For every inaction, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. This could be Sir Isaac Newton’s unwritten law. Or perhaps a brand new one for Massachusetts legislative leaders.
If lawmakers thought they could quietly slip out of the Statehouse in the wee hours of last Thursday after failing to do their job, Monday’s dawn was a jolt to their system. At least to those who showed up after embarking on what amounts to a seven-week paid vacation.
Those that did show up had to be careful not to get poked in the eye by the fingers of blame being pointed.
The vast House chamber was not being outfitted for an emergency overflow shelter for migrants — just yet. Not so just across Boston Common at the state Transportation Building, where cots were being set up in MBTA conference rooms as temporary overnight shelters.
There were creatures stirring though — outside the Golden Dome. Public employees, the collateral damage from the shelter stalemate that halted lawmakers from agreeing on a closeout fiscal 2023 budget that included pay raises for roughly 60,000 state workers.
“It is unfair and immoral for the Commonwealth to continue to take advantage of its workforce‚” said Ethel Everett, who has worked for DCF for 33 years and traveled to Monday’s rally from Springfield. She said her contract affords her and others an 8 percent raise she has yet to receive. “Stop playing politics with our lives and with our families.”
Coal in their Christmas stockings, courtesy of the General Court?
House Speaker Ron Mariano tossed a few fingers around in a statement that omitted the reality that the stalemate was precipated by an 11th hour proposal to mandate the Healey administration create an overflow shelter system.
“Recent reports of families sleeping at Logan Airport, and now at a temporary overflow site at MassDOT, are emblematic of the need for funding that is specifically reserved for overflow shelter options with greater capacity," Mariano said in a statement. "The House remains committed to ensuring that families in Massachusetts have somewhere safe and warm to sleep at night, and will continue to urge the Administration to identify additional overflow shelter sites going forward.”
There was at least one “winner” in this mess — the vastly outnumbered Republican lawmakers who now hold the key to opening the taps by virtue of legislative rules that say just one objection can stop action in its tracks.
Massachusetts government is one of the most opaque in the nation — with the governor’s office, Legislature and the courts exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
You can often hear a pin drop in the once boisterous 4th floor press gallery as the news induastry has shriveled and coverage of government and politics now largely focuses on the players and strategies and not the issues.
Perhaps lawmakers thought what has been a lengthy power struggle between the House and Senate would pass without notice.
Monday was only one day. But it would be wise for legislative leaders to recognize they may have woken a slumbering electorate.