Executioner's song

A special-election question: can a local politician win on the death penalty?

City Hall by Yvonne Abraham

Maureen Feeney, ordinarily the jolliest of politicians, is very angry tonight.

The district councilor from Dorchester arrives at the annual Saint Ann's Parish Turkey Shoot wearing a tiny rhinestone angel pin and a frown. Less than a month after her reelection to the city council, Feeney is campaigning for the Democratic primary nomination in a December 9 special election to replace long-time Senator Paul White, who has left the State House to become a vice president at Boston College. Whoever wins the primary will almost certainly win the final. Among her opponents is the freshman representative from the Seventh Suffolk, Brian Joyce.

"Guess what I just heard?" she says. "Brian Joyce went up North Main Street, in Randolph, and told people they had no right to have my signs up because he's their state rep. So they took them down."

Tonight, Feeney greets a lot of her supporters -- many of whom already address her as senator -- with long hugs and the Joyce news. The parishioners are outraged for her, and tell her she's going to win anyway. Feeney is bolstered.

"He's about to find out what it's like to mess with a Dorchester woman," she says loudly.

More than anything else, it's Feeney's status as a Dorchester woman that made her the favorite in this race long before it officially began. Because despite the fact that the very large district up for grabs (called the Suffolk and Norfolk) is one of the state's most diverse, this special primary is as narrowly focused as any city council fight. Ordinarily, it's difficult for Boston politicians to make the journey from the municipal level to the lofty heights of statewide office. This race is a rare exception: because there's no time for a real campaign, it has brought the mountain to Dorchester.

But less parochial passions have come here, too. This election is the first state contest to be held since a bill to reinstate capital punishment nearly passed the state legislature. The death penalty debate is more highly charged now than it has been for decades.

As a result, this race has oscillated between the local issues and the Big Questions. Some days, it's about who will be best at marshaling constituents: Feeney, Brian Joyce (who has Milton sewn up), Feeney's council colleague and fellow Senate candidate Maura Hennigan (whose most committed constituents live outside this Senate district), or Eleanor Mulloney LeCain, who has never held office before. Other days, it's about how the worst crimes -- such as the murder of Jeffrey Curley -- should be punished. And Maura Hennigan, with the Curleys' help, has cornered the market on that one.

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The folks gathered at Saint Ann's parish hall are not especially diverse: they are mostly white, mostly of Irish descent, all Catholic, and all Maureen Feeney's.

But outside the hall, and beyond Dorchester, it's a different story. The Suffolk and Norfolk district is even more diverse than it was nine years ago, when Paul White won it after 16 years as a state representative. It covers the city areas of Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park, Roslindale, and Jamaica Plain, as well as sections of suburban Canton, Milton, Avon, and Randolph. Several of those areas -- Avon, and parts of Canton and JP -- were added in the redistricting of 1992.

How to win in such a wide-ranging district? The trick is for candidates to work their own turf. And in a contest like this, in the dead of winter, in the middle of the holiday season, and with what would normally be an eight-month campaign squeezed into the five weeks after city elections, turf is even more important than usual.

Joyce has turf: his stronghold is Milton, but he's pretty solid in Canton and Randolph, too. Part of his campaign strategy has been to pit his suburban base against the other candidates' city constituencies. THEY WANT TO KEEP TAKING OUR MONEY AND GIVING IT TO THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS, blares one of Joyce's recent newspaper advertisements. DON'T LET THEM DO IT! (He did not agree to be interviewed for this story.)

Hennigan has turf, too, but part of it -- political-junkie-filled West Roxbury -- isn't in this Senate district, which leaves her with less-fervent Jamaica Plain.

Feeney, however, has the best turf: voter-rich Dorchester, where a good record on delivering constituent services has made her popular, and where turnout is traditionally among the highest in the city. And in this election, that may be all she needs.

"We gotta keep this seat in Dorchester," Ed Sullivan, a gruff, 60-ish supporter tells Feeney at the turkey shoot. Sullivan says he has ties to the Hennigan family. "But I'm voting for Dorchester," Sullivan says. "I'm voting for you."

Later on, Sullivan calls Feeney over to tell her he's for her in spite of her opposition to capital punishment. Feeney listens patiently, secure that she's on solid philosophical ground. She is very Catholic and staunchly pro-life -- which to her means anti-abortion and anti-death penalty -- and Sullivan doesn't give her too much of a fight.

It's not the first time in the past month that Feeney has been called upon to justify her position on capital punishment, and it probably won't be the last. For the first few weeks of the race, the issue seemed set to consume the election.

That was largely Hennigan's doing. Her support for capital punishment has set her apart from the rest of the field and directly against Joyce, who came out against it after vacillating publicly in the State House vote. Hennigan benefits from the controversy: a big, hot issue like the death penalty can help her appeal to voters across the entire district.

Hennigan insists that this is not a case of political expediency, however. "I ran for the Senate seven years ago," she says. "And I was pro-choice, pro-domestic partnerships, and pro-capital punishment. All they focused on was the pro-choice part, and they didn't care that I was pro-capital punishment. In this campaign, I'm for exactly the same issues, and all they want to focus on is the death penalty."

That focus would probably not have been so relentless if Hennigan hadn't been endorsed by the Curley family, whose 10-year-old son, Jeffrey, was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered in October. The Curleys, who live in Cambridge, have been in the Senate district handing out what look like the palm cards from Catholic funerals. The cards have Jeffrey's picture on them and say, in part, "We ask you to support our son's legacy with your vote for Maura Hennigan."

That has exposed Hennigan to charges of political opportunism. Even her friend Maureen Feeney disapproves. "Did you see that palm card?" Feeney says. "It's horrible!"

Hennigan bristles at that accusation. "The Curleys requested the palm card," she says. "They came to me. I never contacted them. I'm not going to second-guess the way they support me. It's their child."

Feeney believes the issue is finally receding: "That political football has been deflated," she says. But not before it cost Hennigan the support of her own Ward 19 (Jamaica Plain) Democratic Committee. "There were people who felt that we owed her an endorsement," committee chair Jen Wofford says. "[But] even more had real hesitations because of the death penalty."

Eleanor Mulloney LeCain has picked up some of Hennigan's former supporters in JP. She is the only candidate in the race who is both pro-choice and anti-death penalty. She was campaign manager for Rosaria Salerno's first at-large council run, and an adviser to former lieutenant governor Evelyn Murphy. LeCain has doggedly focused on issues such as economic opportunity, higher education, environmental protection -- all naturals for somebody seeking statewide office.

"The issues city councilors deal with are substantially different from the issues people deal with at the State House," says Wofford, who personally supports LeCain. "Snow removal and basic city services don't necessarily prepare somebody to deal with issues like abortion or the death penalty."

And that is probably even more true in this era of shrinking opportunities for citywide representation. Since the school committee went from elected to appointed in 1991, and nine of the city council seats went from at-large to district representation in 1983, city politics has been increasingly bound to local constituent services. That has made it hard for municipal politicians to make the jump to the next level.

But this is a special election, an exception to what has become the rule in Boston, a rare opportunity to ascend straight from the district to the state level. Turnout promises to be very low: that's good for politicians with fervent voters as constituents. That's good for Maureen Feeney.

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And what's good for Maureen Feeney is also good for the many Dorchester hopefuls lining up to take her place. Boston politics is like a huge, overcrowded game of musical chairs, and the music doesn't stop very often. Incumbents are rarely defeated. There are a lot of frustrated political animals out there, especially in Dorchester.

If Feeney is elected to the Senate, there will be ripples all the way back to the local level, and a special election to replace her, probably in early spring. That contest will draw about a dozen contenders. Chief among them will be Charlie Burke, Dorchester fixture and aide to city councilor Mickey Roache. "There's a million people interested," he says. "I've got people calling me about it every day."

Jim Hunt, White's godson and former legislative aide, will probably run, too. (He ran for Jim Brett's vacated House seat back in March.) Brendan McDonough, the young head of the Dorchester Educational Enrichment Program, a successful public tutoring program, might also enter the race. (Several people say he would be Mayor Menino's preferred candidate). Other possible candidates include Steve Bickerton, president of the Cedar Grove Civic Association; Pamela Smith, who ran for an at-large council seat in November; Mike Macken, captain of the city's code enforcement unit; Barry Mullen, who ran against Feeney in the last election; lawyer Charlie Tevnan, who also ran for Brett's seat; and possibly LeCain if she's unsuccessful on December 9.

A few of these contenders also considered running against Feeney for the Senate seat, a testament to just how local this state race is.

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Which doesn't augur well for Hennigan, who remains fixed on her Big Question.

On a bitter-cold Wednesday afternoon, dressed in a cream suit and running shoes, she is visiting the Farnsworth Senior Housing complex, in Jamaica Plain. She's been campaigning hard for over a month now, and her green Ford Explorer looks as if she's been living in it, crammed to the ceiling with HENNIGAN '98 signs.

She arrives at a birthday party for one of the residents, a sweet old woman called Violet. "Happy birthday, Violet," Hennigan says, giving her a hug and a single yellow carnation. "Twenty-one again, eh? Just like me. That's a lovely color you're wearing."

Hennigan takes the floor, talking for a long time about education and breast cancer screening. Her listeners nod politely as they scoop up ice cream.

"And I want you to know I do support capital punishment," she says. That view is more likely to get Hennigan a good reception here than elsewhere in JP, where more liberals are concentrated; yet most of the old folks are unmoved.

But wait: as Hennigan finishes her death penalty spiel, a wiry man in glasses seems agitated. He raises his hand.

"What do you think of bicycles on the sidewalk?" he says.

Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yabraham[a]phx.com.