The Cellucci shuffle

The new governor finds jobs for old friends. Plus, John Kerry's latest odds, and political football on Beacon Hill.

by Michael Crowley

At a time when Paul Cellucci is at work shaping Massachusetts government in his image, nothing may better reflect the governor's mindset than the fact that he's recruiting his barber to run for state office.

The Boston Herald reported last week that Cellucci has been trying to persuade Bob Yesue, proprietor of a successful Hudson haircuttery called Roc's, to seek a state senate seat. The news has been the source of a fair amount of snickering around Beacon Hill, and critics of Cellucci's hairstyle have asked whether that alone should disqualify Yesue from holding office.

But the real significance of the story is that it shows how close to home Cellucci is staying as he tries to form his administration and rebuild an enervated state GOP.

Yesue, the man Cellucci calls "my best friend," is an old pal going back to the two men's days at Hudson Catholic High School. And the seat Cellucci wants him to run for is open because the governor has chosen another buddy from the Hudson Catholic gang -- state senator Robert Durand (D-Marlborough) -- to be his secretary of environmental affairs, replacing outgoing Weld appointee Trudy Coxe. On Tuesday, Cellucci announced that his new senior policy adviser will be Robert Marsh, an auto-industry lobbyist and former colleague from Cellucci's days in the legislature.

It's hard to actually increase Massachusetts government's reputation for insularity, patronage, and parochialism, but Paul Cellucci is doing his best. Free at last from the vagaries of electoral politics after his November gubernatorial victory, he is getting down to the real business of leadership: installing his cronies and political allies in office. Cellucci hasn't made any major blunders -- although there's still time for that -- but nothing he's done since Election Day suggests that his administration will be more than the most expensive autopilot mechanism in history.

"These are fairly high-quality appointments," says state representative Jim Marzilli (D-Arlington). "But they're not daring and they don't show any great vision for the Commonwealth, and I think that continues along with Paul Cellucci's major failing: he's a mechanic. Paul Cellucci's vision of being governor is being the biggest ward boss in the state."

To prove his point, Marzilli offers this anecdote: he recently received a call from a Zamboni driver who has worked at Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) rinks for 20 years, and who was recently told by agency superiors that his services would no longer be needed. When Marzilli called the MDC in an effort to intervene on his constituent's behalf, he was told he'd have to take the matter up with the governor's office. (Marzilli called but never heard back.)

"If the highest officials in the Commonwealth are determining who's driving Zambonis for the MDC," Marzilli says, "we have to assume that the next four years are going to be all about patronage and friendship and the making of public appointments for political gain."

Cellucci may be a "mechanic," but the scramble for post-election goodies hasn't lacked for intrigue. In recent weeks the state Republican Party has become a political snakepit, with current and would-be jobholders scheming, supplicating, and sweating as the governor-elect deals out coveted appointments.

In some cases, that's involved the tricky work of ousting unsuspecting victims from their jobs. Fred Laskey, whom Cellucci had appointed just three months ago to a powerful budget-crafting job as secretary of administration and finance, was given the boot last week to make way for Andrew Natsios, an old Cellucci buddy from their days in the state legislature. Cellucci could do worse than Natsios, who has been thinking globally since joining the US Agency for International Development in 1988. But as the Boston Globe noted, the abrupt axing of the popular and loyal Laskey was "one of Cellucci's clumsiest moves since taking over as governor."

And Cellucci did do worse in appointing House Republican leader David Peters of Charlton as the state's commissioner of fisheries and wildlife. John Phillips, who had spent seven capable years in the post, was a hypereducated environmentalist with experience at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to the State House News Service. Peters, by contrast, has a zero rating from the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and his interest in wildlife appears to consist solely of his zeal for hunting with bow-and-arrow and rifle. But Peters was facing dissent from below in the House, and Cellucci needed to give him an escape route.

At the state Republican committee, executive director Marc DeCourcey will be replaced by deputy Cellucci campaign manager John Brockelman; and while Cellucci has said publicly that Republican Party chair Jean Inman can stay in her job, there are indications that she may be the next to go. Rumors were flying this week about possible Cellucci-picked replacements. And Inman herself won't commit to anything. "I'm still talking to people and making my decision," she warily told the Phoenix this week.

And as the Phoenix went to press, it appeared that Cellucci's controversy-plagued insurance commissioner, Linda Ruthardt, wasn't long for her job either. Several interest groups, and the Phoenix itself, have called on Cellucci to fire Ruthardt, whose unseemly sympathy for big insurers -- and resistance to public scrutiny -- have regularly embarrassed the Republican administration. Yet Cellucci clearly believed that firing Ruthardt would cause more headlines than her behavior; in his no-risk pre-election mode, he simply chose to ignore her.

But it seems that Ruthardt's tarnished tenure has become too much for even his dulled ethical senses. With the election now safely past, the long-overdue Ruthardt putsch is under way. "They're sick of her," says one GOP leader. "There probably isn't one other Republican official who's caused them as much bad press." Ruthardt isn't going easily, however. Her spokesman denied early rumors, obviously planted by Cellucci-ites, that she was seeking another job. Now Cellucci aides, switching from "stun" to "kill," have flatly told the Boston Herald: "she's leaving."

Whether Ruthardt's replacement will be much better is another question. One leading candidate, for instance, is former Democratic state legislator Suzanne Bump, whose job as an insurance lobbyist hardly augurs well for her ability to impartially regulate the industry.

The fact that Bump is a Democrat might also irk members of the party's rank and file, who have already seen one influential Cellucci appointment go to the Democratic Robert Durand, while yet another Democrat -- Senator James Jajuga of Methuen, who broke with his party and supported Cellucci in November's election -- is a leading candidate for the job of secretary of public safety.

Durand is seen by politicos and enviros alike as well-suited for the job. Jajuga, a former state trooper, would be a decent choice as well (even if his selection would have the taint of a quid pro quo for his electoral support). So would outgoing Norfolk district attorney Jeffrey Locke, a Republican who lost his job in November but has a good reputation in both law-and-order and political circles.

Yet one can't help but be underwhelmed by the collection of state senators, has-beens, and political lever-pullers with whom Cellucci is surrounding himself. For perspective, consider some of Bill Weld's early cabinet picks. Weld looked across state lines to bring activist Trudy Coxe from Rhode Island to be his environmental secretary. A think tank, Boston's conservative Pioneer Institute, supplied his brilliant secretary of administration and finance, Charlie Baker. And it was from the Federal Trade Commission that he tapped an up-and-coming Gloria Larson, who would become a highly regarded secretary of economic affairs.

Cellucci can still make appointments that signal a desire for the most capable -- not just the most loyal -- stewardship of the state. Chief among them is the job overseeing completion of Boston's Big Dig. The $10.8 billion project's director, Peter Zuk, plans to leave soon, and messages are piling up in Cellucci's office from job-hunters attracted by the scent of a $160,000 salary. This project is so vast, so critical to the state's budget and public image, that Cellucci must resist the temptation to use the post as a musical chair in his patronage shuffle. Keep an eye on what the governor does. Whether Cellucci chooses a well-connected hack or an established pro will speak volumes about his respect for the public.

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As Massachusetts senator John Kerry continues to mull a possible run for president in 2000 -- with a decision expected sometime next month -- his decision-making process has no doubt been aided by three recent developments. Two of them would seem to work against Kerry's slim chances of occupying the Oval Office -- but, in the strange world of presidential politics, that may not make him any less likely to run.

Last month, Attorney General Janet Reno decided not to appoint an independent counsel to investigate Al Gore's questionable 1996 campaign fundraising tactics. Gore, long groomed to inherit the White House from Bill Clinton, is the undisputed Democratic front-runner. But his standing could have eroded fast had he been saddled with a high-profile ethics investigation. Instead, the campaign-finance scandals are likely to be a distant memory by the time the New Hampshire primary rolls around, and Gore is looking like a political man of steel. (Although it seems there's always a new cloud on the horizon. Witness Tuesday's New York Times piece examining new evidence of China's attempts to obtain technology by influencing the Clinton-Gore administration.)

Despite Gore's growing strength, former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley announced earlier this month that he is all but committed to challenging Gore. Bradley, who retired from the US Senate in 1996, has the kind of national stature and celebrity aura (he won two NBA titles as a New York Knick) to be a formidable candidate -- if he can avoid putting the country to sleep with his cerebral musings.

Another would-be challenger to Gore, Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey, announced last weekend that he'd be sitting out the race. Given that he'd had valuable experience as a presidential candidate before, in 1992, Kerrey was one of the most serious Democrats mulling a run. But he concluded that Gore's political strength would make the effort fruitless.

Bob Kerrey's absence from the race does leave slightly more room for Massachusetts's Kerry. Both men are left-leaning centrists from the Senate, both are war heroes, and their names are nearly identical. But Bob Kerrey would overshadow John Kerry by dint of his money and national experience. Still, Bradley will be the leading moderate alternative to Gore (such liberals as Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone and perhaps House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt already have the left staked out).

The absence of a major Gore scandal, coupled now with the presence of a heavy like Bradley in the race, makes it almost inconceivable that John Kerry could win the Democratic nomination. And yet it's never been clear that that's what Kerry's White House flirtations are about. People run for president for plenty of reasons other than winning: to raise their stature, to earn a cabinet post or a vice-presidential selection, or to warm up for another bid down the line. Which is why even developments that seem to diminish Kerry's chances of winning haven't necessarily made him less likely to run.

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There's little sign that the apparent departure of the New England Patriots for Hartford poses any real political threat to Beacon Hill leaders. But the endless saga does seem to be heightening tensions between the state's two legislative giants, House Speaker Thomas Finneran (D-Mattapan) and Senate President Thomas Birmingham (D-Chelsea). That could have implications for the kind of policy Beacon Hill produces next year.

Finneran is a frugal conservative who was elected with Republican support. Birmingham is a labor liberal who often clashes with Finneran over such progressive legislation as a higher minimum wage, HMO reform, and tax policy. But none of their splits has attracted as much attention as the issue of public funding for the Patriots. Though Birmingham, along with Governor Cellucci, backed a $72 million deal to keep the team in town, Finneran's vehement opposition sent Patriots owner Robert Kraft storming off to Connecticut for a (much) better deal.

As usual, the two men have remained publicly cordial. But Birmingham has sounded more irked than usual in discussing the stadium standoff. "This day did not have to come," he lamented when Kraft announced a deal in which Connecticut would build a $375 million stadium by the year 2001. This week Birmingham had uncharacteristically testy, if indirect, words about the Speaker, telling the Boston Globe that "senators have something to say when asked why the Patriots are leaving." And in anticipation of a coming fight over funding for a new Red Sox stadium, Birmingham is already making it clear that he won't be held responsible if that team goes.

"The public doesn't always differentiate between Finneran and Birmingham," says one State House insider. "They're out there saying `the legislature' killed this. I bet when [Birmingham] walked down the street in Chelsea, people let him hear it. . . . This is a blemish that could grow into something bigger."

Something bigger is just what some Massachusetts progressives want. With a long wish list of legislation, from a raised minimum wage to tax cuts for low-income workers, they're hoping Birmingham can help break what one calls the "Finneran-Cellucci axis" on Beacon Hill in 1999. Some have questioned whether Birmingham has the will to do ideological battle with the Speaker and help revive a lost liberal spirit on Beacon Hill, but this year could be different. And if it takes a political fight over a football team to rouse Tom Birmingham, so be it.

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