The man who dares to defy Speaker Finneran

Part 4

by Michael Crowley

State Representative John Businger (D-Brookline) was furious. For weeks, Businger had been pushing for a smoking ban in the State House, and today his bill was finally scheduled to come up for House approval. It didn't.

"They lost the paperwork," Businger fumed incredulously in a State House hallway. "Lost" paperwork is an inconvenience that seems to befall legislators who, like Businger, did not support Finneran's bid for the speakership last year. "These are vindictive bastards," says one Democratic rep -- not Businger -- who, like many others, didn't want his name used for fear of retribution.

A flustered Businger was venting to anyone who would listen when he spotted just the guy he wanted to see. "Chris!" Businger shouted, taking off after Hodgkins to explain his predicament.

Hodgkins already knew the story. Although the House is in recess until September 15, he had dropped in to that morning's informal session, knowing that informals can be prime time for backdoor high jinks. To Finneran and his men, he is not a welcome presence on such occasions.

"You walk into the chamber and they all go, `Uh-oh -- what's up today?' " Hodgkins says.

But disgruntled reps such as Businger still run to Hodgkins because he remains the mouthpiece for rank-and-file dissent. If anything, Hodgkins's dueling with the Speaker has hit a new zenith.

After Finneran's January re-coronation, the Speaker made his boldest moves yet to consolidate power and settle political debts. Finneran won greater control over the legislative process with a measure making it easier to suspend the rules of the House -- thereby limiting amendments and debate.

But it was another Finneran move -- one with less public significance but much greater potential for voter outrage -- that set the stage for what has become his defining battle with Hodgkins, and one that will reach a contentious conclusion next month: the pay raises.

On the day of his January power grab, Finneran also created no fewer than 10 new leadership posts, to be filled by his supporters from the previous April, all of which would bring pay raises of at least $7500. Four of the positions were newly created "division chairs" -- liaisons between the leadership and the members (who sit in four "divisions" on the House floor) during debates, and who would be paid an extra $15,000 apiece.

The fallout proved embarrassing for Finneran. "We are now going to have paid hall monitors," Hodgkins bellowed on the floor. "Now teacher's pet is a paid position." Barbara Anderson, co-director of Citizens for Limited Taxation and Government, said hopes that Finneran might be of a nobler breed than his predecessors "had been dashed," and the Boston Globe called the division chairs "laughably" unnecessary. But the storm was brief. Even most opponents wearily accepted the plan as routine political patronage. The public, tuned out from State House goings-on, barely noticed. And with Finneran about to announce new committee assignments, the House passed the raises with little rancor.

After that episode, Hodgkins quieted down, perhaps hoping to salvage some goodies for his district during the spring budget process. In fact, he did make out pretty well (winning a state highway-department office for Pittsfield and $75,000 for a home-health-care program), for which he credits his legislative experience and dogged persistence.

The cease-fire was shattered last month, however, when Finneran either made a naive error -- or staged an arrogant act of deception. Although he'd won approval for the pay raises in January, Finneran had never enacted them through a specific funding measure. With the House in recess on July 2, a motion was taken up in an informal session that Finneran had specifically promised would be a noncontroversial "bill-paying exercise." The motion was for the pay raises.

Hodgkins, who says he'd made the long drive back to Lee on the understanding that it would be a no-brainer day in the House -- indeed, 143 of the House's 160 members were absent that afternoon -- went ballistic when he discovered what was happening back in Boston.

As he recounts it, Hodgkins called the Speaker's rostrum, and got Representative Sal DiMasi (D-Boston), a top Finneran lieutenant. "Sal," Hodgkins recalls saying, "you guys are taking up pay raises. That's bullshit!" Lowering his voice to a comic, thuggish mumble, Hodgkins mimics DiMasi's impassive response: "Well, you know, hey, whaddaya want?"

Told by DiMasi that he was powerless, Hodgkins persuaded Representative Pat Jehlen (D-Somerville), who was at the State House that day, to hold the bill up. Finneran's team was infuriated. "They were using language that was turning air blue," says one representative. Ultimately, however, the raises were approved -- retroactive to January 1, no less -- through an unrecorded voice vote.

Finneran's ploy brought Hodgkins back to the fight with a vengeance. He worked the phones, calling the State House press corps (indeed, he has phone numbers for the Globe, the Herald, and the Channel 56 news posted above his desk), and credits himself with touching off a wave of editorial scorn ("Thomas M. Finneran 10, Good Government 0," declared the Globe's Brian Mooney). "I made sure that I did all my calls to get the whole thing rumbling and rolling," Hodgkins says. Needless to say, he was quoted early and often in every resulting story: "Bold and arrogant," he said of Finneran's move. "Outrageous."

Finneran argues that because the pay raises had already passed in January, they were no longer controversial. "We'd had the fight," he says. But Democrats such as Hodgkins believe that, in waiting several months to slip the raises through during an informal session, Finneran showed that he wasn't shooting straight.

The bill must still return to the House for final consideration, probably when the formal session reconvenes, on September 15. Hodgkins says he's got about 30 committed backers for a recorded roll-call vote. He isn't likely to win, but Finneran would clearly prefer to avoid a showdown. A dramatic fight would spur a new wave of news articles, chastening editorials, and mocking cartoons, and might begin to focus public attention on the broader question of the Speaker's sweeping power.

Especially now that the budget has come and gone, there's not much Finneran can do to punish Hodgkins. "They can't even take half of what I have," Hodgkins says, "because half of nothin' is nothin'."

What's more, the pay-raise issue is increasingly a winner in Hodgkins's remote district -- where people are distrustful of the backslapping Beacon Hill culture -- and elsewhere in the state.

"I hear about it in my district," agrees another Democratic rep from a town near Boston. "The average guy is agreeing with Chris Hodgkins."

Part 5

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