Generous John

Kerry outgives Gore, Finneran clamps down, and Keane courts labor's ire

Talking Politics by Michael Crowley

Vice President Al Gore, that increasingly reliable magnet for controversy, burned himself again this month when his 1998 tax returns revealed that he'd donated a piddling $353 to charity.

Never mind that it's a bogus controversy (in the two previous years, Al and Tipper gave away more than $85,000 of income). The latest Evil Al flare-up is a reminder of a recent lowlight in the political career of one of Gore's potential rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000: US Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts).

During his 1996 Senate race against then-governor Bill Weld, Kerry was left beet-faced by the news that he'd given less than 1 percent of his income to charity from 1990 to 1995 -- a public-relations fiasco intensified by word that in 1993 Kerry had splurged on a high-powered Italian motorcycle that cost $8600.

Kerry appears to have learned his lesson. Last month his tax returns listed $21,850 in charitable contributions made in 1997 -- or a very biblical 10 percent of his adjusted gross income of $217,338. (A sampling of Kerry's donations: $1000 to the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children; $500 to Boston's Pine Street Inn; and $50 to the not-as-needy Yale men's lacrosse team.)

It was the second year in a row that Kerry gave away a tenth of his income -- something obviously made a lot easier by his 1996 marriage to ketchup heiress Theresa Heinz, who has a net worth of $760 million.

Kerry maintains that critical measurements of his record of giving had "a slant" to them, because they never included his larger pre-1990 donations. But he does acknowledge that he's made a more concerted effort to give to the needy.

"The very simple answer is that some years you're in a better position than others," Kerry says. "I said [in 1996] I'd do better, and I've been doing it."

And as for Gore, his potential White House rival?

"I think the evidence is that he and Tipper give a lot of effort and time and energy," Kerry says, noting the Gores' generosity of previous years. "I'm certainly not going to pile on."

Budget busters

The state House of Representatives kicks off its annual budget debate next week, and once again, micromanaging House Speaker Tom Finneran seems determined to keep the process under tight control.

Since taking over, Finneran, a former Ways and Means chairman who is a master of budget detail, has had his leadership team compile a briefing book at budget time tallying the wish list of every member.

This year, Finneran appears to have taken the fastidious record-keeping a step further. Last month, the office of House Ways and Means chairman Paul Haley (D-Weymouth) -- who is a top Finneran lieutenant -- contacted all House members with a tally of every budget request they'd made personally or signed on to with colleagues, asking them to explain their wish lists.

From Finneran's perspective, it's a way of bringing discipline to a budget process that has often turned into an unruly spending spree. But to those outside Finneran's inner circle, the Speaker's habit of keeping such detailed tabs on his flock has an unnerving Big Brother quality.

"Their managerial techniques have allowed [House leaders] a much higher degree of control than in the past," says one House Democrat. And control is what Finneran likes best.

"If you watch almost any debate now, it's not one that occurs with a legislator thumping the podium," says this source. "It's one with five or ten people around the Speaker's chair trying to negotiate things without even having any public discussion." You can expect plenty of that during next week's budget debate.

Meanwhile, Ways and Means spokesperson Kim Rezendes says the committee did, in a first, ask House members in writing to explain their budget requests. But -- with curious circumspection -- she insisted it was no big deal.

"The notice is a new practice, but it wasn't enforced," Rezendes said.

What would enforcing it have meant?

"We didn't enforce it, so I wouldn't speculate on that."

But then how do you know you didn't enforce it?

"I have no idea."

Such is life in the House of Finneran.

Wage rage

When the Boston City Council passed a "living wage" ordinance last August, councilor Thomas Keane cast the lone dissenting vote against the law.

Now, just as Keane kicks off a tough race for Congress this year, the living-wage issue is brewing up again, pitting the Back Bay councilor against one of the most powerful forces in the Eighth Congressional District: labor.

Set to take effect on July 1, the living-wage law would require any firm under contract with or receiving subsidies from the city of Boston to pay its workers a minimum of $7.49 an hour.

The support of the state's politically potent labor giants helped rush the measure through the city council, but Keane had reservations. In a Boston Herald opinion piece last August, he called the ordinance "the single most important, and destructive, piece of economic legislation to pass the council in the last decade." Saying he backs a living wage in theory, Keane protested that vague wording in Boston's law made it too broad, and that it contains an "onerous" requirement that businesses publicly report their wages.

Last month, Keane's prodding and business-community pressure persuaded city council president Jim Kelly to call for modifications to the law that would address those language and public-reporting issues. (Council labor committee chairman Mickey Roache, the law's top proponent, says a hearing has yet to be scheduled.)

With the state AFL-CIO opposing any changes to the law, however, some political observers say it's folly for Keane to agitate labor just as his campaign gets off the ground. He'll be able to gauge the truth of that perception on May 27, when the AFL-CIO holds a forum for Eighth District candidates at the Charlestown Teamsters' Hall.

But Keane, who fills a more centrist niche than do many of his likely congressional rivals, may not necessarily crave labor's support. Instead, he can expect accolades from good-government types like the Boston Globe editorial page -- which last summer called the living-wage ordinance "flawed" -- and the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a business-funded city-government watchdog group that has called the law "ill-advised, seriously flawed, and costly for the city."

"The problem is that the explanation on this is not something you can put on a bumper sticker," Keane says. "It's kind of complicated."

Perhaps a bigger problem for Keane, however, is what you can put on a bumper sticker -- fairly or not. Just ask the mayor, who took on a good fight when he resisted a recent law stripping certain powers from Boston's police commissioner. Think he likes those MAYOR MENINO: ANTI-LABOR stickers popping up around town?

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