Free Republic

Gov. Deval Patrick showed up unexpectedly at a hearing today to urge lawmakers to pass legislation that would make certain undocumented immigrants eligible to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities, cautioning legislators against be caught up in the “hyperbole of immigration.” “It’s time for us to fix the law. This really is a matter of fairness,” Patrick told the Committee on Higher Education, after apologizing for showing up unannounced. “I just ask you to keep in mind the faces, the lives, and real experiences of the young people whose future is at stake,” Patrick said. The bills,...

Lawmakers and unions slammed Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday for triggering a pay-raise bonanza to the tune of nearly $10 million with a 3 percent salary hike for as many as 4,000 state managers — even as Bay State residents face frozen salaries and unemployment. Jay Gonzalez, Patrick’s finance and administration secretary who released the news of the pay raise, argued that state managers haven’t gotten a raise since July 2007. “We have to make sure state government is a place where people actually want to work. We need to retain and attract good people,” Gonzalez said, adding that he and...

Candidates lob shots during convention Open season on Scott Brown officially kicked off yesterday with five of the six Democratic candidates seeking to reclaim the “people’s seat” training their sights and barbs squarely on the freshman U.S. senator during speeches at their party’s state convention in Lowell. “When Ted Kennedy went behind closed doors with lawmakers and lobbyists, he always fought for us,” Bob Massie, the nonprofit executive who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1994, told some 3,000 Democratic delegates gathered on the floor of Tsongas Center. “When Scott Brown goes behind closed door with lawmakers and lobbyists and...

How can this be? The value of your home keeps going down, yet the property taxes never stop going up. Back in 2006, didn’t candidate Deval Patrick promise to cut property taxes? If he does have to testify under oath at Sal DiMasi’s corruption trial next week, I hope someone asks him about that pledge, just to establish his reputation for veracity, or lack thereof. “Governor, did you know you were lying when you vowed to cut property taxes, or maybe we all misunderstood you, and you really meant to say you were going to cut property values? Which is...

BOSTON (AP) — Gov. Deval Patrick is proposing tougher gun laws to help curb youth violence. Patrick said Monday his bill would tighten existing gun laws by giving police new criminal sanctions and investigative tools to go after guns and gangs. The bill would also create three new gun-related crimes — assault and battery with a firearm, assault with a firearm, and a "felon in possession" law that matches existing federal law. Patrick said he would also ask for $10 million in public and private funding to fill in gaps in programs and resources needed to make neighborhoods safer, including...

Gov. Deval Patrick’s ties and campaign support for William Lantigua are in the spotlight as the Lawrence mayor faces a corruption probe and scrutiny of a $35 million state bailout for the down-and-out city. It was revealed yesterday that state and federal investigators are probing Lantigua’s dealings with Lawrence tow companies, night clubs and taxi outfits. Lantigua has denied the allegations. The Lantigua bombshell comes as Patrick weathers other distractions. He’s faced criticism for his national book tour. Last week he was named as a possible witness at the public corruption trial of former House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi. A...

Gov. Deval Patrick’s new book will debut at No. 25 on Sunday’s New York Times [NYT] best-seller list — but it doesn’t quite stack up to the tomes penned by U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and former Bay State Gov. Mitt Romney.

Gov. Deval Patrick’s skyrocketing political star could come crashing down in the mud if he’s forced to reveal damaging testimony at the upcoming corruption trial of former House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, experts and political foes say. “It’s the worst of all possible worlds for Patrick,” said Thomas Whalen, political professor at Boston University. “He’s looking to the national spotlight but Massachusetts is like quicksand, you try to get out and it sucks you back in.” DiMasi’s trial starts next week at a time when the governor is in the midst of a national media blitz promoting his memoir, “A...

The words and spirit of Senator Edward M. Kennedy were evoked this morning at the groundbreaking ceremony for the educational institute that will bear the late Democrat’s name. Under glorious skies, hundreds of former staffers, local and national political figures, as well as average citizens, flocked to the groundbreaking for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. It will be built, starting later this summer, on Columbia Point next to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. ... The ceremony included a film about Kennedy’s nearly 47-year career, which ended in August 2009 when he died...

Massachusetts faces a "disappointingly slow" economic recovery, a prediction that economists from several local universities and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston called the "best-case scenario." These economists, who constitute the editorial board of MassBenchmarks, a University of Massachusetts journal, made the bleak assessment during a recent meeting in advance of the publication of a quarterly economic snapshot off the state. The snapshot, which estimates the growth rate of the Massachusetts economy, is scheduled for release at the end of this month. The board also said earlier views that Massachusetts' economy was rebounding from the recent recession faster than the...

Who says Gov. Deval Patrick isn’t creating good jobs? Just ask Sean Q. Curran, a Patrick fund-raiser and State House lobbyist who also likes to raise money for himself. Curran, former co-chairman of Patrick’s campaign committee, is now making life uncomfortable for the governor after landing a $30,000 gig for a hacked-up public agency with the awkward name of South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp. The agency, created by the Legislature to oversee redevelopment of the old Weymouth Naval Air Station, hired Curran in October — in the middle of Patrick’s re-election campaign. Conveniently, Tri-Town didn’t disclose hiring Curran until a...

Gov. Deval Patrick is absolutely right: Don’t blame Cleve Killingsworth for your insurance premiums going up so high, so fast. Blame the man who’s truly responsible — Deval Patrick. Killingsworth is the Miami Heat of Massachusetts health care. It’s hard to believe someone that expensive could suck that bad. But as offensive as Killingsworth’s $11 million buyout may be, AFL-CIO president and Blue Cross Blue Shield board member Robert Haynes had it right: “With $13 billion in revenue, it’s like pennies,” he said of the board’s compensation. Complaining about Killingsworth’s incompetence is like complaining about a leaky bathtub on the...

Late Wednesday afternoon, without advance notice and without fanfare, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed an Executive Order mandating the acceptance of "gender identity and expression" -- including transsexuality, cross-dressing, and related behaviors - throughout state government. The order also requires affirmative action in the hiring of transsexuals and diversity training for all state employees.

In a move blasted by opponents as an “end run” around lawmakers, Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday quietly signed a controversial transgender rights executive order, called the bathroom bill by critics, making it illegal to discriminate against state workers on the basis of “gender identity.” “This is going to set off a firestorm, and it’s certainly something the governor should have given us a heads up on,” said House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones (R-North Reading). Patrick signed the changes with no announcement. The measure was a major issue during Patrick’s tough re-election battle last year. The executive order, unlike a...

BOSTON - Gov. Deval Patrick hopped on a plane to Chicago Friday evening for a meeting with President Barack Obama’s top political advisor David Axelrod, one the principal architects of the president’s 2008 election and a former advisor to Patrick’s first campaign for governor. The meeting between Patrick and Axelrod comes just days after the governor flew to Washington, D.C. to have dinner with Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine, the former governor of Virginia and a classmate of Patrick’s at Harvard Law School. Over salad, salmon and calamari on Tuesday night, Patrick and Kaine discussed the president’s re-election campaign...

In a stunning reminder of the situational ethics of Governor Patrick, Dianne Wilkerson is being sentenced today, the same day that Deval Patrick takes his second oath of office. Here's an oldie but goodie where Patrick makes a phone call in support of the already multiple time convicted, ankle bracelet wearing, Diane Wilkerson. (Video link below)

Gov. Deval Patrick said yesterday that he still hasn’t watched the parole hearing of felon turned cop killer Dominic Cinelli or reviewed the con’s lengthy criminal record even as House Speaker Robert DeLeo joined the outcry over Cinelli’s controversial release. “No, no,” said Patrick when asked if he’d examined the video of the six-member parole board interviewing Cinelli, who was serving three concurrent life sentences. The then six-member board — chaired by the governor’s former campaign driver Mark Conrad — included two other Patrick appointees who voted unanimously to spring Cinelli shortly after the 2008 hearing. The career criminal allegedly...

Gov. Deval Patrick announced today he is trimming legislative salaries — and his own pay — by .5 percent in the face of a mounting budget deficit and continuing economic recession. The pay cut means lawmakers would see $307 slashed from their pay and earn a base salary of $61,133 and Patrick’s pay would go from $140,535 to $139,833. The salary cut is the first since 1998. “The median household income for the Commonwealth for the preceding two-year period decreased by .5 percent,” Patrick wrote in a brief letter announcing the cut. The salary reductions will begin Wednesday, according to...

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has declared a state of emergency as the season's first snow storm barrels into New England.

A broken campaign pledge by Gov. Deval Patrick could end up costing Massachusetts ratepayers big bucks if yet another massive wind farm is built off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. When he first ran for governor in 2005, the then-relatively unknown Patrick broke out of the Democratic pack by endorsing the controversial Cape Wind project. But Patrick’s support came with a little-noticed catch: He said Cape Wind’s developer should compromise by agreeing to a 10-year freeze on electric rates once the 130-turbine wind farm was “up and running.” But five years later, Patrick’s Department of Public Utilities approved a 15-year...