Massachusetts Voters for Legislative Reform to Hold First Meeting on October 7th Milford, Mass., (Sept. 14th) - Massachusetts Voters for Legislative Reform (MVLR) will hold its first organizing meeting on Saturday, October 7th at 1 p.m. … [Read more...]
DeLeo Meme
I was hoping Bob Neer would be willing to add this to his weekly joke review. … [Read more...]
52 Pages of Amendments proposed to Speaker’s Gambling bill
Here are the proposed amendments And again, to paraphrase Ed Markey when he was a Rep: "The Speaker can tell you where to sit, he cannot tell you how to vote." That is, unless our elected representatives LET the Speaker tell … [Read more...]
Beyond ethics reform
The editorial offers a few suggestions: - Put legislative redistricting in the hands of an independent commission. - Put decisions about legislators' perks - office assignments, parking spaces, etc. - in the hands of an independent … [Read more...]
How do we reform the Office of the Speaker?
It's pretty obvious that the power held by the Speaker of the Massachusetts House: is a corrupting force; and leads to actions that are detrimental to the Commonwealth. Knowing very little about how things work inside the State House, … [Read more...]
Liking Governor Patrick a little more
Hi All: While watching the news tonight, Governor Patrick was asked by a reporter, "Can you tell us what you and Speaker DeLeo discussed regarding casino gambling?" Governor Patrick retorted, "' I can, but I'm not gonna.'" It made me like … [Read more...]
Globe publishes list of 86 DeLeo supporters. Game over…?
Boston.com has a list of 86 House members apparently committed to voting for Robert DeLeo as the next speaker. It's unclear where they got it, but one assumes the DeLeo camp released it. Names that jumped out at me on quickly perusing … [Read more...]
Unnacceptable Behaivor for Democrats
I don't have any real favorites coming into the race for Speaker. I view them both as somewhat of a step back from the progressive stewardship of Sal DiMasi - the person who got us near-universal health care, marriage equality and … [Read more...]
Will the next House Speaker be another Finneran?
In the mid-90s, a similar battle was joined. When then-Ways and Means Chairman Tom Finneran lacked the votes to win within the Democratic Party, he turned to the Republicans for help, in a shrewd, unexpected, last-minute gambit. Finneran … [Read more...]
Speakers come and go.
Professional lobbyists, and especially those working on what the BMG community would characterize as progressive causes, know that Speakers come and go. And for that matter so do Senate Presidents and Governors. And many of us have reasons … [Read more...]