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Former House Speaker Robert DeLeo gives his farewell address in the House Chamber on Dec. 29, 2020. Sitting behind him was Majority Leader Ron Mariano, who was elected the next house speaker the following day. Photo by Sam Doran | State House News Service
There’s the Massachusetts of Moderna, the startup that created a phenomenal COVID-19 vaccine and of the MIT scientists preparing to build the world’s first nuclear fusion reactor and create a miniature star on earth.
And then there’s the Massachusetts of grubby back-room deals and back–slapping, where the simple accumulation and wielding of brute political power is rewarded with prestigious academic sinecures.
It’s an aspect of our state less well-known beyond the confines of New England, but one that casts its malodorous scent widely across our local politics.
A case in point is now–former House Speaker Robert DeLeo, who stepped down Tuesday after a record-breaking 12 years on the job and is now in the midst of negotiating a new gig with Northeastern University.
Forget about the predictable flurry of flattering stories in the local press painting the House strongman and his years in office in rose-tinted hues.
DeLeo in the end will be remembered for the big things he didn’t do – or even attempted – rather than for his rather mediocre accomplishments.
Finally, No Indictments
Speaking of those accomplishments, unlike his predecessors as speaker, DeLeo managed to stay on the right side of the law, though I am not sure how much of a pat on the back he deserves for this.
Incredibly, he is the first House speaker in Massachusetts in three decades – yes, three decades – to leave office voluntarily, and not under pressure from a federal criminal probe.
His immediate predecessor, Sal DiMasi, spent time in the slammer for secretly taking money to connect a local tech company with a state contract, a blatant act of corruption if there ever was one. The two previous House speakers, Thomas Finneran and Charles Flaherty, also committed felonies during their times in office.
Not that DeLeo’s reign was without scandal. He was named an unindicted co-conspirator in an alleged state probation department patronage scheme of grotesque proportions, a mess that only went away when a judge ruled the federal prosecutor in the case had overreached.
But in my book, the former speaker will be also remembered for opportunities he squandered after amassing considerable political power.
First elected to the state legislature three decades ago, DeLeo took over leadership of the House in January 2009, a time when the state faced two major, chronic problems.
First off, much of the Boston area and Eastern Massachusetts was no longer affordable for middle class families, who were increasingly fleeing the state amid home prices and rents that had rocketed through the roof.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the state’s transportation structure was already edging into crisis mode, with traffic–clogged highways and an increasingly unreliable, breakdown–prone MBTA.
Sound familiar?
Twelve years later, both problems have only escalated despite their importance to the Democratic Party’s supposed middle- and working-class base.
Sky-high home prices have gone on another tear, while commuters across the Greater Boston are dreading a return to packed roadways and chronically late buses and trains once COVID-19 is finally vanquished.
Opportunities Missed – and Rejected
Yet when he took over as speaker, DeLeo had a chance to go big on transportation, with Gov. Deval Patrick’s bold, $3 billion proposal for overhauling the state’s aging transportation infrastructure.
Now here’s something that could have made a big difference in the lives of families across the state, and maybe – just maybe – might have headed off the highway gridlock and public transportation woes have dominated the headlines over the past few years.
And what did DeLeo do? The newly minted House speaker from Winthrop chose to flex his political muscles and gut the ambitious proposal put forth by his fellow Democrat.
Granted, last February the speaker was the main motive force in crafting a transportation funding package which Senate President Karen Spilka choose to leave withering on the vine. But it’s clear DeLeo’s past inaction has made the current state of our mass transit system worse.
But as bad as his half-measures on transportation were, worse still was DeLeo’s total failure to rise to the occasion and deal with the state’s housing affordability crisis, which grew ever more dire each year he has been in office.
Nonprofit housing and planning groups have for years pushed for a state-led overhaul of frankly discriminatory local zoning rules.
Suburbs and towns across the Boston area have used these restrictions on development to make it all but impossible to build homes affordable to middle-class families, let alone apartments affordable for the people of all incomes.
The number of new apartments, houses and condominiums built across the state actually fell markedly in the 2010s, the decade when DeLeo was one of the most powerful – and at times even the most powerful – politician in the state.
Annointed Successor
Still, DeLeo did excel at one thing: holding and maintaining power, as demonstrated by the record-breaking length of his time as speaker.
Scott Van Voorhis
DeLeo apparently accomplished this by running the House like a tin–pot dictator, squelching dissent and rewarding loyalists with plum committee chairs, which offer not only better pay, but better offices as well.
And like every dictator, DeLeo achieved his dream of effectively anointing his successor, Quincy state Rep. Ron Mariano, the spry, 74-year-old House majority leader.
It’s just too bad DeLeo didn’t put any of that power to use fixing two issues that continue to hobble our state.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
