As he was heard to say I shall return?
"House ejects Carlos Henriquez for assault conviction" by Jim O’Sullivan and Michael Levenson | Globe staff, February 07, 2014
The House voted overwhelmingly Thursday to remove one of its own for the first time in nearly a century, expelling state Representative Carlos Henriquez, a two-term lawmaker convicted on two misdemeanor assault charges.
After an hour and a half of occasionally emotional debate and a personal appeal from Henriquez, lawmakers rejected a milder proposal to censure the Dorchester Democrat and voted, 146 to 5, to strip him of his office.
“We cannot lose sight of the fact that there is a victim involved,” Ethics Committee vice chairman David Nangle, a Lowell Democrat, told colleagues. “There is a victim of a violent domestic crime. We cannot sit idly by and ignore the severity of the charges against our colleague.”
A special election will be held to fill Henriquez’s seat, which covers parts of Dorchester and Roxbury, with an election for a new term coming in the fall....
Which is going to cost already austerity-laden taxpayers how much more money?
Henriquez’s expulsion on the heels of his Jan. 15 conviction capped an emotional three-week stretch that saw him brought from a Middlesex County jail to the State House three times in handcuffs to appear before the Ethics Committee, as House leaders tried to pressure him to resign.
On Thursday, an unshackled Henriquez, 37, wore a suit and tie on the House floor, where security escorted him to his customary seat. After Nangle’s opening remarks, Henriquez made his way to the rostrum to declare his innocence.
“The truth always remains the same,” he said in remarks that lasted about six minutes. “The truth is, I never touched my accuser in any way, at any point in time, that would result in harm or injury. Although a jury found me guilty . . . it does not change my truth.”
After he spoke, Henriquez left the chamber — of his own accord, House Speaker Robert DeLeo’s office said — and returned to jail. House leaders had said previously that Henriquez was entitled to stay and answer questions during debate, though he could not be present for the vote.
House members sat mostly stone-faced during the session, then cast what some called the most difficult votes of their careers....
Questions about whether Henriquez would be eligible to serve again in the chamber — and even participate in a special election if he were released soon enough — brought brief moments of uncertainty to what was otherwise a fairly scripted session.
Turns out pretty much everything I see in my ma$$ media is exactly that in one form or another. My world and everything I ever believed in has become a complete illusion and lie. And look where it has left me.
Representative Russell Holmes,who offered the amendment reducing the severity of the House action against Henriquez, said that Henriquez could be paroled in April, potentially before a special election.
Even if Henriquez is not paroled, the primary election for the seat will be in September, meaning he could seek the seat again, along with whichever candidate triumphs in the special election.
Hey, it's Massachusetts.
No date has yet been set for the special election. Henriquez has not indicated whether he would try to regain his seat....
“The problem is Representative Henriquez has rights,” said Holmes. “He has them. And he is taking advantage of them. And what he has the right to do, sitting in his jail cell, is to look at the rules that we wrote and agreed to. He read them. You didn’t.”
So what do we do, take "rights" away? I'm not into that kind of talk or thing. Been way to far down that road already; we need to restore rights. Right now, freedom is an arbitrary whim of government.
But House leaders, in laying out a case against Henriquez, argued for the integrity of the institution....
HA! As if it had any!
No lawmaker had been expelled from the House since 1916. The last state lawmaker forced out of either chamber was Senate majority leader Joseph DiCarlo in 1977, who was convicted of taking bribes in connection with campus construction at the University of Massachusetts Boston....
Finneran was run out, DiMasi was dumped (then denied. Sal, who single-handedly blocked casinos, and then.... hmmmmm), who else?
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