Worcester County Freedom Trail

This just in from State House News…

In a decision handed down less than four hours after the hearing, Supreme Jucidial Court Justice Judith Cowin forwarded the full seven-member court a lawsuit demanding that Senate President Robert Travaglini call a vote on a gay marriage ballot initiative or forcing Secretary of State William Galvin to put the amendment on the 2008 ballot. A hearing for arguments is set for December 20 at 9am. In her decision, the plaintiffs, who incude Gov. Mitt Romney and former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, are required to submit briefs by Friday, December 8, and both the plaintiffs and defense have to file an “agreed statement of facts” the same day. The defendants, represented by the attorney general’s office, have their brief due on Monday, December 18. At the hearing before Cowin this morning, both sides said they were willing to go before the full court, but differed on timing. The plaintiffs want action before January 1, a day before the legislature resumes its Constitutional Convention, while the defendents preferred some time next spring.

The Massachusetts Federation of Young Republicans is hosting an open forum on party building on Saturday, December 9, 2006, 2-5pm. The location is Boston Marriott Long Wharf, 1st Floor Conference Area, 296 State Street, Boston.

Rules

- Each person receives 2 minutes. Preparing a statement is highly recommended.

- Only ideas will be permitted; this is not a forum for complaints.

- No candidate speeches. This is a forum for party building, not resume building.

- No applause or crowd noise to be respectful of the speakers.

- No handouts. This is a forum for ideas not self-promotion.

- Everyone must be seated during speeches out of respect for the speakers.

The media will be invited to watch and interview activists after the forum is over. Dress will be informal. If you have any questions, contact Vincent at chairmanve@aol.com.

Vote on Marriage is coming to a city near you! Over the next few weekends, there will be rallies across the state in suport of democracy. According to the Massachusetts Constitution, valid petitions from the people require an up or down vote from the legislature. Yet 109 of our legislators have shirked that responsibility. Attend as many rallies as you can and demand that the legislature vote!

- Saturday, December 9th, 10:30am, New Bedford City Hall

- Saturday, December 9th, 1:30pm, Barnstable County Court House

- Sunday, December 10th, 1:30pm, Springifield City Hall

- Saturday, December 16th, 1:30pm, Worcester City Hall

There’s a great discussion going on right now at HubPolitics.com about the rights of the people to vote on the marriage amendment. It starts off with a great quote from Senator Richard Moore of Uxbridge that this is one of the Top 10 issues facing the Massachusetts legislature in 2007.

Last year I boycotted several major retailers, including Target, because they refused to allow their employees to say “Merry Christmas” and they kicked the Salvation Army bell-ringers out. This year, I’m pleased to say I’ll be doing a fair amount of shopping at Wal-Mart again. Not for high fashion, but for the basics for which they always seem to have a good price.

Why is Wal-Mart back on my good side? Three reasons:

- They are making it a point to say Merry Christmas during the Christmas season.

- They have brought back the Salvation Army folks who do such great work across the country.

- They have decided to stop making financial contributions where they shouldn’t be tredding. Here’s the latest from a November 21st press release. This is in direct response to the complaints about their donations to a number of gay and lesbian organizations.

“Wal-Mart will not make corporate contributions to support or oppose highly controversial issues unless they directly relate to our ability to serve our customers. Wal-Mart does not have a position on same sex marriage and we do not give preference to gay or lesbian suppliers. Wal-Mart does have a strong commitment to divesity among our associates and against discrimination everywhere.”

My family and I are on our way up to the Adirondacks for Thanksgiving. Have a safe and relaxing holiday. Here’s a little something for you to think about as we celebrate all our blessings:

New from Max Lucado, Facing Your Giants.

It’s a new look at the David and Goliath story. Goliath was extremely powerful and intimidating, but it was David who won in the end! You know who your own giants are. We must persevere and continue to fight for what’s right.

We knew it was inevitable. As Governor-Elect Deval Patrick assembles his Beacon Hill team, there are bound to be some holes opening up in the legislature. And as Lt. Gov. Elect Tim Murray hails from Worcester, there could be some interesting special elections right here in the spring.

The first person to leave his seat is Rep. Jim Leary, 14th Worcester District (north side of Worcester and West Boylston), who has been appointed Chief of Staff for Murray.

I’ve got a really good candidate in mind for this soon-to-be-open seat. Anyone else got some good possibilities?

Over 5,000 supporters of the Vote on Marriage amendment gathered in Boston today where Gov. Mitt Romney addressed the crowd with encouraging news that the battle for our constitutional rights is not over. Joining him were Ambassador Ray Flynn, Rep. Phil Travis, Vote on Marriage Chairman Dr. Roberto Miranda, and Mass Family Insitute President Kris Mineau. From CBS4 News,

Mitt Romney said Sunday he would ask the state’s highest court to order an anti-gay marriage amendment question onto the ballot if legislators fail to vote on the matter when they reconvene in January.

Romney said he would file a legal action this week asking a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court to direct the secretary of state to place the question on the ballot if lawmakers don’t vote directly on the question on Jan. 2, the final day of the session.

Romney, an opponent of gay marriage who decided not to seek re-election as he considers running for president, made his announcement to the cheers of hundreds of gay marriage opponents at a rally on the Statehouse steps.

“The constitution quite plainly states that when a qualified petition is placed before them, the Legislature ’shall vote.’ It does not say ‘may vote,’ or vote if procedures permit a vote, or vote if there are enough of the members in the chamber. It says, ’shall vote.”‘ Romney said.

Supporters were happy to hear that the Governor is willing to stand up to the 109 legislatures that have decided to ignore the law and usurp the rights of the people who followed the law in getting the marriage petition to the State House.

On the ride back from the rally, it was clear that enthusiasm among supporters continues to grow. One prominent Pastor from Worcester addressed a busload of people. He said that while he had been a supporter of the amendment from the beginning, he had not been very active. Now that he’s seen the Massachusetts legislature so easily dismiss the constitutional rights of the petitioners, he’s mad. Mad enough that he’s going to rally people across Worcester, urging them to let their legislators know that if they don’t take a vote on the marriage amendment, then we’re going to vote them OUT OF OFFICE.

I also hear that there will be a number of individual lawsuits against the 109 legislators who voted on November 9th to recess until January 2nd. While they have not violated the letter of the law, they have clearly violated the spirit of the law.

That’s what one person calls this 30 minute interview with Milton Friedman from (it looks like) the early 1960’s. Truly, watch this video three to five times, and you’ll never struggle in an argument over free markets ever again.

R.I.P.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi just lost her first public test as the incoming Speaker of the House. She decided she needed to pay back Congressman John Murtha for his out-in-front positions against the Iraq war. So she nominated him for the #2 post in the House. Unfortunately for her, the Democrats were clearly willing to break rank. Instead, they voted Steny Hoyer of Maryland as the incoming majority leader.

The US News & World Report blog put it nicely, “Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory,”

Talk about stepping on your own story. There she was, the first female speaker of the House, voted in by acclamation, and what does Nancy Pelosi do? She ensures that the headlines are instead about her defeat–in backing a candidate for majority leader, Rep. John Murtha, who lost. And not only did he lose to Rep. Steny Hoyer–he was thumped, as the president might say. And that loss became her personal loss.

Pelosi has a tricky job ahead of her. Will she annoy her moderates and pull the party further to the left with antics like trying to impeach the President? Or will she realize she has a unique opportunity to show that the Democrats can still do good things for this country and instead work to rein in the out-of-control spending of the last few years and set a decent standard for behavior while in public office?

Well, it was an interesting State Commitee meeting last night. In the two years I’ve been a member, I’ve never seen so many bodies crushed into one room. It was quite invigorating. A surprisingly large number of the people in the room said they were running for the open Chair seat that Darrell Crate will vacate in January.

We heard from a few candidates, some who lost and one who won (congrats to Rep-Elect Jay Barrows in the 1st Bristol district). Rep. Brad Jones said a few words and Reed Hillman gave a nice rousing talk. (Locally, congrats to our candidates here who all won reelection: Rep. Lew Evangelidis, Rep. Karyn Polito, Rep. George Peterson, and Rep. Paul Frost.)

In the district reports, I talked about the significant investment we’re making in technology in this region. We’ve got the Worcester County Republican Club web site being updated with new content on a weekly basis. (Thanks to Ron Vining and Tuesday Associates for providing some great campaigning tutorials, plus a hug to all our regular contributors, such as Mike Potaski). We’ve got the blog rolling along this year and now updated daily. And we have an email list of close to 10,000 names that we communicate with on a fairly regular basis. My goal was to let others know that without this kind of investment in technology, we’re not going to be able to spread our word as far or as deep as we’d like.

To that end, GOPnews.blog.com has offered to set up blogs for any of the RTC’s or County Clubs. Post your information online and they will get back to you.

The last part of the meeting was devoted to a review of the election data. As has been mentioned elsewhere, we’re into year 4 of a 10 year plan to rebuild the MassGOP, in terms of RTC participation, activists, and fund raising. If you look at a 20 year view, we see that things aren’t as rosy as we’d like, but they’re not quite as bad as some indicate. For instance, there was a lot of discussion about the fact that registered R voters in Mass have dropped to just below 13%. While a drop is never good, that number has held quite steady for 20 years. The D’s, on the other hand, have seen a precipitious drop in registrations, from 47% in 1986 to 37% in 2006. This is basically an Unenrolled state. Which is good for us. Hopefully that means there are more people who can be won over.

We also discussed this year’s election. While we lost 3 seats in the legislature, we did come very close in more races than I thought. There were about a dozen where the R candidate was in the 40-49% range. That said, they still lost and in a mid-term election where R’s usually do well.

And there, of course, is the biggest problem. Voters were just plain mad this year and have had enough of the corruption that seems to be running rampant through our party. Shame on them. Let’s hope the remaining R’s have learned their lesson and will work to uphold our core principles.

Btw, on the issue of why Gov Mitt Romney wasn’t as visible during Kerry Healey’s campaign. That actually was a strategic choice. In running a female candidate, it’s important to not have male counterparts overshadowing them. So Kerry Healey did indeed run a campaign as the strong female. And Mitt and Reed were asked to be less visible than usual. Mistake? In hindsight, Reed should have been better used in Central Mass where a lot of people really like him. But I expect we’ll see him back in another year or two to run for something else.