so many reps play along? His answer was pretty simple. It’s about leadership positions, which come with substantial pay hikes. It’s about perks. It’s about ego.
“They get the money, they get better offices, they get better parking spots,” Holmes said. “But that’s all about me, me, me. Which is the opposite of what we should be doing.”
Along with a new Speaker we need transparency in things such as committee votes, which Act On Mass is pushing, and to have committee chairs elected by the full house (or at least full majority caucus) rather than appointed by the Speaker.
I kind of wish you had not used the word “quixotic” in your first sentence as I fear seeing it that way becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Hey we can all dream the impossible dream.