Related: It's Voting Day in Massachusetts
"New title, familiar elements for Edward Markey; Freshman senator has agenda ready" by Noah Bierman | Globe Staff, July 29, 2013
WASHINGTON — Climate change, which he campaigned on, will be his top issue, Edward J. Markey said....
Seems like the old Ed to me.
Near an elevator Thursday, Markey ran into the man who may represent his biggest challenge to winning the science debate, Senator James M. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican well-known for his skepticism that humans have contributed to warming the Earth. Inhofe is a scourge to environmentalists and mainstream scientists, but any ideological clash with Markey was undetectable when the two men saw each other.
“Hey Fast Eddie, how you doin’?” Inhofe, another former House member, said when he saw Markey.
Over the past couple of weeks, the two men, whose offices are down the hall from one another, have been friendly....
He is a new man!
On Friday, Markey learned that he would chair a foreign relations subcommittee that has direct jurisdiction over international climate and energy issues.
Markey has promised bipartisanship. But his tenure in the House marked him as one of the country’s most liberal congressmen, with a rigid party-line voting record. In his first major policy vote in the Senate last week, he gave little evidence that he would move to the center. He voted with 17 senators who opposed a compromise on student loan rates that had the backing of both parties, as well as President Obama.
In doing so, he sided with Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who is now the state’s senior senator.
He argued that the student loan compromise, which would tie the interest rates to market rates with a cap of 8.25 percent, would make college less affordable to the students who are now starting their high school years.
Related: Warren Smacked Down by Senate on Student Loans
But she is winning friends!
Together, the two have the least seniority — the key to power in the Senate — of any state delegation. Occupying the liberal edge of the Democratic Party’s ideological spectrum, they could wind up on the losing end of more compromises in the future, even as their party holds power....
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"Edward Markey basks in Elizabeth Warren’s spotlight" by Jim O’Sullivan | Globe Staff, July 23, 2013
Pipefitters and electricians on their lunch break from the Vertex construction project on Fan Pier sipped sodas and wiped away sweat Monday afternoon, as the nation’s most junior Senate delegation made its way down the sidewalk.
Elizabeth Warren went first, shaking hands, complimenting T-shirts. Then came Ed Markey, following Warren. After she crossed the sidewalk to shake a few more hands, Markey did the same.
Warren posed for photos with the workers. Then it was Markey’s turn.
This is how it is likely to go for the duo, over the next 16 months anyway. Markey, the victor in last month’s Senate special election to fill the remainder of the term won by John F. Kerry in 2008, is the junior partner in both chronology and celebrity.
I wonder which office he is getting.
Politically, it makes sense for him to affiliate himself as tightly as possible with Warren. Monday’s will not be their last joint photo shoot.
Warren, 64, is a national star within the Democratic Party, frequently cropping up in discussions of potential 2016 candidates, despite fewer than seven months in office. Markey, 67, provokes decidedly less buzz, seen as a 37-year House member who paid his dues and stepped into the seat many had long expected him to occupy.
Warren is also hugely popular with the grass roots both nationally and in Massachusetts. Markey relied on much of Warren’s voter-turnout infrastructure to help him defeat Republican Gabriel E. Gomez last month.
That creates the incentive for Markey to allow as little daylight as possible between himself and the senior senator.
“Senator Warren is now the cop on the beat down in Washington,” Markey told the crowd during their joint tour of a start-up incubation center on the South Boston Waterfront, following Warren’s response to a question from the audience about financial industry regulation.
“I think Senator Warren put it very well,’’ Markey told a pack of microphones, after Warren fielded a question on student loan interest rates. “We’ve opened up a new national discussion. By the way, she’s the one who has opened up this new national discussion.”
After five years of bank looting, and still no change, just talk. Not knocking it per se, but I've run out of patience for talk, talk, talk.
“I agree with the senator,” Markey said, following Warren’s comment on the “stand your ground” law that drew attention during the trial of George Zimmerman, who was acquitted in the shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.
That's yesterday's news, and the planned race riots never materialized.
Marching in tandem is not a new strategy for senators from the same state. Kerry tracked closely with the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, despite staffs that often were in conflict.
Even during the brief break between Democratic hegemony in the Senate delegation, the chamber’s decorum called for the stark policy differences between Kerry and Republican Scott Brown to be discussed politely. Personal criticism, in public, was mostly off limits.
But Markey’s task, facing reelection less than a year and a half after taking office while working in the shadow of his colleague, renders their political relationship particularly crucial.
“She’s incredibly popular within the party and is appealing to independents with the fights she’s taking on, so it would behoove Markey in this tenuous in-between period to tie himself to popular elected officials, to popular issues, and Elizabeth Warren is both,” said David Guarino, a Boston public affairs strategist.
Guarino added, “She very much has the voice of the populist Democrat right now, so why wouldn’t he echo that?”
And they are about as plentiful as moderate Republicans.
During their Monday tour, Warren, too, played her part, effusive in praise of Markey....
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It's a good pair, right?
"Contract bidder called on Markey for favor; Lawmaker agreed to assure UMass that the two men had no falling out" by Frank Phillips | Globe Staff, July 17, 2013
As University of Massachusetts president Robert L. Caret mulled over the final three bids for the university’s $240,000-a-year federal lobbying contract in February, he got a call from the dean of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, Edward J. Markey.
Markey feared that rumors about a cooled relationship between himself and Stephen P. Tocco, the head of one of the bidding firms and one of his former congressional aides, might damage Tocco’s chances of winning the contract. He wanted to assure Caret that all was well between the two.
“I didn’t want [Tocco] to be harmed by something that was untrue,’’ Markey said by telephone last week, noting that it was Tocco who asked him to make the call.
While not illegal, Markey’s call to Caret offers a window into the access and influence that lobbyists — both on Capitol Hill and Beacon Hill — have to the centers of political power.
Yup, same old Ed.
Bids for big-ticket contracts like the UMass one are awarded through a public procurement process that is designed to eliminated politics and influence in decision-making. Elected officials are supposed to take a hands-off approach, particularly if they have any kind of connection to the bidder.
Asked whether it was appropriate for him to make the call last winter, Markey said he had made it clear to Caret that he was not calling to influence which bidder got the contract.
“I made it crystal clear I wanted the decision to be made exclusively on the merits,’’ Markey said. At the time, Markey was in a primary battle for the Democratic nomination to the US Senate. He went on to win the seat and was sworn in on Tuesday.
Beyond the perception that he might be trying to influence a federal lobbying contract, Markey faces another sensitive issue. His brother John is a partner at Mintz Levin — one of the city’s biggest and most politically connected law firms and the owner of Tocco’s government relations firm, ML Strategies.
Markey brushed aside that issue....
That's a little arrogant of him.
Tocco, a former top state official and Republican insider with Democratic connections, was an adviser to Markey’s US Senate race, in addition to once serving on his congressional staff.
Say WHAT?
He combined his connections with those of Mintz Levin’s to build ML Strategies into one of Boston’s leading government relations firms. Tocco was on the UMass board of trustees until several years ago.
He was then-governor Mitt Romney’s choice to chair the board but was eventually thrown off by Governor Deval L. Patrick.
Tocco, who donated $2,500 to Markey’s Senate campaign and sat in on strategy sessions despite his GOP roots, acknowledged that he asked Markey to call the UMass president because he felt his firm’s bid was being undercut by unfounded rumors that his close relationship with Markey had grown distant....
Tocco’s proposed lobbying team for the UMass contract includes William F. Weld, the former Republican governor whose famed charm is one of the firm’s strongest selling points. But Weld also raises the hackles of many Democrats who now control the UMass board of trustees.
To win the university’s business, ML Strategies will have to compete with two firms with stronger Democratic ties. Former US representative Chester G. Atkins, the head of ADS Ventures, is a longtime Democratic political figure in Massachusetts who has built up a Washington lobbying outfit with a strong Capitol Hill network since his defeat for reelection in 1992.
Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications, one of New England’s largest public affairs and public relations firms, is headed by two former state Democratic political operatives, Larry Rasky, a close friend of Vice President Joseph Biden, and Joseph Baerlein. Its Washington office is heavily staffed with experienced Capitol Hill hands....
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Related:
Vouching for a lobbyist: Markey’s bad call
Caret's Report Card
Also see:
Swearing-in takes back seat to Senate business
Democrats campaign for Markey’s seat
Top Mass. GOP figures plot 2014 strategy
Gabriel Gomez could be up for another run
They need to rethink that brand.
Also see: Six Flags investigating fatal roller coaster death
Related: Sunday Globe Special: Houston's House of Horrors
That story sure closed quick.
So did this one:
"Senator William “Mo” Cowan’s farewell: Congress is working" by Bryan Bender | Globe Staff, June 26, 2013
WASHINGTON _ US Senator William “Mo” Cowan on Wednesday thanked his staff and the residents of Massachusetts for entrusting him to represent them for five months, and said it was honor to serve in the upper legislative body as one of only eight African-Americans in the nation’s history.
The Bay State Democrat was picked by Governor Deval Patrick to temporarily fill the seat vacated by John F. Kerry and will make way next month for Senator-elect Edward J. Markey, who won election to the seat on Tuesday.
Cowan, in what was billed as his final floor speech, praised the United States Senate, which he insisted is working well. And Americans who think Congress is broken are wrong, he said.
Some one on the phone for you, Mo:
Obama Will Call
Also see: Obama warns Republicans against blocking economic progress
Sorry, Mo. Must have been a bad connection.
“If I have been asked any question more frequently than “what are you going to do next, Mo” it has been, “Is our system of government broken? Is Congress broken?” he said. “And I have answered truthfully: No. Our system of government is the greatest ever known and the best example of democracy in human history.”
He then recounted a series of examples during his brief stint of how well it does work.
“In April, I experienced the very best of this body’s character in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings,” he said, “when members from every corner of this nation extended their sympathies, their prayers, and pledged their assistance and support to the City of Boston, and to all those affected by that tragedy. In the aftermath, we all came together as Americans to honor those killed and to support the wounded in their time of recovery.”
He also cited similar efforts “in the wake of the terrible tornadoes that swept through Oklahoma” and credited bipartisan cooperation for progress on a series of weighty issues -- though most he mentioned are still a work in progress, at best.
See: Obama in Oklahoma
“Thanks to bipartisan work in the Agriculture Committee and on the Senate floor, we were able to send a Farm Bill to the House,” he said.
The farm bill, which usually passes with little resistance, died in the House.
Actually, they passed a version of it, but they stripped out the food stamps for hungry Americans.
He continued: “Through the joint leadership of the Gang of 8 we are debating a workable approach to Comprehensive Immigration Reform. We confirmed five cabinet secretaries.”
He also voted -- a lot.
“And in what will remain the most memorable all-nighter of my Senate career, through a marathon session and more votes in one night than most interim Senators take in the entirety of their tenure, the Senate passed a budget and now anxiously await the urgent opportunity to conference with House,” he recalled.
On a more personal note, he highlighted the many relationships he has built with colleagues in both parties, from Kentucky Republican and Tea Party darling Rand Paul, who he said he swapped stories with about Duke University, to South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, with whom he “discussed the comedic genius of Will Ferrell.”
Related: Oh, Mo!
The back slapping was returned by some of his fellow lawmakers.
So all this partisanship and bickering is all a s***-show fooley cover for failing the American people, huh? Blame the other guy why you couldn't get things done, or why the American people got f***ed?
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada took the floor after him to recount what a great send-off Cowan received in a meeting of Democratic senators on Tuesday.
“He got two standing ovations,” Reid said. “That’s rare.”
Massachusetts’s senior Senator, Elizabeth Warren, who served with Cowan for four of his five months in the Senate, then offered her praise.
“He worked tirelessly to ensure the interests of the people of Massachusetts are represented,” she said.
Now it’s Markey’s turn.
“After 37 distinguished years in the House,” Cowan said, “Senator-Elect Markey now has the opportunity to offer his voice, wisdom, accumulated experiences, humor, esprit de corps, and tireless commitment to justice and equality to the United States Senate.”
Yup, now Ed's part of the elite and exclusive club.
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Related: Mass. should reconsider its plan to fill Senate vacancies
Then Mo would never have had the pleasure of building his resume to become a lobbyist, Globe!
Besides, I'd rather vote on it than have some governor-dictator appoint one.
