PAX Centurion - January / February 2013

www.bppa.org PAX CENTURION • January/February 2013 • Page 25 See Crowley on page 33 By James Barry, BPPA Legislative Agent Politics and politicians to watch in 2013 A long with a new Senate campaign coming up, Governor Deval Patrick will appoint an interim U.S. Senator to replace John Kerry. Patrick also has another plumappointment tomake. Since he’s bringing Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral into his Cabinet as public safety secretary, Patrickwill name a sheriff who could hold that post until a special election that would be held in November 2014. The 2013-2014 legislative session gets underway this month. Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Robert DeLeo are ex- pected to be reelected to their posts and offer some agenda-setting remarks. Waiting for the last seven years the long-anticipated transportation system financing proposal was announced by Gov. Deval Patrick. The reform before revenue BS that accompanied a 2009 transportation reform law was somewhat misleading in that the reform bill that passed that year also earmarked amajor infusion of sales tax revenues for the transportation system. Reforms have shown little in increased revenue. Speaker DeLeo this year declined to re-up his no-new-taxes pledge for 2013, a choice be- lieved to be connected to the anticipated debate on transportationfinancing. Patrick is expected to present transportation financing options, including an open road tolling system, and let lawmakers choose which ideas they like or add their own proposals. Real leadership here. Senate President Murray heads into her final two years as Senate president. The implications are huge. Opening a door for Jack Hart? The $32.5 billion budget started falling out of balance almost immediately, as revenues needed to support the spending failed to materialize. Patrick or- dered emergency spending cuts in the executive branch andfiled legislation seeking to drain $200million from the state’s rainy day fund and calling on the Legislature, the Judiciary and constitutional officers tomake their own mid-year budget cuts. Patrick also wants the authority to cut unrestricted local aid by 1 percent, an idea that’s not popular among many lawmakers. The gap is about $540 million. Cuts and more cuts. Don’t count out theMayor.BostonMayor ThomasMenino mayormay not announce his decision about theNovember 2013 election. He has plenty of time. If I was betting I would not bet against his not being a candidate for re-election. If Menino seeks a sixth term, the question becomes who would run against him and risk ending up like all of his other challengers? Menino, who is on themend froma series of health problems, (nothing that he can’t improve his health on) has been there before and has bounced back.Aopen race coulddrawinterest fromReps. MartinWalsh and Linda DorcenaForry, SuffolkCountyDistrictAttorney DanConley, and current Sheriff Andrea Cabral, to name just a few. With Patrick planning to vacate the governor’s office at the end of the approaching two-year session, Massachusetts has a wide-open gov- ernor’s race and few candidates so far. Among Democrats, Treasurer Steven Grossman and Lt. Gov. TimMurray are giving the race serious consideration. Republican Charles Baker, who lost to Patrick in 2010, is weighing another run. Sen. Scott Brown can’t be ruled out until he rules himself in or out. The evolving field to date features mostly experienced political hands and both parties are undoubtedly searching for candidates who fit the profile Patrick brought with himinto the 2006 election – charismatic, experienced, newcomer. ShouldGrossman opt for a run at the governor’s office, the trea- surer’s race could draw a big crowd. Each race will be watched on its own merits over the next two years, but also for its impact at the State House, where Murray and Grossman can use their current offices to try to score political points. In the summer of 2012, before an evidence-tampering debacle became the biggest story on the criminal justice front, the next big story was sup- posed to be a run in 2013 by Patrick and the Legislature at sentencing and other reforms that got squeezed out of a repeat violent offender law signed by the governor this summer. “We must also get serious about reforming mandatory minimum sentences,” Patrick said a few days before signing the so-called three strikes bill. “Like I said, thewarehousing of non-violent drug offenders has proven to be a costly failure. It does nothing to improve public safety and it doesn’t deal with the substance abuse that is the source of the problem. States across the country are moving away from it and we must, too.” Now, if proponents of those reforms intend to keep the pressure on, they’ll need to compete for attention with the ongoing fallout from the lab scandal, which sapped the public’s faith in the system. The lab scandal itself will require significant amounts of legislative attention to both pay for the major costs (hundreds of millions of dollars) associ- ated with unraveling the damage to ensure that the situation never repeats itself, and to deal with inmates released as a result of the debacle.Whether the public support is there for additional reforms aimed at further easing prison overcrowding by changing sentencing laws for certain offenders remains an open question. The repeat violent offender law approved this summer includes a measure to make some drug offenders eligible for earlier release, but dropped reforms dealing with wiretapping laws and post-release supervisionof inmates. HouseSpeakerRobertDeLeohas said a $30million request fromPatrick to deal with the drug lab fallout sounds like the correct figure for starters and has indicated that allocation may be part of the fiscal 2013 mid-year budgetbalancing bill expected sometime from the HouseWays and Means Committee in January. There’s a lot less certainty about when and how aggressively Beacon Hill’s Big Three will move on sentencing and justice system reforms. Before the New England Compounding Center was linked to tainted steroids that caused a deadly fungalmeningitis outbreak across the country, regulation of compounding pharmacies was not a topic on anyone’s radar screen on Beacon Hill. It is now, and reforms are expected early in 2013 to try to plug what officials say are gaps in regulation of the industry at the stateand federal levels. Massachusetts ConventionCenterAuthority officials are quietly going about the business of plotting amajor expansion to theBostonConvention andExhibitionCenter. The project could cost $2 billion andwill inevitably run into criticswhowill question both its necessity and expense.Authority officials believe the expansion is needed to keep Boston in the top tier of desirable convention cities. They expect legislation to be filed in January to address financing. Project financing will likely compete for attention with the transporta- tion revenue proposal and a series of high-dollar bond bills expected to demand attention in 2013.