Hidden Link

February 16, 2024

By Gintautas Dumcius, Bruce Mohl, and Jennifer SMITH 

The number of departures in the House reached critical mass this week, as more lawmakers, many of them on the older side, said they would not be running for another two-year term.

Several of the lawmakers hold leadership positions and committee chairmanships, prompting some musing inside the building, and out, about what the departures mean in the context of House Speaker Ron Mariano’s future. His own departure, if not this year, doesn’t seem too far off. But the retirements and exits may not mean as much about the future of the House as you might think.  

There is turnover every election cycle, and this time around, some departures of note include Sarah Peake of Provincetown, who is retiring after 18 years in office and holds the post of second assistant majority leader; Ruth Balser of Newton, who has spent more than two decades in the House and currently serves as Mariano’s third division chair; and Denise Garlick of Needham, who has spent 13 years in the House and is the current Education Committee chair.

Out of the 10 House lawmakers total, the list also includes Smitty Pignatelli, who has represented part of the Berkshires since 2003; Agriculture Committee chair Paul Schmid, who has represented Westport since 2011; and Veterans and Federal Affairs Committee chair Gerry Cassidy, who has represented Brockton since 2016.

On the Senate side, Taunton’s Marc Pacheco, who has held his seat since 1993, isn’t seeking reelection, while Susan Moran, who has represented Plymouth since 2020, is running for a clerkship in Barnstable County.

When comparing the two chambers and their members, senators tend to operate more like independent city-states. While the 160-member House isn’t quite East Berlin under Soviet rule, it’s more tightly controlled. Power is concentrated in the hands of just a few House lawmakers. Leadership positions and chairmanships come with extra pay, but not necessarily more power, which can make the battle over the speakership a fraught affair. (Beacon Hill veterans will recall the bitter fight between Robert DeLeo and John Rogers as they jockeyed to succeed Sal DiMasi in 2008.)

But succession chatter these days is not as rife with tension because it seems a settled matter. Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, who chairs the Ways and Means Committee, appears to be the speaker-designate. A North End resident, he passed on a run for Boston mayor in 2021 and kept his chairmanship of the budget-writing committee. (To add “powerful” as a prefix to Ways and Means is to repeat oneself.)

Mariano, when he took over from DeLeo in December 2021, made it clear he didn’t plan a long tenure. The 77-year-old Quincy Democrat told reporters back in October that he plans to run for reelection this year and for another two-year term as speaker. “That remains to be seen," he said when asked if he would serve out that term. As others head for the exits, Michlewitz, who turns 46 this year, can afford to wait and see.

Politics makes strange bedfellows

When US Senate Republicans derailed a spending bill that would have funneled aid to Ukraine and Israel and tackled immigration reform, two of the chamber’s biggest liberals – Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey – voted with them, scuttling a bipartisan effort at compromise.

Gov. Maura Healey, who favored the immigration reform package and the money it would have brought to Massachusetts to deal with the migrant crisis, heaped scorn on the Republicans. “Just because it’s a presidential year, people shouldn’t be playing politics on this one,” she said. 

But the governor didn’t mention Warren and Markey. Asked if she was frustrated with them, the governor said: “I had a different view on that. I supported the bill. I supported the bill as bipartisan, and we need action now on border reform.”

For their part, Warren and Markey didn’t like many of the bill’s immigration provisions but they did favor more federal money for states like Massachusetts. Strong Republican opposition, fanned by former president Donald Trump, allowed them to vote no with no real consequences. “Senate Republicans killed their own border deal, and I am not willing to start the next round of negotiations with this bill as the foundation,” Warren said in a statement.

Restorative justice funding fight

Lawmakers are trying to build support for a statewide restorative justice office after Gov. Maura Healey did not include their requested funding in her budget proposal.

After a presentation from the judiciary on a forthcoming three-year pilot that would aim to address harms and rehabilitate offenders through a community-centered process rather than incarceration, members of the Restorative Justice Advisory Committee said they pushed for $3 million to create a state office dedicated to restorative justice work.

The Healey administration awarded 13 grants totaling $380,000 to restorative justice programs in November, but no funding was included in this year’s proposed budget and a line item note said “eliminated program.” 

Supporters of creating a restorative justice office know they have an uphill battle with funding tight. But they also face skepticism that restorative justice is the best option for defendants or focuses enough on victims. 

“We've got a number of different presiding judges who are less willing to talk about restorative justice,” Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said at a Tuesday meeting of the advisory committee. "So it's going back and trying to get that conversation going again. Because I think part of the piece is money's tight. Money's gonna get tighter. And the reality is I don't think we have the [buy-in] numbers to justify the money that we're looking for.”