Seems like dissatisfaction with Governor Baker is getting a lot of media attention lately. Of course, my view might be off since my Boston Globe subscription lapsed and I’m resisting renewal because their education rate sucks. Thank God for Commonwealth Magazine.
Pardon the digression.
Anyway, the vaccine roll out in Massachusetts has had some hiccups and the Guv is getting the brunt of the blame. The establishment of coronavirus oversight committees on Beacon Hill recently looked like a shot across the bow. Are critics gearing up for (or trying to head off) an unprecedented Baker run for a third term?
Could be.
On the other hand, there has been an uptick in pressure on the state legislature recently as well. The lack of transparency and highly centralized leadership control of the General Court is a perennial issue. The seamless transition between Speakers Deleo and Marino seems to have kicked up that dust a bit more lately.
Here’s the thing. Massachusetts State House politics may well be the most resistant to change in America. The Democratic legislature could choose to take a more adversarial posture toward the Republican governor. The Republican governor could be much more critical of the Democratic legislature. The reason neither does so with any regularity is that it would threaten a very productive arrangement. Instead, inter-branch relations are coordinated behind closed doors. The so-called “Big Three,” each in firm control of his people (Mr. Ismay notwithstanding), engage in substantive policy negotiations with an eye toward avoiding the type of partisan rancor and “personal destruction” that has become S.O.P. in Washington and in state houses around the country. This arrangement has long drawn passionate criticism from good government reformers on the left and anti-tax advocates and culture warriors on the right, but it is not without benefits, some of which were recently explained HERE by UMass political scientist Ray Laraja.
My gut tells me that the possibility of another Baker candidacy for the Corner Office in 2022 has subtlety upset a very delicate arrangement that has been undisturbed for three decades. Occupants of the corner office at the Massachusetts State House have always been the junior partners in state government, but in the last thirty years political chief executives elsewhere have exploited changes in communications technology and innovations in political campaigning and fundraising to great effect in their efforts to become the central players in state houses around the country. While none of the 21st century Bay State governors have been slouches in their own uses of these advantages, none have shifted power away from state legislative leaders toward the governor’s office either. The legislative supremacy built into the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 has proven far more resilient than it has been in that other constitution written a few years later.
Here’s where a potential third term for Republican Charlie Baker comes in. Democrats have enjoyed veto-proof majorities in both chambers of the Massachusetts legislature for thirty years. Because of this overwhelming institutional advantage, the partisan stakes of gubernatorial elections for Democratic legislative leaders have been very different than casual observers would expect. It turns out that maintaining veto-proof majorities and dominance over the governor in state government and politics is easier for Democrats when the corner office is occupied by Republicans.
Veto-proof majorities are quite a luxury, the protection of which is understandably very important to legislative leaders on Beacon Hill. When Democrats occupy the governor’s office, policy disagreements among Democrats become more salient and pronounced, which is not helpful when you are trying to maintain centralized Democratic control over two legislative chambers. Efforts by progressive policy advocates and reformers are much harder for legislative leaders to contain when progressive special interests have helped a Democrat win the governorship.
A potential third Baker term could put Beacon Hill Democrats in a very uncomfortable position, a position that none of Baker’s GOP predecessors ever put them in. Bill Weld, Paul Celluci, Jane Swift, and Mitt Romney were all willing to leave before things got awkward. While Democratic leaders would probably welcome four more years with Governor Fix-it, they have to be uneasy about trying to get away with sitting on their hands in the 2022 gubernatorial election the way they did in 2018. What if Democrats nominate a serious candidate in 2022? This would almost certainly force legislative leaders off the sidelines in ways that could set unhelpful precedents for future legislative-executive relations at the state house.
It would be much safer for Beacon Hill Democrats if Baker went along with the unofficial two term custom. No sitting governor has lost a re-election bid since 1978 and no governor has run for a third consecutive term since the four-year term was enacted more than half a century ago. If Baker stepped aside for his lt. governor, Karen Polito, it would be much easier for Beacon Hill Democrats to push for a centrist Democratic nominee and to at least appear to be siding with the eventual 2022 Democratic candidate for governor. With Baker on the ballot, however, pressure from the left to take a harder line against Baker would be much harder to deflect, and eight years of cooperation could be very inconvenient fodder on the 2022 campaign trail.
So, it could be that increased scrutiny of Baker by the legislature is a sort of gentle nudge intended to make the governor see that he’s had a good thing going and that it would be a shame to damage that by getting greedy.