D'Amico making more friends on Beacon Hill

From the news wire....
Steven D'Amico has made a few disenfranchised friends on Beacon Hill...because of his merits, Seekonk can bet that it will not be recieving any help from the leadership. Maybe a Republican can do better?


STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JAN. 21, 2010…..Eight disenfranchised House members, feeling the branch has become undemocratic and the committee process “irrelevant,” are asking colleagues to join them in efforts to reel in House Speaker Robert DeLeo, arguing the House Speaker “determines everything.”

Saying bills no longer reach the floor because of their merits as judged by committees and instead are debated only if permitted by DeLeo, the representatives say they’ll push for greater transparency in House operations and procedural changes they say will take away from the “consolidation of power” in DeLeo’s office.

“A representative form of government is supposed to give us all a voice at the table so the interests of our constituents are adequately represented, but when all power is put in the hands of one person, it corrupts that process and opens the door to abuse,” the representatives wrote in an email circulated Thursday.

The email, entitled “The Larger Problem in the House,” was presented by Reps. Matthew Patrick, Thomas Stanley, Lida Harkins, William Greene Jr., Will Brownsberger, Steven D’Amico, Joseph Driscoll and John Quinn. The rank-and-file Democrats are not part of DeLeo’s leadership team.

Some of the legislators seeking reforms served in leadership posts under House Speakers Salvatore DiMasi and Thomas Finneran, House chieftains who also faced criticism for exercising too much control over legislating.

The legislators describe a House where the committee process is “irrelevant,” where details of the House’s $47 million budget are kept secret, where members are apprehensive about voting against leadership’s wishes, where floor debate is often “meaningless,” and where lobbyists have “more power because they know that if they get the Speaker behind a bill, it will pass.”

“A Speaker now determines everything in the Massachusetts House,” the representatives wrote. “He determines which bills come to the floor for a debate, and he appoints his paid and unpaid leadership team that constitutes a majority when the Republicans take themselves out of the picture. When in his favor, he may give members good office space, additional staff or, more importantly, allow budget amendments to pass.”

The eight lawmakers say they’ve developed specific proposals and hope to advance them over the next year.

The proposals include: ensuring that home rule petitions can be discharged from the Rules Committee in a timely fashion; making the state budget process in the House more transparent, and making the House operating budget specifics accessible to all members; provide a leadership election and committee appointment process that distributes more power to the members and less power to the Speaker; providing legislators with greater control of the operating budgets for their offices; and eliminating or narrowing legislative exemptions to the open meeting law, public records law, and purchasing standards.

In response to the letter, DeLeo spokesman Seth Gitell said in an emailed statement: "From the start of the Speakership, Speaker DeLeo has worked to make the House a more open and transparent place. He has, among other actions, set a term limit on the Speakership, required the Clerk to make all bills introduced and admitted for consideration to the House available to members electronically, and required notice of committee hearings to be posted on the internet.

"He has kept an open door policy with members, meeting with them in groups and individually on a myriad of issues.” Gitell added, "Speaker DeLeo remains focused on growing jobs and improving the state economy."

In his own email, House Minority Leader Brad Jones thanked the authors of the email for their observations, before pointing out that House Democrats have often stood united against similar reforms proposed by Republicans.

“I appreciate the observations and ideas in light of Scott Brown’s resounding victory on Tuesday,” Jones wrote. “I look forward to evaluating the ideas you have put forth along with similar and companion ideas the Republican Caucus has offered numerous times over the years which have been traditionally and almost exclusively defeated on party line votes.

“These votes would indicate that “THE LARGER PROBLEM IN THE MASSACHUSETTS HOUSE” is the one-party domination in the legislature the cure for which lies at the ballot box.”