Thursday, November 19, 2009
By all means, ‘blame the legislature’ … But …
Minor quibble with OL: The legislature hasn’t been the problem ‘for the last 20 years.’ It’s been the problem for the last half century, after it became a single-party club that resists any and all substantive changes. Major agreement with OL: Republican and Democratic governors may come and go, knocking their heads against a wall and then bolting early to preserve their sanity and dignity. Yet voters keep electing their precious individual lawmakers who keep electing their eminently corruptible leaders. …
But here’s the problem with Deval running a ‘blame the legislature’ theme: No one would want to follow him on a bumbling cavalry charge against the legislature. He’s dangerously unpredictable and legislatively incompetent. One day, he’s fighting the good fight for charter schools. The next, he’s angling for the UMass law-school boondoggle. One day, he’s fighting to reform hack agencies. The next, he’s hiring Jim Aloisi. Etc., etc., etc. On any given day, you never know from which direction he’ll approach an issue.
My hunch is he’s more than a bit disgusted by what he’s seeing and hearing behind the scenes on Beacon Hill, especially the shadow ‘legislative sponsor’ system that’s strangling this state. But he won’t decisively move to untie the Gordian knots held together by the Hack-Progressive Alliance because A.) He can't make up his mind whether he's for or against the alliance B.) He's de facto leader of the alliance.
Minor quibble with OL: The legislature hasn’t been the problem ‘for the last 20 years.’ It’s been the problem for the last half century, after it became a single-party club that resists any and all substantive changes. Major agreement with OL: Republican and Democratic governors may come and go, knocking their heads against a wall and then bolting early to preserve their sanity and dignity. Yet voters keep electing their precious individual lawmakers who keep electing their eminently corruptible leaders. …
But here’s the problem with Deval running a ‘blame the legislature’ theme: No one would want to follow him on a bumbling cavalry charge against the legislature. He’s dangerously unpredictable and legislatively incompetent. One day, he’s fighting the good fight for charter schools. The next, he’s angling for the UMass law-school boondoggle. One day, he’s fighting to reform hack agencies. The next, he’s hiring Jim Aloisi. Etc., etc., etc. On any given day, you never know from which direction he’ll approach an issue.
My hunch is he’s more than a bit disgusted by what he’s seeing and hearing behind the scenes on Beacon Hill, especially the shadow ‘legislative sponsor’ system that’s strangling this state. But he won’t decisively move to untie the Gordian knots held together by the Hack-Progressive Alliance because A.) He can't make up his mind whether he's for or against the alliance B.) He's de facto leader of the alliance.
