"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates."I found the "Saturday Chat," by Kendall Wallace, in The Lowell Sun this last Saturday to be interesting. It talked about our legislative team up on Beacon Hill.
- Tacitus
The "Chat" talked about those four gentlemen in terms that suggested they were irreplaceable. As one Sun personality said to me on Sunday, they are the ones who bring home the beacon, or words to that effect. In Mr Wallace's word, "Delegation has moved mountains."
Here is the line of reasoning:
But places like Lowell can never forget that old cities are fragile and need lots of shoring up that often can only happen when you have some tough political clout that can often move mountains.There you have it. We dare not run someone else for Beacon Hill, because we need all the clout the current four folks bring to the job—unless, of course, there is a revolution and the Republicans sweep into office, in which case we are had. But, that is unlikely to happen. That will never happen.
Hopefully the city can continue to make progress, be better run, more efficient and become less dependent on help from state and federal agencies.
But until that time, it still needs all the help it can get.
And those who think Democracy survives best when there is competition and those who keep quoting that ancient Brit about power corrupting are just behind the times. It is a new world and Beacon Hill will lead us out of the wasteland and into the new promised land.
I am, however, nervous about Pennsylvania US Rep John Murtha being in Boston to raise money recently. I hope none of our four were at the event, getting tips on how to legislate. That would not be good.
Regards — Cliff
PS: Note that since this is a link to an article in The Lowell Sun, it will likely expire in 30 days. I will not be updating the link at that point unless I am shut in with the Swine Flu.
I always like to hold out hope that a rep's ability to deliver popular votes can counterbalance his or her [corrupt] tenure-based "influence". Imagine the voting numbers start to both increase and coalesce behind a strong candidate(s) in Lowell... Statewide and statewide-ambitious pols (of which house leaders often are) aren't going to miss that.
ReplyDeleteOur problem is that the four yahoos "representing" us on Beacon Hill aren't actually representing us at all, and so their "influence", whatever it might be, is never going to be used for our benefit. (THAT'S the logical flaw in Kendall's bogus argument). These are the chislers who happily caucused to scuttle our primary election, and to do just about whatever the gang of six told them to do. The right move for an informed and self-interested electorate would be to fire their patronage politics IMMEDIATELY, no matter how junior their replacements will turn out to be.
Don't think that Deval and all the other patronage pols aren't terrified of the changes and anti-incumbent sentiments that are stirring right now, and they'll be most accomodating of the leaders for change in their committee shake-ups next time around so as to try to surf that wave instead of become sunk by it. Of that I have confidence.
Screw party. It's about ethical competence now.