DURING LAST fall’s gubernatorial campaign, Republican Charlie Baker was the radical, fed up with the status quo and promising to remake state government from top to bottom. Incumbent Deval Patrick demurred from Baker’s claims that government was fundamentally broken, offering a decidedly defensive, incrementalist approach of building on what was already in place.
Patrick may have won, but — for the opening weeks of 2001 at least — it’s as if Baker took office.
January was a stunning month for Patrick, full of bold pronouncements, gutsy decisions, and disciplined politics — a marked and welcome contrast to the opening days of his first term four years ago. The governor seems to be a man on fire.
Speaking just after he took the oath of office on Jan. 3, Patrick was hard-hitting, promising to reverse an attitude that “kicks every tough decision down the road’’ and saying the “time for action has arrived.’’ Lovely thoughts, but really, we’ve heard them — or variations thereof — many times before.
But judging by what’s happened since, Patrick meant every word. He started last month cutting salaries for himself and the Legislature, a feel-good move (with little dollar impact) that nonetheless sent a message — the public sector is no longer immune.
His proposed budget for next year — $30.5 billion — is $570 million less than last year’s, cuts 900 jobs and slashes most programs. Yet at the same time it increases funding for education to its highest level ever. It’s the kind of cost cutting one would expect to see from a Republican, yet — in boosting education spending — it makes clear Patrick’s long-term priorities.
And, while cutting aid to municipalities, Patrick also offered up an opportunity for towns to require their municipal employees — without union consent — to join the state’s Group Insurance Commission (or its equivalent), a move that could save $120 million annually.
And he’s now pushing for changes in the state pension system, raising the retirement age from 55 to 60, toughening eligibility rules and closing double-dipping loopholes.
Meanwhile, the governor responded dramatically to the fatal shooting of a Woburn police officer by ousting most members of the Parole Board — an extreme action that no one expected from a pol with a reputation for caution.
He then linked problems with the Parole Board to the scandals at the Probation Department, and proposed to reform both by merging the two, putting them under executive department control, and saving another $14 million to boot. Both the Legislature and the judiciary objected, meaning it probably is the right thing to do.
Patrick also proposed getting rid of private representation of the indigent (gladdening the hearts of prosecutors) and then urged reforms that would shrink drug-free zones near schools and weaken mandatory sentencing for drug offenders (thereby angering those once-gladdened prosecutors). And, borrowing a much-loved conservative talking point, he’s now calling for changing the state’s legal liability laws to rein in spiraling health care costs.
The new Patrick is about more than policy, however. He sent a shot across the bow of the Barnstable Sheriff’s Department, docking it $104,000 in supplemental funds for hiring one-time congressional candidate Jeff Perry for a patronage-like position.
Since the election, he has seized control of Massport and unceremoniously dumped many long-time senior officials, including Nick Paleologos, once head of the state’s film office; Thomas Kelley, a Romney holdover at Veterans Affairs; and Robert Culver, the long-time boss of MassDevelopment.
The still-young second term hasn’t been perfect. Patrick’s early announcement that he planned to travel more hearkened back to the early months of his first term (except that this time it was the Balkans instead of the Berkshires) and the implosion of Evergreen Solar brought sharp questions about the wisdom of his business development strategies.
Still, the distinction between the gauzy and idealistic man of “together we can’’ and the hard-nosed governor of today is marked. The remade governor is far less ideological. He seems unafraid to offend (even when the aggrieved are Democratic allies such as public employee unions) and possessed with a sense of urgency. One wishes he had been this way during his first term, and one wonders whether the fires of January can continue to burn for the next four years. But so far, so good — and much welcomed.
Originally published in the Boston Globe.