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Article 8 Alliance – Massachusetts
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** June 3 Update ** Statewide movement to remove the SJC 4 and take back our government. Same-sex marriage in Massachusetts CAN be stopped.
In this update: Today’s meeting with Rep. Angelo Scaccia, chairman of the House Rules Committee.
NEWS ITEM: Philadelphia touted as gay destination [Boston Globe] The Globe included this tidbit in today’s paper. Maybe they’re worried that another state might be catching up to Massachusetts in the race toward total depravity. (Obviously, more tax money is needed):
=== Today’s meeting with Scaccia ===
Well, Rep. Angelo Scaccia kept to his word. He met with a half-dozen people (five of whom are constituents) for a 2½ hour meeting at his office in Hyde Park.
As you know, Rep. Scaccia is chairman of the House Rules Committee, and the bill of address has been languishing there for far too long. The scuttlebutt first was that he’s been personally holding it up, later that Rep. Salvatore DiMasi, the Majority Leader, who is also on the rules committee, had ordered him to sit on it. Some of Scaccia’s constituents were told by his staff that the problem was that the votes weren’t there in the committee to pass it.
On Monday, DiMasi told constituents that he was definitely NOT holding up the bill, and that the Rules Committee had not discussed it or voted on it. Other reps had told us that the rules committee never voted on anything – that the chairman made all the decisions.
Up until now, it’s been virtually impossible to get Scaccia himself to talk to anyone about it. And that only aggravated both the rumor mill and sense of outrage.
So . . . we all eagerly looked forward to this meeting.
Angelo Scaccia is a 30-year veteran of the House, knows the ropes, is an insider, in the leadership, and, he says, is a loyal team player. There’s a lot about him to like and respect. He’ll look you in the eye and say what he means. If he doesn’t want to tell you something, or would refuse to do something, he’ll say that up front rather than try to slither around it like a lot of reps would do. We were most definitely a very hostile crowd. But he was willing to talk with us for as long as we wanted.
And in many ways, he’s one of us. He was outraged at the SJC decision and told us that he believes that the four judges should be removed. As a Democrat, his track record shows him to be generally well grounded in moral principles, although a bit leftish on economic issues – the exact opposite of all those horrid so-called “economic conservative socially liberal” principle-deprived Republicans we’ve all come to despise.
But the bill of address is still sitting there. What’s going on?
First of all, to hear a 30-year veteran talk frankly about how politics works in the Massachusetts Legislature is not for the weak of stomach. One of the main rules seems that there are no rules that can’t somehow be circumvented for some things, or made to hold fast and hard for others. In particular, the Rules Committee seems to work more on custom and understandings than any formal structure. In that situation, even an decent guy will be manipulated by people and events if he wants to keep his job.
(We mentioned to him that our assessment is that the Speaker is being neutral on this. Scaccia said he had not talked to the Speaker, but seemed to agree with that from what he’d heard.)
He said there is definitely political pressure being put on him on this. He wouldn’t name names, but someone powerful on the committee is using a political maneuver to force a vote on the committee on our bill. (This is not technically “holding it up”, so DiMasi in our opinion is the prime suspect.)
Even though OUR count shows us winning in the 15-member House Rules Committee, Scaccia says it still ain’t so. In a closed-room vote, there are a few “good” reps who will tell us one thing but not really have the courage to actually do it in front of their colleagues. And it’s clear that most of the 15 members (both “bad” and “good”) would rather die than be forced to let the public know how they voted on this. But convention calls for a closed-room vote, and he cannot violate that, he said.
Interestingly, last week we got a call back from Rep. Elizabeth Poirier, a Republican member of the Rules Committee. She said she was very upset at all the phone calls she’s gotten accusing her of not supporting us. “I’ve always supported pro-family issues,” she said. “You should not be treating your friends so badly!” she scolded us. So we asked her if she would commit to supporting the bill of address when it came up for a vote. Uh . . . she refused to answer the question, but re-stated that she’s “always supported our issues” and that we should be satisfied with that. (Well, Betty, that’s how we ended up with that bogus constitutional amendment. We trusted too many “good” reps to do the “right” thing.)
Scaccia reinforced some things we’ve been hearing a lot around the State House. The reps are just plain tired and weary of the gay marriage issue. The whole, absurd constitutional convention process was particularly bad – in the end it was “the worst 3 days of my life,” he said. (And they’re certainly glad to have a rest from the constant harangue from vulgar, enraged, often emotionally unbalanced homosexual activists accusing them of hate crimes.)
Basically, they’re tired of it all. Scaccia said a lot of reps want us to wait until next session and try this then, rather than now, and strongly urged us to do that. [NOTE: Translate also as “AFTER the November elections are over”.]
Also, a VERY important thing we’ve been picking up is how incredibly uninformed most reps are about this issue, and how uneducated many reps are about the constitutional process, separation of powers, etc. Scaccia is much smarter and better informed than most, but he was just finding out about Margaret Marshall’s helping gay groups raise money prior to writing the Goodridge ruling. And he was not sure about the difference between impeachment and removal of judges (admittedly, an esoteric point up until now but very important). And judging from some of DiMasi’s public statements, our House Majority Leader doesn’t seem to have a clue about a lot of very basic constitutional principles (or, maybe he’s just playing up to the gay activists).
Prognosis: All this having been said, there seems to be a growing belief, and Scaccia agrees, that if it gets through the Rules Committee this CAN get through the House of Representatives but would run into problems in the Senate. (We really HAVE made a lot of progress.)
But right now, the Rules Committee is the problem, and the problem is strictly political.
This is a challenge, but we will get through it. Give us a day or so to mull this over. As they say: Don’t touch that dial.
Conclusion Although many members are annoyed at what has happened, the Massachusetts Legislature is still disconnected from understanding the immense social destruction and loss of control of the political process by the people which they are allowing to exist by their inaction. They don’t get it. To them, they are merely professional legislators, and this is just another unfortunate political development that we’ll just have to deal with. Heck, we can just wait until 2006 and vote on the civil-unions-equals-marriage amendment. But for now, summer’s coming up, and let’s just move on.
Well, we don’t think so. Revolutions have been fought for less than this. This is a defining moment for all of us. America, and the world, is watching us. This is the time we need to step up to the plate and take back our own government. We hope you don’t have a lot of plans for the next eight weeks. Because we have other plans. And they include all of you, if you’re serious about your children’s’ future.
The citizens must decide what’s “doable”, not a disengaged legislature. And we will not “wait.” Getting back control of our government must happen by the our timetable, not by a gaggle of politicians.
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