Law and Order
By Andy Metzger
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, OCT. 14, 2016...Sal DiMasi could soon be returning to a free world that looks very different from the one he left almost five years ago.
Recap and analysis of the week in state government.
The 71-year-old former House speaker, convicted of corruption and ailing from cancer of the tongue and prostate, body pains and choking episodes, received some mercy from his jailer Thursday when the federal government filed a motion for his compassionate release.
What does DiMasi, a former arch-enemy of the casino industry brought low by his business dealings, make of Donald Trump, a casino magnate with a Teflon-like ability to shrug off scandal? It's hard to imagine the Republican presidential nominee has not been a subject of discussion, and perhaps unique insights, on the inside.
DiMasi is a white-collar criminal and the embodiment of the "culture of corruption" that Republican State Committee members have pledged to expunge from Beacon Hill. For the crime of lining his pockets through a crypto lobbying gig, DiMasi and his family have paid a steep price, and Democrats, who also remember DiMasi for some of his good deeds, rejoiced at Thursday's news that he may soon be getting out.
"I am overjoyed by the news that the government has moved for compassionate release for Speaker DiMasi," said House Speaker Robert DeLeo, going so far as to express gratitude to his nemesis U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz for her office's role.
As the federal court contemplates releasing the Democrat despite his crimes, the Republican nominee for president this week racked up a slew of public accusations of less complex, more hormonal transgressions. The "law and order" candidate has been accused of groping women on a plane, at a business dinner, and at his Florida resort.
Making his Houdini-like predicament even more challenging to wriggle out of, Trump is on video from years ago bragging about his ability to get away with exactly that type of behavior. During a debate with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Sunday night, Trump denied that he had actually grabbed women non-consensually.
So it was that after leading his train of supporters through the mountains of economic protectionism and the prairies of religious tests through the course of his campaign, the red-hatted, orange-maned engineer this week sounded the whistle and roared full steam into a thicket of accusations of sexual assault.
To continue an already overwrought metaphor, Gov. Charlie Baker let the Trump Train pass him by last winter. The governor was like one of those MBTA commuters who sees the rush hour train packed with people and decides to wait for the next one and wonder when service will improve.
I'll wait for the 2018 local, Baker says, referring time and again to the problems he identified with Trump and Clinton: temperament and believability.
Not good enough, replied U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren this week. The Democrat on Monday said Baker should play a bigger role in renouncing his party's nominee.
Warren made the suggestion about seven months after Baker urged reporters to quiz the senator about her preference in the heated Democratic nominating contest between Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Baker returned from vacation in Ireland three days after Warren's remarks, and reiterated his plan to stay out of the presidential election, concentrating instead on state races and ballot campaigns.
Warren might not enjoy the home-state popularity of the Swampscott Republican governor, but she can pack a punch.
Last month the Cambridge Democrat walloped John Stumpf over his leadership of a financial institution that signed its customers up for as many as 2 million accounts without their approval. As of Wednesday Stumpf is the former CEO of Wells Fargo, reportedly retiring without a severance package. He wasn't pushed, the company insisted. He jumped. And without a golden parachute.
2016 Massachusetts Political Almanac
Not good enough was Warren's reply to news of his departure, tweeting that Stumpf should also "return every nickel he made during the scam" and face a federal investigation from market regulators and the Department of Justice.
Warren has mostly avoided criticism of Baker, which puts the senior senator in the same category as nearly every other Massachusetts Democrat. On Thursday, Senate President Stan Rosenberg, an Amherst Democrat, said of the governor, "We know he can manage and he knows how to do the right thing."
Time will tell whether the former law school professor gets a shot at Curt Schilling. The career 216-146 pitcher has said he wants to be "one of the people responsible for getting Elizabeth Warren out of politics."
This Thursday, Schilling seemed more intent on closing off his own path into politics, as he insistently tried to downplay a recently released errant remark Trump made years ago. The reality television star was caught on camera joking in the presence of a young girl that he would be dating her in 10 years.
"I've seen my daughter's friends. I'm a man. Wow, she's a beautiful young lady. I don't immediately jump to molesting her. But that's where the left has gotten - " Schilling said before a Fox Business host interrupted.
Those who have heard enough "locker room talk" this election season, buckle up or tune out. Activists opposed to the state's new transgender law submitted more than the 32,375 certified signatures necessary to place the repeal question on the 2018 ballot, the secretary of state's office said Tuesday.
The law, which went into effect earlier this month, prohibits discrimination based on gender identity in restaurants, pools and other public accommodations, and it allows transgender men to use men's locker rooms and transgender women to use women's facilities. Opponents of the law claim that the new access rights will open the door to sexual predation. Supporters of the law say its implementation will prove to voters that it is a non-issue and provides overdue protections to a marginalized group of people.
On Tuesday four churches - Horizon Christian Fellowship in Fitchburg, Abundant Life Church in Swansea, House of Destiny Ministries in Southbridge, and Faith Christian Fellowship in Haverhill - challenged the law in federal court, arguing it violates their right to freely practice religion by not exempting churches from the requirements.
While Massachusetts is mostly an afterthought in the presidential race, 2018 is shaping up to be a doozy here with statewide races for governor, U.S. senator and a potential $2 billion tax hike sharing the ballot with the proposed transgender law repeal.
Whatever Baker's chances in his expected re-election bid, Democrats will want to come up with a credible candidate to challenge him. No obvious choices have emerged two years out.
On Friday, Baker's budget chief, Administration and Finance Secretary Kristen Lepore, said the state's $38.9 billion fiscal 2016 budget has a $295 million deficit because of overly optimistic revenue estimates and the failure of lawmakers to include adequate funding for shelter services, indigent defense attorneys and snow and ice removal. To handle the shortfall, the Baker administration plans to shave executive branch spending by up to 1 percent, through savings plans and actual spending reductions, while holding harmless local aid and core services at the Department of Children and Families.
The Boston Carmen's Union is anxious to put some political pressure on the governor, as the MBTA, with Baker's encouragement, contracts out union cash-handling jobs and has sought to privatize other work.
"It's a systematic beat-down of the middle class," Sen. John Keenan said at a rally for the T unions outside Faneuil Hall on Wednesday. "That's what it is. There's no secret to it. For corporate America it's become more important to pay a dividend than to pay a fair wage."
In case anyone missed the point, the union used an inflated fat cat and cigar-smoking pig for visual effect.
Not lost on the union officials in attendance was the Democrat-dominated Legislature's key role last year in easing the way for privatization at the T.
The agenda is already filling up for the next two-year legislative session.
On Tuesday, DeLeo said the potential regulation of Airbnb - an online booking business for short-term rentals - would be "the Uber issue of next session." As was the case for the ride-hailing service Uber, Airbnb wants the legitimacy that regulation could bring, and has proved itself willing to swallow some amount of taxation.
If the Airbnb debate plays out the way the ride-hailing debate did this session, lawmakers could hear an uproar from incumbent interests - perhaps from vacation-home owners not as eager for regulation as Airbnb.
Speaking of vacation homes, Cape Wind dropped its appeal of an Energy Facilities Siting Board ruling that had denied its request for an extension of transmission facility approvals. Once pitched as the first offshore wind farm in the United States, the project's chances have withered under litigious critics and a lack of financial investment. Project proponents still have a lease though.
The offshore wind industry, meanwhile, received a boost this week as an arm of General Electric joined the global bank Citi in announcing investment in a wind farm off the coast of Block Island. The five-turbine 30-megawatt wind farm is set to be the nation's first when it begins operating next month.
In a stomach-churning turn of events in the same general area, the Baker administration on Tuesday closed off all waters south of Cape Cod to shellfish harvesting after detecting a type of phytoplankton that can cause "vomiting, cramps, diarrhea and incapacitating headaches followed by confusion, disorientation, permanent loss of short-term memory, and in severe cases, seizures and coma."
A bill sent to the governor on Tuesday would extend the time that evidence in rape and sexual assault cases must be preserved. Right now evidence must be kept for six months unless charges have been filed or the alleged victim asks that it be preserved longer. Under the bill, the evidence would be kept for at least 15 years.
Ballot question campaigns continued their tactics of bombarding the airwaves - if they have the money - and rolling out studies, rebuttals and endorsements seeking to pull voters to their side.
Rick Steves, a resident of Washington state and host of a PBS travel show, made his pitch for legalizing weed for guys like him.
"I'm a hard-working, tax-paying, church-going, kid-raising American," said Steves, campaigning for passage of Question 4. "If I work hard all day long and want to go home, smoke a joint and just stare at the fireplace for three hours, that's my civil liberty."
Opponents of Question 4 have targeted their ire not on the joint-smoking adults who already flout the state's anti-marijuana laws, but on the sale and marketing of edible cannabis products that they say would lure youngsters to the drug.
STORY OF THE WEEK: At a critical moment, Donald Trump encounters a new obstacle to attracting new supporters.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "Gotta go. See ya." - Republican National Committeewoman Keiko Orrall after being asked whether she would withdraw her support for Trump were it not for her position in the party.
Gov. Charlie Baker's likely reelection effort will share the 2018 ballot with a question to repeal transgender public accommodations legislation that he signed into law this summer. Activists pushing for repeal (left) gathered enough signatures this week to ensure ballot access, while another group (right) launched their campaign to keep the law on the books. [Photo: Antonio Caban/SHNS]
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