King of the Hill

Feisty House Speaker Tom Finneran has made himself the most powerful man in state politics. But a turbulent election year will test his ability to stand firm on a 'moral' issue: The state budget.

Talking Politics by Michael Crowley

To get a clear sense of how powerful Tom Finneran has become, just listen to him talk. It's a deeply refreshing exercise.

One of the few joys of state politics, after all, is its rich tradition of verbal groin-kicks and pungent wisecracks that the big cheeses down in Washington are too cautious (or too smart) to let slip. In Massachusetts today, however, the colorful banter of state politics has all but died, the victim of an impulse toward rhetorical caution that has turned the state capitol into a hall of mirthless banality. Tom Birmingham, the Rhodes Scholar Senate president, is hearteningly smart, but dull. And in Paul Cellucci we have an acting governor who, given an entire month, might not come up with a line as good as any Bill Weld could've blurted out in his sleep.

But not the Speaker of the House. Tom Finneran, for better or worse, says what he thinks -- and says it with a zing.

Take the way Finneran denounced free-spending baseball owners in response to a question about whether the Boston Red Sox might get state money to build a new stadium: "If we were the owners of Major League Baseball, and we had been drunk for a month, literally as drunk as we could be for a month, you could not come up with a model that was more destructive to your long-term success."

Or how about Finneran, in a Phoenix interview last April, on the way expensive campaigns often discourage the best-qualified candidates: "I know Scott Harshbarger, I know Joe Malone, I know Joe Kennedy, I know the whole cast of characters. Tom Birmingham would be a better governor than any one of them. I'd be a better governor than any one of them."

When Boston Herald columnist Joe Sciacca asked Finneran in November whether the Speaker was worried that his upcoming trip to a legislative conference in Hawaii might not play so well with the public, Finneran didn't flinch: "My wife tells me I look great in a bathing suit, and she's right. Aloha."

And finally, who could forget the way Finneran recently napalmed New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft -- who was seeking taxpayer money to build his team a new stadium -- as a "whining millionaire," asking, "Have you ever seen such an unappetizing sight?"

To fire off these rhetorical Sidewinders in every direction, one must have supreme confidence. And Tom Finneran, a sinewy, hyperactive Irish Democrat from Dorchester, has got it. As Finneran began his second full year as House Speaker last week, he did so with not just an airtight grip on the House, but a rank as the heavyweight champion of all Beacon Hill. From stadiums to tax cuts to a convention center, nobody calls the shots like Finneran. And at least until a new (non-"acting") governor takes office a year from now, we can expect things to stay that way. Birmingham likes to lie low, stay out of trouble. And Cellucci is too new on the job, and too weakened by the tough election battle he's in this year, to have much clout.

"Tom Finneran, whether we like it or not, is the king of the Hill," says Republican political consultant Kevin Sowyrda. "He's the king because he has two important assets -- fiscal expertise, and political chutzpah like I've never seen before in Massachusetts politics."

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It's been almost two years now since Tom Finneran prevailed in a divisive battle for the Speakership of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, shockingly defeating the man most House Democrats favored by rounding up the votes of the body's 35 Republicans.

That was in April of 1996, and Finneran has been winning ever since.

His success has depended in no small part on an almost unprecedented political power vacuum. Since the 1996 departure of 17-year Senate president Billy Bulger, Beacon Hill has been in continuous flux. Only months after Bulger left, House Speaker Charles Flaherty stumbled off, felled by tax and ethics charges.

Even as the rookies Finneran and Birmingham searched for their footing, the governor's office was becoming virtually irrelevant. Bill Weld got distracted by a run for the US Senate, and when that failed, he found himself utterly bored in the State House. He finally quit in July, handing the reins to Paul Cellucci, who has so far governed quietly and tentatively.

That left Finneran and Birmingham to wrangle over who would become the leading man of state politics -- whom the reporters would seek out first, who would make the boldest moves and the biggest headlines. Birmingham showed little taste for the fight. He spent much of the past year preoccupied with a possible run for Congress (when it looked as if Joe Kennedy would leave his seat to run for governor) and tied up in silly battles like the clash over the State House's new smoking ban, which he tried to resist because of his own unquellable habit. More important, Birmingham hasn't been able to match Finneran's remarkable control over his chamber.

The way Finneran micromanages House committees, chooses what bills will come to the floor, and retaliates against members who don't vote his way has prompted sometimes resentful comparisons to former Speaker John "the Iron Duke" Thompson, who presided some four decades ago.

The net result is that the Speaker gets his way. He can tell Bob Kraft to go to hell (or to Providence, if there's a difference) and get away with it. He can smother an attempt to override Bill Weld's vetoes of measures that would soften the blow of welfare reform, even against the wishes of dozens of House members. And he can stifle a hysterical attempt to pass the death penalty, even if he swears no arms were twisted.

So great is Finneran's influence that the populist anti-tax activist Barbara Anderson now swears more than ever by the grassroots-driven ballot initiative process. "It's the only thing we have in this state as voters and citizens that Tommy Finneran doesn't control," Anderson recently told the Phoenix.

Typically, politicians see power as a way to make things happen. This week, however, Finneran made it clear that in the months ahead, his Speakership will be about what he prevents from happening. For the second year in a row, he outlined his policy agenda in an unusual and typically hubristic "Address to the Citizens of the Commonwealth," delivered just a few days before the governor's traditional State of the State address. And though Finneran did advance a few specific proposals, his basic message to politicians hoping for major tax cuts or spending programs was: Abandon hope.

It's not your standard, convenient political message. The economy is churning out surplus revenue like a washing machine overflowing with suds. Massachusetts already has an extra $500 million in the bank -- the equivalent of nearly 3 percent of its entire fiscal 1997 budget. And a lot of people are eager to do something with that money soon. All four candidates for governor -- including the two Democrats running -- are proposing income tax cuts of more than a billion dollars per year. And shortly after his 45-minute address on Monday afternoon, Finneran said he's been seeing signs of "a very, very strong appetite" for new spending programs.

But Finneran warned gravely against any actions that could make the state as vulnerable to recession as it was in the late 1980s. He invoked the "fiscal and moral implications" of the $1.9 billion the state paid in interest for its recessionary borrowing. Continued funding of the 1993 Education Reform Act -- which mandated $2 billion in CPR for the state's flagging schools -- and potentially huge cuts in federal aid for the Big Dig leave room for only modest tax cuts and spending hikes.

In this, the beating heart of his speech -- and, indeed, of his political identity at the moment -- Finneran left no doubt that the man who truly steers state government doesn't intend to change course:

"Another year's worth of solid economic performance has triggered dueling demands for multibillion-dollar tax cuts as well as for sizable across-the-board spending increases," Finneran said. "To indulge the full extent of either demand is to invite a replay of the budgeting mistakes and miseries of the '80s. To indulge both would be a moral and fiscal disaster which cannot be allowed to recur."

At that, the House chamber erupted in applause. But Finneran can probably expect plenty of boos in the months ahead. His institutional control over the House seems secure; even those critics who say he is dictatorial, antidemocratic, and too conservative for his party appear resigned to him. But in the broader arena of election-year state politics, Finneran will be hard-pressed to compete for public favor with gubernatorial candidates who are pledging to stuff money back into taxpayers' pockets. And so, for the first time, Finneran's philosophy of prudence, patience, and stubborn fiscal conservatism will be put to a true test. For the first time, he will likely become known to the general public for something other than his ornery role in the Patriots stadium debate. And, for the first time, that could jeopardize Finneran's place at the top of the state political hierarchy. After all, where's the constituency for simply sitting on a huge pile of taxpayer dollars?

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An interesting parallel is emerging between Massachusetts's budget debate and the one occurring at the federal level. Last week, for instance, Bill Clinton declared that the once-paralyzing federal budget deficit had been eliminated. Just a few weeks ago, Massachusetts did Washington one better, finally paying off the last of its debts from the Dukakis-era recession.

Now, in both Washington and Boston, surplus tax revenue is piling up. And in both cities, conservatives are clamoring for tax-cutting sprees, while liberals are hoping to push through new spending programs and smaller tax cuts targeted to the poor and the working class.

There's a more personal parallel at work, too. Finneran has a great deal in common with Representative John Kasich (R-Ohio), the boyishly exuberant chairman of the House Budget Committee, who has become his party's most influential fiscal expert. Both made their political reputations as budgeteers (Kasich as chairman of the House Budget Committee, Finneran as chairman of the state House Ways and Means Committee until 1996). Both detest using tax dollars for so-called corporate welfare. And both are barking at liberals and conservatives alike who are knocking at the door with plans they fear will throw their budgets out of balance again.

The difference is that in Washington today, there's a fairly broad bipartisan consensus for playing it safe with the budget. Clinton, Kasich, and a populist liberal like House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt aren't too far apart.

Finneran, on the other hand, doesn't have a lot of prominent allies for his play-it-safe strategy. But politicians often brag that if they're ticking off both sides, they're probably doing something right. With Finneran, this may be the case.

Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation (MTF), a moderate fiscal-policy think tank, says that Finneran is the right man for the moment, calling his frugality "exceedingly appropriate."

"This is clearly a time in which there can be both some significant tax reductions and some targeted spending initiatives," Widmer says. "But it's at our peril if we assume that the present state of economic affairs will continue indefinitely, because they never do. And I'm not talking about a recession, but simply a slower rate of growth. This is certainly the moment to heed the lessons of a decade ago."

Still, it won't be easy for Finneran to stand firm. It was delightful to watch Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, a candidate for governor who backs a huge $1.5 billion tax cut, disingenuously applauding Finneran's lines about fiscal recklessness as he sat a few feet away from the Speaker on Monday. But candidates like Harshbarger may have the upper hand as the 1998 campaigns heat up (remember that Barbara Anderson's proposal for a $1.2 billion cut in the income tax may yet make the November ballot, pending the outcome of a signature-verification process). And if the public is whipped into a tax-cutting frenzy, Finneran's rank and file could panic as Election Day nears.

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Finneran is right that $1.9 billion in interest payments is nothing less than a moral issue. Those dollars could have paid for education reform. They could have supported homeless shelters, job training, environmental cleanups. They could have been returned to families barely scraping by, instead being shipped off to Wall Street creditors.

To Finneran, the moral issue is not just preventing waste, but using government as a force for good. That is the saving grace of his righteous piggy-bank politics.

He is not a bleeding heart. Finneran's reluctance to reopen the welfare-reform debate, for instance, is unfortunate. But he has not been routinely hostile to social programs. He was even cheered by human-service advocates after adding an 11th hour $42 million to last year's budget for legal immigrants about to lose their aid under federal welfare reform. And in what the Massachusetts Human Services Coalition calls "a holiday gift to some of the state's most vulnerable residents," Finneran last month allowed an unexpected surplus of $5.6 million in a supplemental budget to go to the state's food stamp program.

"Unlike some politicians who are opposed to expenditure of any public dollars or are reluctant to see any role, or very little role, for government," says the MTF's Widmer, "the Speaker has a strong sense of the purposes of government and the need to fund programs."

Indeed, Finneran's address, though hardly a socialist call to arms, showed a sensitivity to crucial issues beyond the balance of the budget. He pledged, for instance, that monitoring of education reform would be the House's top priority. He promised a bill to speed the cleanup of polluted "brownfields" in inner-city areas; reform of the state's special-education laws; a study of ways to make adoption easier; and new sentencing guidelines for judges, including fewer mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent criminals. Nothing scintillating, but a solid agenda.

Of course, in the year to come campaign debates about taxes and spending will likely drown out many of those issues. But if Finneran can hold his ground, he will have shifted the budgetary paradigm of state politics -- indeed, he will have tamed one of the most uncontrollable political instincts of all: the urge to do something fast and flashy with available money.

For now, nobody is in a better position to deny this urge than Tom Finneran, the top power broker in state politics. Imagine, for a moment, the scene in a third-floor State House hallway, 20 minutes after Finneran's Monday address. There is the Speaker, in a light-blue shirt and plain red tie, standing by the door to his office, surrounded by a tight semicircle of reporters and TV cameras. A Boy Scout troop touring the capitol happens down the corridor. The camera lights are bright on Finneran's face, and what could be more exciting for the kids than TV in the making? The troop pauses to gawk at the minor spectacle, and one brave, brown-uniformed boy, perhaps 12 years old, wanders close to get a better look. As he reports back to his shier mates, his breathless exclamation is both factually incorrect and brilliantly appropriate.

"Wow," he gasps, " . . . it's the governor!"

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