Celebrating Massachusetts' democracy!
"Legislators’ vital work veiled from public’s eye" July 08, 2011|By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff
The $30.6 billion budget approved by the Legislature last week was negotiated almost entirely in secret, with six lawmakers meeting for 24 days of talks that were off limits to taxpayers.
Yeah, we are only paying for it all.
Also see: Gambling on a State Budget
Debates, agendas, and even the times and locations of the meetings were held in strict confidence. No minutes were kept.
But any talk of "conspiracies," pfffft.
Information blackouts are treated with an almost religious reverence by the power brokers on Beacon Hill, who frequently decline to detail what is being discussed out of what they term “a respect for the process.’’
Which also means when they do discuss it an agenda is being shoveled.
Massachusetts, the birthplace of American democracy, is one of fewer than 20 states with virtually no requirements that legislators discuss government business in public, according to a Globe review of open government data compiled by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. This state is one of about 10 in which the public does not have even limited rights to view legislators’ records.
Can you see why the smug, self-righteous, arrogant Yankee attitude 'round h're gets to me after a while? It's a geographic prejudice you are raised with, and it is difficult to understand unless you have lived it.
“It puts it among a handful of states who are at the absolute bottom of the barrel,’’ said Charles N. Davis, a journalism professor at the University of Missouri who researches open-government laws. “If you’re in the business of trying to self-govern, if you’re a citizen, if you’re an activist, if you’re someone who is trying to affect the outcome of legislation, it’s nearly impossible because you’re literally shut out of the process.’’
Unle$$ your are a lobbyist or other campaign concern.
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Senate President Therese Murray and Speaker Robert A. DeLeo have argued that transparency is a top priority and that the Legislature is more open than ever.
Still, Massachusetts lawmakers depend on closed doors at nearly every stage in deciding which laws to pass and which taxes to increase.
And at which corporations and well-connected concerns to throw tax loot.
Records on everything from the number of aides legislators employ to which special interests they meet with or even how some members vote in their committees are off limits. Leaders can call “joint caucuses’’ of Democrats and Republicans, allowing the entire House or Senate to meet in private.
This as same said government authorizes itself to listen to your phone calls, read your texts, and open your e-mail.
During this year’s budget deliberations, lawmakers in the House and Senate did collect public testimony. And they held floor debates for several days before passing separate budget plans in each chamber. But the critical decisions at the beginning, when the budget is being crafted, and those at the end, that meld the plans, were made out of public view.
Not that the slovenly, self-righteous citizens of this state care.
By the time lawmakers vote on the floor, it is often no more than a formality, rubber stamping what a few leaders have agreed upon in private....
What they are describing is an authoritarian state.
Related:
The Perils of One-Party Politics: The Ruling Party
The Perils of One-Party Politics: Massachusetts' Democracy
Now you know where the bills come from and why the vote preordained.
Not every state legislature operates this way....
Take a good, humbling look at who beats your ass, self-righteous Massachusetts' shits:
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But why worry? The good politicians of Massachusetts are simply looking out for your best interests, fellow citizen!
"Legislature seeks to ease local aid crunch with $30.6b budget; Provisions are cut on immigration and shock therapy" July 02, 2011|By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff
Lawmakers approved a state budget yesterday after making a last-minute change that could ease a $65 million cut in aid to cities and towns. They also killed controversial measures affecting immigration, nonprofit groups, and skin-shock therapy for children.
The Legislature approved the $30.6 billion plan on a 150-to-2 vote in the House and a 33-to-4 vote in the Senate, sending it to Governor Deval Patrick, who will have 10 days to review it and issue vetoes.
Despite describing the budget as among the toughest in decades, lawmakers approved a provision that would send up to $65 million of the state's surplus from the fiscal year that just ended back to local communities in the fall....
Then why are they hollering bankruptcy and deficits while slashing your health care ? WTF?
City and town leaders said they were pleasantly surprised that they might be spared another hit this year. But they said it was too soon to know whether there would be enough money in the surplus to completely reverse the $65 million cut in local aid. Although the budget year ended on Thursday, it will take weeks for the state to finish closing its books.
Translation: don't count on it.
"Essentially what the Legislature is saying is that if there is a year-end surplus, a portion of that would be shared with cities and towns," said Geoff Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, which represents cities and towns. "But the exact nature of whether and how much there is won't be known until the fall."
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Lawmakers also scuttled several hot-button policy changes in the budget, including an immigration enforcement measure the Senate had quietly approved last month.
The move would have required companies doing business with the state to use a federal database to make sure their new hires are here legally; directed the state to use another registry to verify that the poor and elderly who receive state health care are legal residents; and stiffened penalties for trying to get a job with fake identification.
A group of student activists had camped out on the State House steps for 11 days to protest the measure. Yesterday, they cheered its removal with a handmade sign that read: "We did it!"
The Globe can always find a pro-illegal protest, 'eh?
Legislators also scuttled a Senate-approved plan that would have prohibited public charities from paying their board members without approval from the attorney general's office.
Campaign checks are in the mail.
The measure gained traction earlier this year, after the board of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts voted to give its departing chief executive an $11 million payout.
Related: The Eight-Million Dollar Escape
At the time, board members were receiving five-figure payments every year, which critics said had compromised their independence.
Related: The Culture of Blue Cross
Lawmakers also jettisoned a Senate-approved measure that targeted the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, a controversial institute that uses skin-shock therapy to treat emotionally disturbed children.
The measure would have barred the center from administering skin shocks to new students. Parents of some Rotenberg patients have praised the method, known as aversive therapy, saying it has saved their children's lives. But critics have called the shocks cruel and inhumane.
Maybe we could give the lawmakers a few jolts and see if it wises them up.
In May, Matthew Israel, who founded the center, pleaded not guilty to obstruction of justice after he was accused of destroying evidence that was part of an official investigation into the center's practices....
Perhaps the most divisive measure in the budget would allow cities and towns to raise health insurance copayments and deductibles for their workers to the same levels paid by state employees, even if municipal unions object.
Supporters say the measure would save cities and towns $100 million in health insurance costs. But opponents have called it an assault on workers' rights.
"This budget cuts away at heart and soul of collective bargaining," said Senator Marc R. Pacheco, a Taunton Democrat and staunch union ally. "It's a direct attack on the middle class."
Which is what AmeriKa's political class has been directed to do by the corporate controller$ behind them (if you know what I mean).
Senator Steven A. Tolman, another union ally, called the measure an injustice and said it would drive teachers and other municipal union workers into bankruptcy. "We can't feel good about that," he said.
But the Massachusetts Municipal Association defended the measure, saying it gives unions "strong and meaningful voice," while delivering "the relief that taxpayers deserve."
I'd rather you stop entering into bond sales deals with investor that result in costly debt service.
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Oh, I forgot, Democrats are the unions best friend:
"Patrick, leaders strike deal on unions; Plan would soften bargaining curbs" by Noah Bierman, Globe Staff / July 9, 2011
Under pressure from national union leaders, Governor Deval Patrick reached an agreement with the House and Senate yesterday to soften a bill to limit collective bargaining rights for teachers, firefighters, and other local government workers.
The agreement, reached behind closed doors and slated for approval Monday, allows Patrick to argue that he is cutting health costs for cities and towns by $100 million without gutting workers’ rights. Patrick has been pitching himself nationally as a governor who can work with organized labor under tough budgetary circumstances, contrasting his approach with Republican governors who have fought divisive battles with unions this year.
Related: Democrats Abandon Unions in New Jersey
Mass. House Worse Than Wisconsin
Also see: Patrick Punches Unions Below Belt
Yeah, he's a whole pile different, ain't he?
The issue flared as recently as Sunday when Patrick, appearing with Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin on “Face the Nation,’’ was sharply questioned about why a Democrat was taking away union rights.
First I've seen of that in the Globe.... on the following Saturday?
The appearance must not have gone well. Walker must have wiped the mat with me. Too bad I never watch those pos shows anymore.
Related: Biden's Boast
A Patrick administration official confirmed yesterday that the governor had received calls from several national labor leaders, including Richard L. Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, urging him to consider labor’s argument that the bill sent to his desk by the Legislature as part of the budget passed last week did not give union workers enough protection. The Patrick official said the tone of the calls was muted and nonconfrontational.
Yesterday’s agreement, announced late on a summer Friday in a quiet State House, won praise from city and town leaders, as well as union leaders, groups that have been at odds on the issue for months as it made its way through the Legislature.
Oh, done for a SLOW SATURDAY, 'eh?
The changes Patrick brokered are designed in part to protect retirees and sick employees and limit the ability of local governments to make sweeping changes to employee health plans.
But Patrick’s administration believes cities and towns will still save an estimated $100 million per year by shifting some of their escalating health care costs to local employees, in the form of higher deductibles and copayments.
Patrick filed the first bill to force changes in local health costs in January, but has been struggling to define a middle ground on the issue that would provide unions with “a voice, but not a veto.’’
“My administration is committed to supporting local services by providing cities and towns with tools to achieve cost savings,’’ Patrick said in a statement yesterday. The compromise, he said, “is another example of that commitment, delivering meaningful savings to municipalities without sacrificing a meaningful role for organized labor in that process.’’
Patrick also seemed eager to avoid a drawn out public fight within the state’s Democratic Party, emphasizing that all sides shared essentially the same goal.
Translation: the D and the R next to the name MEAN NOTHING!
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, who had drawn the hardest line against unions in his version of the plan and who drew praise from city and town officials, agreed to the governor’s changes after several days of meetings with Patrick and union officials. A legislative official familiar with the process said the speaker saw an opportunity to repair his relationship with labor without sacrificing the needs of cities and towns....
But he's on your side because he supports self-serving casinos coming to the state.
City and town governments have argued that the health plans, bargained with their employees, are far more generous than those in the private sector and that costs have grown quickly, forcing layoffs and sucking up dollars that would otherwise go to schools and other city services.
Related:
"Legislators also agreed last week to change legal language in the recently passed sales tax hike to assure credit agencies that $100 million earmarked for the Turnpike Authority would go toward paying off Big Dig debt"
Yeah, never you mind the MILLIONS of dollars a MONTH going to DEBT SERVICE PAYMENTS to BANKS!
Also see:
Memory Hole: Massachusetts' State Budget
Mass. State Budget: Screwing Cities and Towns
Uniting With Hollywood
Oh, but the state had $82 million to hand profitable Hollywood last year?
Union officials have argued that those plans were bargained fairly and that they sacrificed salary and other benefits over the years to get them.
Of course, PROMISES from the GOVERNMENT mean NOTHING!
The compromise reached yesterday would protect retired employees from some added health costs for three years instead of the two that had previously been agreed upon. It would, in the first year of any changes, increase the size of a fund dedicated to helping older and sicker employees cope with new costs.
Oh, BIG WHOOP!
The changes would also make it slightly harder for local governments to move employees to the state health plan, requiring them to demonstrate that such a move would save at least 5 percent more than would be saved by shifting costs at the local level.
A coalition of labor unions said in a joint statement yesterday that the changes would address their “primary concern of providing a meaningful voice for employees to protect the very sick and retirees from exorbitant increases in the costs of health insurance.’’
Related:
"Unions have tried to put a positive spin on the developments.... portray[ing] the Senate plan as a victory in an e-mail to members.... casting a positive light on a plan that many union members would have railed against only weeks ago.... proudly declared [they] had won the day."
Looks like Mass. labor unions would eat a log and tell you it's lobster.
Groups leading negotiations for city and town governments said they were also pleased with the agreement, because it promises to resolve the issue for local government without further delay.
“These are refinements, but [they] do not impact the fundamental reform,’’ said Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-backed group.
Meaning this agenda-pushing, make Patrick and the state Dems look good gesture means s***.
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Surely they would tell us if there were a conflict of interest:
"Lawyers who are legislators face conflicts; Some do not report potential complications" July 04, 2011|By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff
One legislator served as a lawyer for construction and paving firms that had state highway contracts. At the same time, he led the committee that sets transportation policy.
Another represented workers with asbestos claims while he debated workers’ compensation legislation in the House.
The 52 lawyers who serve in the state Legislature juggle a briefcase full of potential conflicts as they represent individuals or companies with significant business before the state, ranging from liquor licenses to bridge repair contracts.
Even within the boundaries of the law, they often perform work in their law offices that closely overlaps with their work at the State House.
The recent corruption case of former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi cast a harsh light on the potential for abuse by legislators with law practices.
DiMasi, a criminal defense attorney, was convicted of taking $65,000 in kickbacks in exchange for rigging a state contract. He had argued the payments were legitimate referral fees for sending business to his law partner....
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Then liquidate the lobbyists!
"House leader apologizes for Holocaust remarks; Badge analogy 'inappropriate'" July 01, 2011|By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff
A powerful Massachusetts state representative apologized yesterday for comparing a proposal requiring State House lobbyists to wear identification badges to the tattoos branded on Holocaust victims.
I am SO TIRED of that being THROWN AROUND to slander anyone whose position you don't agree with!
Representative John J. Binienda, a Worcester Democrat who has served in the Legislature since 1987, said he made an "inappropriate analogy" when he criticized the badge proposal.
"No comparison can be made between the Nazi regime and a rules proposal made by members in good faith," he said in a statement yesterday. "I apologize to the sponsors, as well as the people of Massachusetts for my words."
The proposal requiring that lobbyists wear badges was pitched by House Republicans last week as a transparency measure, so that members of the public, the media, and lawmakers themselves would know which special interests were attempting to influence lawmaking.
On Wednesday, Binienda, who heads the House Rules Committee, called the proposal "revolting" and went on to make the historical analogy.
"Hitler, during the concentration camps, tattooed all of the Jewish people so he would know who was a Jew and who wasn't, and that's something that I just don't go along with," Binienda told State House News Service for an article posted yesterday.
Who does, you ignorant pos? You going along with AmeriKan torture though?
And let's forget about then, WHO is doing SUCH THINGS NOW?
The comments drew criticism and a demand for an apology from a national Holocaust survivors group, from the New England office of the Anti-Defamation League, and House Republican leader Bradley H. Jones Jr....
More than a dozen states require lobbyists to wear identification badges, including New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures....
They must all be anti-Semitic states, huh?
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Of course, the legislature can act like the Nazi Party when it comes to the secrecy of legislation, but....
Related: A Slow Saturday Special: Statehouse Slush Fund
Oh, budget cuts don't intrude on their little fiefdom?
