E-Mail This Article to a Friend Season on the brink Steve Murphy fights to avoid the political graveyard BY ADAM REILLY
	Related links City Councilor Steve Murphy Official Web site for the at-large city councilor. Campaign Web sites for John Connolly and Matt O’Malley Connolly and Yoon, along with Patricia White and Ed Flynn, are two at-large challengers likely to compete with Murphy for votes in this year’s city election.

Steve Murphy doesn’t want to talk about it. "I don’t want to relive the sheriff’s race," the at-large Boston city councilor tells me as we sit in his City Hall office. "That was last year, and I’m past it."

It’s hard to blame him. Andrea Cabral thrashed Murphy in the 2004 Suffolk County sheriff’s race, and it was the local political story of the year. The outcome transformed Cabral, a political neophyte, into an icon of the so-called New Boston. And it pushed Murphy into an unwelcome role — that of a hapless political dinosaur. Furthermore, it was Murphy’s second unsuccessful bid for higher office since winning election to the council in 1997. (His bid for state treasurer failed in 2002.)

He says he doesn’t want to talk about it. But over the next 45 minutes, Murphy returns to the subject frequently, often without prompting. He shares his frustration with colleagues who endorsed his opponent ("Some of them I wasn’t, frankly, very happy with"), laments Senator Ted Kennedy’s pro-Cabral phone calls ("When people tell you, ‘She’s got Ted Kennedy’s name, but you’re not going to see or hear him,’ you believe it"), and ponders what might have been ("Had I won, I’d be doing things different and better").

Murphy’s struggle to let go of the past is hardly unique. But if the sheriff’s race looms as large in the collective memory of Boston voters as it does in Murphy’s own mind, the councilor could be in serious trouble come November’s city election. Boston has an unusually strong crop of at-large challengers this year, and with Maura Hennigan giving up her at-large seat to run for mayor, Murphy looks like the most vulnerable incumbent. Now, he has four short months to make voters forget last year’s political woes — and if he fails, he may be out of a job.

Mr. Fix-It

To his credit, Murphy recognizes this problem and seems determined to remedy it. During the fall and winter, the question of Murphy’s future — was he re-electable? would he even try? — was widely discussed by Boston politicos. But over the past few months, it’s become clear that Murphy is intent on staying put in City Hall. The hiring of Seth McCoy and Latifa Ziyad as his spokesperson and chief of staff, respectively, showed that Murphy was girding for an aggressive re-election campaign; so did his active presence at community meetings around Boston, and the high profile he’s assumed in the council’s weekly sessions.

The Boston City Council is a notoriously weak body, and it’s difficult to gauge the effectiveness of any one councilor. But Murphy has made some smart choices of late, focusing on issues with substantive heft as well as popular appeal. For example, he’s tapped into the growing consensus that the state’s Criminal Offender Record Information Act, better known as CORI, is seriously flawed (see "Record Time," News and Features, August 29, 2003). In the current CORI framework, guilty convictions can follow job applicants who are subject to criminal-record checks for 15 years, misdemeanors for 10; potential employers can even see charges that were dropped or yielded not-guilty verdicts.

It’s a flawed system — and Murphy, with his reflexive resentment of real or percieved injustice, is a perfect messenger. "People recidivate in the first three years," Murphy says, becoming slightly agitated as he continues. "And if they can’t get jobs because this CORI thing is so outdated and so in need of reform, then when they need the lifeline the most, it’s not there for them. You’re almost pushing them back into doing what they know, which is what got them into jail in the first place." During the sheriff’s race, Murphy says today, he came to realize how flawed the system is; since then he’s filed a second order for a hearing on CORI reform (the first came last year) and testified on the issue on Beacon Hill.

Another of Murphy’s current pet issues — falling groundwater levels in the city — seems an odd choice. The problem is most acute in affluent neighborhoods like the Back Bay and Beacon Hill, which leads some of the councilor’s critics to dismiss his efforts as a play for well-heeled voters. (The fact that McCoy, Murphy’s new spokesperson, is a former reporter for the Boston Courant lends credence to this interpretation.) Murphy, however, insists that the problem is broader than most people realize. "Now it’s shifted over to Chinatown, to parts of South Boston, to the North End, to the Waterfront," he says. "It’s all because of Big Dig impact."

Whether Murphy can get electoral mileage out of these two issues remains to be seen. Both are serious problems — but since district councilors Chuck Turner and Mike Ross are considered the council’s loudest voices for CORI reform and groundwater attention, respectively, Murphy’s newfound interest in these matters may prompt some collegial resentment. "Murphy’s done that before — he sort of expropriates things," says one City Hall observer. "He’s out there looking for good issues, and sometimes he oversteps the line." It’s a habit Murphy comes close to acknowledging, albeit inadvertently, as he touts the city’s increased funding for groundwater monitoring: "It was a fight that I pretty much — with Mike Ross’s help, and a couple others — almost fought on my own."

While Murphy’s legislative plate has been full (he has pushed to regulate the transportation of hazardous materials through Boston, and filed an ordinance that would document safety hazards at the 5000-plus laboratories in the city), the councilor also seems to be conducting an image makeover. Exhibit A is Murphy’s decision to march in Boston’s gay-pride parade this May — which, depending on your point of view, was an admirable public statement or an act of shameless expediency.

During the sheriff’s race, Murphy, who walked out of the council’s vote on a pro-gay-marriage resolution last year, got no public support from the gay electorate. That went to Cabral, who had a long track record of reaching out to the gay-and-lesbian community. In light of this history, Murphy’s decision to march looks like pure trolling for votes. He insists it was a question of principle, however. "Yes, I marched, and I have no problem defending that," he says. "I’ve always felt that it was a civil-rights issue." But then comes a caveat: "It’s not something I have a vote on. It’s not something I want to be out there explaining where I can’t impact it. So I get frustrated at that part of this thing."

Sympathy factor

Assuming Murphy makes it through September’s preliminary election — and no one expects him not to — he’ll face a serious challenge in the run-up to the November final. He has traditionally run well in heavily white, politically moderate neighborhoods like West Roxbury and South Boston, but a few challengers (John Connolly, Patricia White, Matt O’Malley) will likely pull some of these votes away. What’s more, Murphy’s serial office-seeking may have convinced the Boston electorate that it’s time for a change.

Strangely, though, Murphy’s failure last year could prove to be a blessing in disguise. Whatever his liabilities, Murphy has the ability to come across as a genuinely nice guy — someone who deserves a measure of empathy, even if you don’t happen to agree with him. This, in turn, could lead him to benefit from what another City Hall observer terms the sympathy factor. "People might say, gee, Murphy’s had a rough go of it — he’s not a bad guy," he says. "All of a sudden, people might come out of nowhere to help him out."

The councilor’s own willingness to voice his insecurities makes this all the more likely. At the end of our conversation, Murphy offers an unsolicited, oddly poignant take on what he hopes his legacy will be. "I hope that someday — whether I’m here or not, or in some other office — people will say of me, ‘Well, when he was there, he was at least fair.’ That’s one of the kindest things you can have said about you, especially in this business."

Adam Reilly can be reached at areilly[a]phx.com