Joint Committee Rejects Redistricting Plan

From an editorial in the Daily News Tribune:

Leadership uses redistricting to protect incumbents they like and punish those they don't. They split cities and towns unnecessarily and do everything they can to make sure no Republican candidate can find a friendly district.

Democracy would be well-served if this task was put in the hands of an independent commission, which is what a constitutional amendment sponsored by Sen. Richard Moore, D-Uxbridge, would do. That effort, which is backed by some of the state's most credible public advocacy organizations, suffered a setback this week when the Joint Committee on Election Laws voted against it, 9-6.

This is where having easy access to those committee votes as mentioned previously sure would come in handy.

Earmarkapalooza

Nearly 1500 amendments amounting to over $500 million in spending have been submitted to the House budget, and you can sift through them all starting here. As is the case with all earmarks, they are certainly all wasteful except for the ones that directly affect you. In my case, that would be money allocated for the bike path that would pass nearby the .08 Acre homestead. Everything else is just so many gazebos. Of course, I'm exaggerating, but it's important to remember during this debate that "waste" is almost always in the eye of the beholder.

Governor Deval Patrick tried to eliminate many of these earmarks in his spending plan, but they are back like zombies in the House version of the budget. Patrick's secretary of administration and finance, Leslie Kirwan, has said that each earmark will be considered individually and the Governor has pointed out that he still has line-item veto power. I had originally thought that Patrick might be able to sustain some of those vetoes, given that he has many more allies in the legislature than the previous governor. I'm not so sure now, given that some of his strongest supporters on the campaign trail, the Globe article quotes extensively from Rep. Mike Festa (D-Melrose), are not willing to give up their earmarks. If he can't count on some of his earliest backers, he's going to have a lot of trouble finding enough votes to sustain a veto. Perhaps his best course of action would be to work closely with House leadership to limit the number of earmarks that make it into the House version of the budget.

On a related note, the Boston Globe had an interesting article a few days ago detailing how federal agencies were at a loss to figure out how to spend their budgets without Congressional earmarks for guidance. It's been so long since they've had any discretion that it appears that the agencies just let their internal processes for awarding contracts and grants has atrophied.

Legislature Rejects Putting Committee Votes Online

While the news media is inexplicably obsessed with how Governor Patrick gets from point A to point B, the Massachusetts House just overwhelmingly rejected a simple measure that would increase their accountability to the public. From the Somerville Journal:

POST COMMITTEE ROLL CALLS ON WEBSITE (H 3746) House 20-127, rejected a new rule requiring that committee votes cast by legislators on bills heard by their committees be posted on the Legislature's website. Current rules require committee votes to be kept in the offices of the committee and be available for public inspection upon reasonable notice and during regular office hours. Supporters of the new rule said this would simply give people quick and easy access to the committee votes of their legislators. They noted that under current rules, a person has to drive to Boston during regular business hours in order to obtain this information. Opponents of the new rule said that the current system has worked well for years and should not be changed. (A "Yes" vote is for the new rule requiring that committee votes be posted on the Legislature's website. A "No" vote is against the requirement).

What possible reason could there be for legislators to be opposed to this other than a fear of added scrutiny? Is there something that I'm missing here? What has the current system worked well for other than for keeping the average person away from these roll call votes?

I'm not surprised that this measure failed. It's well known that the Massachusetts legislature is no fan of sunshine. Still, I would have thought it would do better than to fail by a six-to-one margin. This is public information, and the the state should be making it easy for the public to access.

10th Middlesex Early Cattle Call

As Peter Koutoujian (D-Waltham) prepares to run for the Middlesex County DA, two recent articles list his potential replacements in the 10th Middlesex as including the following people:

• Newton Ward One Alderman Scott Lennon
• Waltham Ward Six City Councilor Ken Doucette
• Waltham Ward Five City Councilor Gary Marchese
• Waltham resident and National Alliance for the Mentally Ill director Toby Fisher
• Waltham resident and psychiatric social worker Rhonda Bourne

At this insanely early date, knowing nothing about the candidates, I would have to say that Lennon has a slight advantage just given the size of his current constituency versus the rest of the potential field (though many of his constituents are not actually in the 10th Middlesex) and the chance that Marchese and Doucette could split the Waltham vote. Marchese, however, would be the candidate with the most recent contested election -- in 2003 he beat his opponent 73% to 26%. I also have to imagine that the Waltham-based Article 8 Alliance will be a factor in this race, especially given the presence of Bourne, who is one-half of one of the first same-sex couples married last year in Massachusetts.

No one yet from Precinct 10 of Watertown, also in the 10th Middlesex, has shown interest and I don't believe that any of the town councilors actually live in Precinct 10, though I may be mistaken. In any event, anyone running from Watertown would face an uphill battle given that Watertown accounts for only a small proportion of the district.