Limitless

With the likely demise of term limits, the state's political landscape is in for a drastic shift. Plus, Weld's woes.

by Michael Crowley

So what was that sudden gust of air whooshing out the windows of the State House late last week?

"One huge sigh of relief on the part of the average clod in the legislature," says the grassroots anti-tax activist Barbara Anderson.

Yes, it was a good week for the clods of Beacon Hill, whose job security seemed to soar on Tuesday when Massachusetts's top court began hearing arguments on the state's term-limits law. It was also a good week for democracy in Massachusetts.

That's because after an unsympathetic initial hearing in the Supreme Judicial Court last week, the term-limits law passed in 1994 is looking like it will probably be struck down. The immediate implications would be a broad change in the dynamics of the 1998 election and a sudden end to much of the competitive wrangling currently at play in the legislature.

The law's defeat would also be a crushing blow to a populist, rule-by-referendum movement that swept Massachusetts in the 1980s, drastically reshaping the political environment, putting government on the defensive, and, with term-limits, changing the nature of the state's democratic system.

And now an intriguing subplot is also unfolding, as term-limits leaders who sense defeat charge that a high-level conspiracy is working against them.

With a consensus forming that the law -- limiting state politicians to eight years in office -- will be overturned, the effects could have sudden impact on state politics. Until last week, the specter of being kicked out by the law's time limit was spurring new levels of political intrigue as an unprecedented number of pols pondered running for new offices -- some looking to restart their ticking term-limits clocks, others to seize the attractive vacancies opening up above them. Especially in the legislature, competition between pols for the same offices has been making for heated jockeying and some petty bickering.

If term limits are struck down, much of that would grind to a halt. But some elements of the political equation would remain in place. The 1998 governor's race, for instance, will almost surely be made up of the Big Four -- Representative Joe Kennedy (D-Brighton), Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, State Treasurer Joe Malone, and Lieutenant Governor Paul Cellucci. Both Malone and Harshbarger will be coming up on their eight-year limits, but both insist that it's not just necessity that's propelling them into the race: they'll be running for governor regardless of whether the law is overturned.

Those promises are credible. Harshbarger has become so insistent that he'll run -- particularly in the wake of reports that the Kennedy family is trying to find him a job in Washington to clear Joe Kennedy's path -- that he would look ridiculous if he dropped out now.

Malone, too, maintains that he'll be running for governor no matter what. Paul Cellucci's tenure as acting governor will give him a head start on the GOP nomination, which might tempt Malone to wait out this race and run for treasurer again. But Malone has been a leader of the term-limits movement, and given his repeated declarations that he will serve only two terms himself, taking advantage of the law's demise would seem fairly craven.

"The people have exercised their democratic rights by saying term limits are a good idea," Malone says. "For the court to throw out the people's decision would be a crying shame."

The job of state auditor -- a bland-sounding post, but one with more potential for influence than people realize -- has been the subject of the most speculation lately. Incumbent Joe DeNucci wants to stay put, and after a tenure defined as much by workday golf outings as by audits and oversight, who wouldn't? But term limits would force him out next year, too, and probably into a race for treasurer (which could lead to a dream battle between DeNucci, the sharp-tongued former boxer, and the equally acerbic transportation secretary Jim Kerasiotes).

Here's where things would get backed up. Down the line, folks who are now eyeing the auditor's job would probably rather stay put than tangle with DeNucci. That includes senators Mark Pacheco (D-Taunton) and Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford), former city councilor and Register of Probate Richard Iannella, and Suffolk Superior Court clerk-magistrate John Nucci.

Another potential scenario: if DeNucci and Kerasiotes, who is still a wild card, both pass on the race, the result would be the first major statewide race between two women candidates -- former Senate Ways and Means chair Patricia McGovern and former state representative Shannon O'Brien.

However, if the law is overturned, the greatest impact will be in the State House. No doubt, plenty of legislators would have thought about jumping at the jobs opened up by the governor's race, with or without term limits. But for several others, the knowledge that they'll be gone, one way or another, by 2002 has pushed them toward higher office. All told, about half of the state's 40 senators, an unprecedented number in a chamber long known as a political graveyard, have been feeling out bids for advancement. That, in turn, has had plenty of state reps thinking about leaping into the other chamber.

It all seems a lot less likely now. With no pressure on officials to restart their term clocks in a new job, it's unlikely that the four state senators who've been thinking about running for lieutenant governor will actually do so. And in both chambers, the urgent jockeying for leadership posts by legislators worried about a short political life span is likely to quiet down. For instance, senators Robert Durand (D-Marlboro) and Thomas Norton (D-Fall River) had been courting support so aggressively in hopes of succeeding Senate President Tom Birmingham (D-Chelsea), who'll likely run for Joe Kennedy's seat, that Birmingham had to tell them to cut it out. His own decision to run, however, will probably be unaffected by the law's fate.

Even as Beacon Hill pols begin to exhale a little, however, the term-limiters are cranking up the heat with a conspiracy theory that would sound silly if some of the pieces didn't fit together so well.

For instance, the state's judges have been asking the legislature for pay raises, an effort Senator William Keating (D-Sharon) told the Boston Herald he backed "so judges are not held hostage by legislators holding them up for their own benefit." (Yes, legislators play politics with judges.) And now the legislature has the fate of a $675 million courthouse bond bill in its hands, which has passed both the House and Senate but is waiting for a final vote from a House-Senate conference committee. And lest this bill seem unimportant, bear in mind that this past February, Supreme Judicial Court chief justice Herbert Wilkins stated that one of his top priorities would be to fix up decaying courthouses -- the exact target of the bond bill's millions.

"They're hoping the court's going to do their dirty work," says Dorothea Vitrac-Kelly, founder of the state's term-limits movement, of the legislature. "They're using their control of the purse strings to try to influence that vote."

Of course, most in the State House consider those charges further evidence that the term-limits movement is driven by a bunch of wing nuts. They once had to pay lip service to term limits, but now the movement may have fizzled enough that the pols can dismiss it.

Around the US, court decisions overturning voter-passed initiatives have enraged conservative activists. One of the trendiest conservative causes these days is a call for new powers of "judicial review," allowing politicians to unseat voter-defying judges.

Could that happen here? Probably not. Even the indefatigable Barbara Anderson wonders whether Massachusetts can expect that sort of backlash if the court strikes down a term-limits law passed by just 51 percent of the voters.

"We've been surprised about how people tend to be throwing up their hands and saying, `This is hopeless, there's nothing we can do about it,' " Anderson says.

Indeed, the gas tank of the populist machine looks to be near empty. A thriving economy is comforting those afflicted citizens who lashed out against government during the dark recessionary days of the early '90s. And rising turnover and an improving State House image has sapped that throw-the-bums-out spirit.

It's certainly a far cry from the popular juggernaut that led to the 1980 property-tax limitation Proposition 2¹/₂, Anderson says. "Back in those days, people simply didn't take it. We're seeing a change, and I don't know if the fighters have left Massachusetts, if they gave up after the Dukakis years and went off to go fight somewhere else. Because it isn't like this in the rest of the country."

The frustration that leads to term-limits laws is understandable. On both the national and local levels, government has seemed stagnant, and incumbents have been so hard to defeat that they are barely accountable to their constituents. But term limits is the wrong solution to these problems, and that's why its worth rooting for its defeat. The point of reforming government shouldn't be to restrict voters' options; it should be to give them more choices. The way to do that is through campaign-finance reform, which would give challengers a fairer shot by limiting the role of big money and the power of incumbency in an election.

Cynicism and apathy are nothing to cheer about. But in this case, it's heartening that term limits appear to be in jeopardy, and that the soldiers won't be pouring out of their trenches to fight the decision. For people who want to make government accountable, this is the wrong battle to fight.

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Might it be a little premature to talk about the post-Weld era?

It has become a fundamental assumption of state politics that Weld will leave to become ambassador to Mexico. That Joe Kennedy won't have to face him in the 1998 governor's race. That Lieutenant Governor Paul Cellucci will take the reins of government, and so on.

Well, hold on. This is no sure thing. He still has to be confirmed by the Senate, where the influence of the Republican right -- which gags at Weld's social liberalism on issues like gay rights and abortion -- shouldn't be underestimated.

Some Congressional conservatives have already bitched about the nomination, on the grounds that Weld's support for the medical use of marijuana and for needle-exchange programs shows that he's soft on drugs.

Jesse Helms, who as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee is the gatekeeper of Weld's nomination, is infamous both for his contempt for free-thinkin' Northerners and for his capricious treatment of political nominees.

Add to that Bill Clinton's track record on standing up for his nominees, and his defensiveness about his drug record. It's hard to imagine the White House fighting for Weld if things went sour.

But ironically, it's Weld's greatest virtue, a progressive attitude toward social policy, that could get him through the Washington meat grinder intact.

National Republican committeeman Ron Kaufman, who handled appointments in the Bush White House, says Weld should easily pass.

"If he was nominated to be drug czar, then maybe these things might have more weight. But no one can accuse Bill Weld of being soft on crime or illegal drugs."

Kaufman may be right. But the confirmation process has hardly been a forum for nuanced argument of late. And last we checked, Weld was whipping both Kennedy and Scott Harshbarger in the polls.

Michael Crowley can be reached at mcrowley[a]phx.com.