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The political bosses who run Beacon Hill desperately want their elected officials to be dependent upon them to the point of stark craving neediness.
Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption, and he passeth from the stink of the dydie to the stench of the shroud. 

“All the King’s Men” 

Robert Penn Warren 

Everywhere you go in the Bay State, one sees aging Christmas decorations and Massachusetts Democratic politicians behaving badly. Several weeks ago, Cambridge state Sen. Anthony Galluccio plead out to charges arising from a motor vehicle accident that reeks with the odor of alcohol, even if the senator left the scene before anything could be detected on his breath. Then last week, he was back in court again, this time on account of 100-proof toothpaste. State Rep. Robert Spellane will not be running for re-election — although he probably could have won — because of an embarrassing family contretemps in one of our fair city’s public parks. And now it seems as though Boston City Hall has been transformed into a futuristic looking crack house. 

Cataloging the reprehensible conduct of Massachusetts Democratic politicians would take most of the pages in this newspaper. Just as long a list — as the online comments to this piece will rapidly point out — could be written up about Republican politicians in “red” states. But that is precisely the point. In any state where one party rules — and no American political party rules more absolutely than the Democratic Party does here in Massachusetts — that party’s politicians keep getting re-elected, not in spite of their incorrigible criminality and boorishness, but because of it. 

The political bosses who run Beacon Hill desperately want their elected officials to be dependent upon them to the point of stark craving neediness. After his further sentencing last week, where can Mr. Galluccio go but back into the pocket of his party’s leadership? Unless they get behind him, Mr. Galluccio could face a primary challenge. Or he could start encountering difficulty in raising campaign contributions. 

But because he must lean so heavily on their support to prop him up, these bosses and the special interests with whom they work hand in hand have one sure vote in Mr. Galluccio. And if he ever becomes too much of a political liability, they will sweep him out as briskly as they do Christmas trees next week. And like Christmas trees, he won’t cause any difficulties, because his stand has been taken away. 

From the last three speakers of the State House of Representatives right down to the former state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson’s overstuffed blouse, corruption and unethical behavior is the lubricant which makes the wheels of Massachusetts politics go round. Unindicted corruption and misdemeanor convictions are what bind Democratic politicians to one another in a conspiratorial sense of mutual shame. To those who control our state government, the weak link is the strong link. Or as an aid to a former and honorable Democratic state representative who was frustrated by his bosses lack of progress up the party ranks once remarked to me ruefully: “The leadership just won’t trust my boss unless he’s sharing one of their girlfriends.” Although he didn’t use the word “girlfriend.” 

The political logic is circular but inescapable. We can never have better government in the commonwealth until we elect better politicians. And we will never have better elected representatives so long as it is in the interests of the bosses and special interests who run Beacon Hill to have flawed politicians elected to office. Ergo, so long as the Massachusetts Democratic Party is so strong that it can keep just about anyone they want in office, Massachusetts will never have good government. 

Massachusetts voters must begin looking at their election choices as moral ones: we must stop supporting a political hierarchy that depends heavily upon the ethically flawed and start electing state legislators who will be autonomous voices of the people. 

Brian P. Burke is a Worcester attorney and GOP state committeeman.


REALLY WANT CHANGE ON BEACON HILL?
VOTE GOP THIS YEAR

This election season, the political talk across the nation is all about “change.”  We certainly need it here on Beacon Hill.  But real and meaningful change in this Commonwealth’s government will never happen under one party rule.   Otherwise, we just get more of the same.

And what is more of the same in this state?   The last two Speakers of the State House of Representatives resigned after being convicted of federal crimes.  The current Speaker is under criminal investigation for doing political favors for his cronies.  This past year a state representative somehow managed to cast his vote from the Caribbean.  And just this past week a Democratic State Senator was shown on tape stuffing bribes down her shirt!  And owing to excessive generosity to political favorites, the state pension system is a time-bomb waiting to explode.

 In fact, public distrust of our state government runs so high in Massachusetts that its citizens estimate 41 cents of every dollar they pay in state taxes is wasted.  Is it any wonder that there is a referendum on this year’s ballot that would completely do away with the state income tax?  But there is also another option: vote Republican. 

The critical need to curb one party rule is especially pressing here in Metro-West.  Last fiscal year, the taxpayers in the fourteen cities and towns that are included in the Middlesex-Worcester Senate District got back a mere fraction of every dollar they sent east to Beacon Hill.  The Democratic Party leadership on Beacon Hill spends our taxes on venality, waste, and whatever other government inefficiencies are demanded by the political interests which keep them in power.  And the Democratic officials who are supposed to represent us in this region too often turn a blind eye to this wretched mess in exchange for a few crumbs of aid and the passage of extravagant liberal social programs. 

In the tough economic times Massachusetts will be facing in the years to come, we cannot continue underwriting political corruption.  Our Commonwealth needs to radically scale back government spending, and that requires ending the waste and fraud in our state government’s operations.  But we will not get anywhere so long as the entrenched political interests that dominate our State Legislature block any efforts at meaningful financial reform.  We must elect legislators who have the best interests of the state at heart, not that of their party’s leadership.

We voters always complain that our politicians keep betraying the public trust.  But then we keep re-electing them over and over again.  This year you don’t have to say yes to more of the same.  Vote Republican for a change.


Brian P. Burke, Esquire
Middlesex-Worcester District Republican State Committeeman