Your Arlington, your views

By Bob Sprague

I got a haircut today from an Arlington barber I have known for a number of years. Call him Joe (not his real name). I told Joe that Senator Jim Marzilli’s lawyer had confirmed that his client has a “fairly serious mental illness.” Joe made a noise in his nose that signals disbelief.

Joe said he knows Jim and always thought him odd. Then he said, basically, that someone in Jim’s position can get a doctor to say anything, to declare the diagnosis that the patient wants.

As Joe snipped, he said, “Am I right, Bob?”

I remained silent in the chair.

“Bob?”

After a bit, I told him I had some knowledge of mental illness from a case in my family, and I was not so quick to draw the conclusion he did.

In my view, the public should not either.

While serious charges have been lodged against the senator — and an Arlington woman is pressing a further case — I think that, for the sake of balance, the public should also recall the good Marzilli has done.

To that end, Cindy Friedman, his chief aide, has provided the following list of Marzilli’s legislative accomplishments:

• As one of his first initiatives in office, Jim led the effort to provide tax relief to seniors living on fixed incomes who pay high property taxes. The senior “circuit breaker” legislation became law in 1998.

• Jim led two successful efforts to increase the minimum wage in Massachusetts, including the most recent increase to $8 an hour in 2008.

• In 1997, Jim wrote the law that created a state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a refundable tax credit for low wage workers that can reduce taxes and also led effort to restore the capital gains tax in 2002.

• During his last three terms in the House, Jim initiated efforts to close corporate tax loopholes, filing the legislation and leading the floor fights on these issues. He was the original author of combined reporting legislation that was recently adopted in tax packages by both the House and Senate.

• Three separate times, Jim led successful efforts to increase the pay for the lowest paid human service workers.

• He was named “Legislator of the Year” in 2004 by the Massachusetts Human Services Providers Council and in 2007 by the Association of Developmental Disabilities Provides for his work on behalf of low-wage workers and people with developmental disabilities.

• In his efforts to eliminate government waste, Jim passed legislation that abolished the archaic Middlesex County government and the Emergency Finance Board that lied local government in red tape.

• Jim was named “Environmental Legislator of the Year” by the Environmental League of Massachusetts in 2001 for his work linking environmental protection and tax policy. He is the author of the Energy, Climate and Economic Security Act, a comprehensive bill that emphasizes the use of energy efficiency programs and renewable technologies to reduce the environmental impact and cost of our current energy systems.

• Jim has led the successful effort to ban the sale of mercury thermometers make sure we are safe in our homes and daily lives.

• As vice chair of the House Healthcare Finance Committee, Jim played an important role in the creation of the Healthcare Reform Act of 2006, which mandated that all Massachusetts residents have health insurance.

• During the 2007-2008 legislative session, Jim has filed comprehensive cost-control healthcare legislation. In fact, Senate President Murray’s comprehensive health reform bill includes some of the items Jim has worked on, including an academic detailing program, a ban on gifts to physicians, and incentives to increase the number of primary care practitioners in the state.

The following was written by Rep. Will Brownsberger and sent to his constituets:

The House finished debating and amending its version of the state’s budget a little after midnight last Saturday morning [May 3]. The budget action now moves to the Senate.

For five long days and evenings, House members all worked to advance the various causes that they felt were underfunded in the committee draft budget. The final budget does reflect the priorities of the Commonwealth as filtered by the members.

It was a long week, but really one of the best times to get know one’s colleagues in the building — a good deal of the time is spent waiting for staff to complete documentation of agreed revisions.

I was struck by how little attention the major dailies paid to the actual work of the week. On reflection, I suppose there were two reasons. First, of course, some colorful conflicts distracted them, but second, the budget, although well and thoughtfully assembled, was devoid of really big news.

The major spending decisions had been made earlier. All of the state’s leaders remain fully committed to the new health care law. And all remain committed to the five year plan for increasing education aid to cities and towns. Previously passed laws commit specific funding amounts to school building and support of the MBTA. State pension contributions are determined by an administrative schedule.

One major decision, which was briefly debated, was to continue to use the consensus revenue estimates developed in January. This made sense — on the one hand, the national economy has worsened; on the other hand, Massachusetts seems to be outperforming the rest of the country and current revenues seem solid. And, as the budget heads through the Senate into conference committee, better information will become available.

Together, increases in health care costs, local aid and the other fixed commitments accounted for the bulk of the estimated revenue increase. So, in order to maintain basic programming in the face of rising energy, labor and other costs, there will be a need for additional funds — the cigarette tax increase, the corporate tax package, and a modest draw from reserves.

But there was no room for any major new initiatives. Last week’s efforts by House members served mostly to very marginally increase certain important larger accounts — for example, an additional $2 million on top of the $225.8 million for the special education circuit breaker. Additionally, House members fought for small dollar earmarks of importance to their district — for example, in my case, $140,000 to continue developing plans to improve the Amelia Earhart dam so as to better control flooding in Arlington, Belmont, Cambridge and other communities low-lying near the Mystic River.

So, from the perspective of a metropolitan journalist, there were many little stories, but nothing of broad interest that could compete with the personality-based stories for newsprint.

Looking beyond the immediate budget process, as I listen carefully, I hear a pretty strong consensus among the state’s leaders on three major points: First, the electorate will not take kindly to any broad-based new taxes, at least not unless we decisively curb practices perceived as abusive — unreasonable pension deals, overuse of police details, etc. Second, we need to find a way to control health care costs because their rapid growth is squeezing out other necessary spending. Third, many legitimate state needs are unmet, most notably maintenance of our infrastructure, especially roads and bridges.

So far in this session, we have nibbled at the revenue question, increasing cigarette taxes and adjusting corporate tax rules, but staying well back from any tax increase that the general public would bear. We have also nibbled at some of the reform issues, passing a mild adjustment of police detail practice and a modest change in retirement benefits for MBTA employees. Even these modest changes have generated considerable bitterness among affected employees. The Senate has initiated a package to control health care costs, but this is a famously difficult challenge. We declined to bite on the casino proposal, in my view wisely, although it might have offered some modest financial assistance.

Perhaps the boldest set of financial measures that we have undertaken is the program of infrastructure bond bills proposed by the Governor. The House will take these up shortly. These bills respond to a clear need and most of us are eager to see the particular benefits they offer for our districts. But Treasurer Cahill has raised a yellow flag about their affordability — Massachusetts is already carrying a relatively high debt burden. In turn, the administration replies that the bond bills are multi-year authorizations and if our revenue picture worsens we can slow the issuance of the debt.

In summary, I think the real story of the budget season so far is one of cautious moves in the face of economic uncertainties and hard political dilemmas. “There are bold pilots and there are old pilots, but there are no old bold pilots.”

The real progress in this legislative session is coming in the economic development and environmental areas. In the next few months, conference committees will complete work on a very far reaching energy and environmental package as well as a life sciences package. Negotiation of these major packages consumes huge amounts of time for legislative leaders and senior administration officials. That may be as far as we get, although I’m hopeful that we’ll get further.

I’m making an effort to document a lot about our work through www.willbrownsberger.com. But please don’t ever hesitate to contact me directly — my cell phone is 617-771-8274 and my e-mail is willbrownsberger@gmail.com. I truly appreciate feedback.

Six p.m. Friday. Supper time. Phone rings. A woman with the trace of a foreign accent says she wants to do a “quick political survey.”

I agree.

“If the election were held today, would you vote for Ken Donnelly, Jim Marzilli, Charles Murphy or Patrick Natale?” No mention of other candidates for the 4th Middlesex Senate seat previously held by Robert Havern.

I tell her my choice and immediately ask the name of the organization making the call.

is David Paleologos, a pollster at Suffolk University who is director of the school’s Political Research Center.

All of the campaigns for the 4th Middlesex Senate seat have been asked to comment as to whether any has hired Dapa Research — and why. Responses will be added as they come in.

In this race, who’s the “underdog”?

NOTE: As of Nov. 1, only the Rep. Patrick Natale campaign had responded to this plea. He wrote in an e-mail:

“Bob it is not coming from my camp. I couldnt afford to do the calls even if i wanted to and i dont believe that voters want to be bothered.

“That is why i have been door knocking for the past 8 weeks. I have spent about 500 hrs in the the District door knocking since the Senator left the seat because i think it is more important than calling voters it is how i won my Rep. seat as an unknown.”

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Links to Senate race
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Bob Sprague