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Game plan -Lawmakers are shifting the strategy - but is anyone keeping the score?
Issue Date: 8/31/2006, Posted On: 8/30/2006 Bay (eeewww!) Windows, Laura Kiritsy lkiritsy@baywindows.com

Boston Motivated by their deep dissatisfaction with the decision to seek a recess vote during the July 12 constitutional convention (ConCon), a group of moderate lawmakers who’ve only been tangentially involved with the marriage equality battle are playing a much greater role in planning for the Nov. 9 ConCon. Previously, the lobbying and strategizing were spearheaded by a handful of progressive lawmakers working in concert with MassEquality, the coalition formed to defend the Goodridge marriage ruling from attacks via constitutional amendments.

In the last two weeks, Bay Windows has interviewed five lawmakers involved in the new push to defeat a proposed constitutional amendment that would prohibit same-sex couples from marrying. The measure is sponsored by the group VoteOnMarriage.org and needs the support of just 50 lawmakers voting in the Nov. 9 ConCon and another 50 voting in the 2007-2008 legislative session in order to be put on the ballot in Nov. 2008. The lawmakers identified three areas that need to be shored up before Nov. 9: the need for a firm head count going into the ConCon; the need to lobby legislators who have not historically been in the marriage equality camp; and improved communication among lawmakers and marriage equality advocates around strategy.

The stepped up involvement by lawmakers reflects their frustration with the way advocates planned for the July 12 ConCon and the ultimate decision to seek a recess vote. In the seven weeks since the ConCon, Bay Windows has interviewed 13 lawmakers about the ConCon. With one exception, their reviews of the process were overwhelmingly negative. One called it a “clusterfuck.” Another described it as “screwed up” and said he didn’t learn about the strategy to debate a handful of items and then recess the convention until he walked into the House chamber the day of the ConCon. And yet another said simply: “I was not happy with the level of organizing that was done leading up to the ConCon.

Believing they lacked the votes to defeat the amendment on July 12, marriage equality lobbyists tried to advance a strategy to defeat the initiative petition procedurally, such as when a similar measure was killed in 2002 when the Legislature voted to adjourn a ConCon before the amendment was brought up. The strategy seemed to gain some traction with Senate President Robert Travaglini, the presiding officer of the convention, who in an April meeting with state senators expressed an openness to letting members decide how they’d like to deal with the initiative petition — either by voting on its merits or killing it by voting to adjourn the convention (See “Recipe For Disaster?” July 20).

But Travaglini reversed course in the face of mounting public and political pressure on the Legislature to vote on the amendment in the weeks leading up to the July ConCon: on July 11 he released a statement expressing his intention to bring every one of the 20 ConCon agenda items up for a vote this year — among them the marriage amendment.

But if retreating from an attempt to defeat the initiative petition via parliamentary maneuvering was aimed at averting a public relations disaster, the decision to recess the convention until after the November elections proved to be equally as contentious. The 100-91 vote to recess was the subject of scathing attacks from lawmakers who support the anti-gay marriage amendment as well as opinion makers and pundits across the state. The move also upset legislators who oppose the amendment. “I’m not clear on what the thinking was but it was a very risky proposition in my opinion,” says state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson of the decision to recess the ConCon.

Wilkerson, like other legislators who had previously been involved in strategizing to defeat any anti-gay constitutional amendments, were kept out of the process this time around and didn’t have an opportunity to voice their objections to the recess strategy. State Rep. Mike Festa (D-Melrose) says that lawmakers were only told what the strategy for July 12 would be after it was decided. “We were not part of that strategic discussion. We had to take what we were given and we did so graciously and we did so with a lot of concerns,” he says.

Arline Isaacson, the co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus who is leading MassEquality’s lobby team, told Bay Windows in July that the recess strategy was negotiated between the lobby team and House and Senate leaders. “The legislative leadership wanted to get to the first few items [on the calendar],” she said. “We said, ‘Well, that will work fine. You want to get to them. We know you can’t get to number 20 [the marriage amendment].’ And then when they recess we’ll have time to lobby and line up more vote.” (See “Dodging a Bullet,” July 13).

'We didn't have the votes'

Within days of the ConCon, the lawmaker who described the process as a “clusterfuck” — and who spoke to Bay Windows only on condition of anonymity — joined some moderate colleagues in the Legislature to help organize for the Nov. 9 ConCon.

Gay marriage advocates have done a poor job, the lawmaker says, at reaching out across the gender, religious and ideological/party lines that divide members of the Legislature. To do that, the lawmaker says, supportive legislators who have not traditionally been identified with the marriage equality movement yet who have the credibility to persuade the large swath of white, Irish- or Italian-Catholic moderate and conservative male legislators from like-minded districts, need to be enlisted in the effort to defeat the amendment.

In trying to get to a 151-vote threshold, the lawmaker observes, “you need a different type of game plan and a lot of it is going to be based upon personal relationships, getting true answers from people. With all due respect to some of the people who have been the leaders of this in the Legislature, they can’t talk to a lot of the other people that we need to talk to coming down the stretch. So if they can’t, who can?”

In other words, legislators who have not been persuaded by the civil rights arguments on which the movement is based and who will not be swayed by the progressive stalwarts who have led the marriage equality movement on Beacon Hill thus far, might be more receptive if they hear from their conservative Catholic colleagues.

These moderates are coordinating their efforts with the progressive lawmakers who have led the process to date. Festa says that in the aftermath of July 12, advocates and allied legislators held strategy sessions and reassessed their efforts in order to put together a more cohesive plan in the run-up to Nov. 9. Part of that involves expanding the House whip system, which he led along with state Rep. Alice Wolf (D-Cambridge), Continued in next column
to bring in players who can better reach out to moderates and conservatives. “We know that there are some members who have evolved in their thinking and we want to not miss any opportunity to get them to support our position in trying to defeat this amendment,” says Festa.

State Rep. Ron Mariano, who says he was approached by other lawmakers after the July 12 ConCon to help persuade other moderates and conservatives to vote against the amendment, points to the lack of a “hard count” of lawmakers going into the July 12 ConCon as a problem.

Mariano says he asked progressive lawmakers running the floor at the July 12 ConCon why they weren’t going to vote on the amendment: “I was surprised when I was talking to some of the advocates and I said, ‘Well, why didn’t we have a vote?’ And they said, ‘We don’t have the votes.’ I said, ‘Well, how far away are you?’ and they didn’t know.”

The moderate lawmaker adds that a precise headcount is crucial to enlisting the help of House Speaker Sal DiMasi. “It’s about getting to the point where we are there but having the Speaker keep us there and going to him with accurate and timely and true information that has been garnered by people that he trusts,” the lawmaker explains. Isaacson maintains that she had a head count going into the July 12 ConCon and that she has one now. “We’ve had it for months but it’s always changing,” she says. “It’s not a static number and that’s our goal; we don’t want it to be static. We want to keep winning more votes. And the good news is for the most part it’s been growing.”

But legislators like Mariano, the moderate lawmaker and the Boston-area lawmaker who described the ConCon as “screwed up,” doubt that anyone has an accurate head count. “I’m telling you, there’s a whole bunch of folks out there who think the ballot question is extreme,” Mariano says. “And they don’t want to see that question on the ballot.”

Indeed, Bay Windows spoke with a lawmaker for this story who isn’t doing any organizing to defeat the anti-gay amendment and who has a mixed record voting on gay marriage. He told Bay Windows that he plans to vote against the amendment but is unwilling to go public with his decision beforehand. “I think there’s a lot of [lawmakers] that plan on doing that,” said the legislator, who says he has made his decision known to select colleagues and marriage equality advocates. “I’m going to take my blows, but I’d rather take them after the vote than before.”

“I think they’re a lot closer to winning than they thought they were,” Mariano says. “They should have picked up the phone and called people and said, ‘Where are you on gay marriage? Would you vote not to put this on the ballot?’ and they would have been surprised.”

“There aren’t an awful lot of options here,” Mariano continues. “People like me want to vote for it and get it over with and put it behind us. And I think most legislators do. We still have some zealots in the House, but a few of those are going to be leaving. The two staunchest opponents are leaving, Emile Goguen and Phil Travis. So there will be new people to take their place.”

Moving ahead

Only time will tell if the current plan is too little, too late — and whether or not pro-equality forces need to make even more significant strategy changes down the road. The moderate lawmaker says he is more comfortable with the current strategy than he was after witnessing the chaos of last month. “I have good confidence now that we are doing the things we need to do, having the conversations we need to have with the correct people,” he says. “I didn’t have any faith before. I was like, this is a mess.”

The Boston-area lawmaker, meanwhile, has a suggestion to marriage equality activists if they lose the vote Nov. 9: Clean house. He said he believes it’s too late to bring new lobbyists to the effort at this point. But “if 65 people vote for it [in November] I think it’s time for a new strategy and a whole group of new folks,” he says.

While gay marriage advocates defended the strategy to recess the July 12 constitutional convention until Nov. 9 as a means to do more lobbying on the issue and to allow legislators to cast their ballots free of electoral pressure, it has, in fact, become a campaign issue for some who voted to recess. State Sen. Brian Joyce’s (D-Milton) Republican opponent James Aldred, for instance, issued a press release blasting Joyce’s recess vote. Likewise, state Rep. Barbara L’Italien (D-Andover) has been targeted by her Republican opponent, Lawrence “Lonnie” Brennan for her vote. Brennan’s campaign website loudly proclaims, “I WILL NEVER, EVER, TAKE A VOTE NOT-TO-VOTE on an issue until 2-days AFTER the NOV. ELECTION. WHAT A COWARDLY ACT by our Rep.”

L’Italien has already weathered a difficult re-election challenge in her swing district because of her support for same-sex marriage; back in 2004 her race against Republican challenger Maria Marasco was a nail-biter. State Rep. Ron Mariano (D-Quincy) says that postponing the vote until two days after the election was a mistake. “It looks self-serving,” he says. “It was self-serving. You created an issue for people who have primary opponents. It just wasn’t handled well.”

“What happens now if Barbara loses?” asks a Boston-area lawmaker who spoke on condition of anonymity. Presuming the initiative petition comes to a second vote in the next legislative session, he says, “We lose a solid vote. Now we get in a person who clearly is not going to be with us, we have a net loss of one, so if we’re close to the 151-vote total, one vote could be the deciding factor.”

Meanwhile, lawmakers who don’t support the civil marriage rights of same-sex couples but who’ve been under substantial pressure from their constituents to vote against the amendment can safely vote against it without reprisals on election day. State Rep. Tony Verga (D-Gloucester) falls into this camp. In March, when it looked like he would face a pro-marriage equality supporter in the Democratic primary, Verga let MassEquality staffers believe he would vote against the amendment. “At that point we really thought … that Verga was leaning towards our side,” MassEquality Political Director Matt McTigue told Bay Windows in July, “And we needed his vote and didn’t want to completely write him off and assume that he was a lost cause.”

Verga’s potential challenger, Max Schenk, failed to get on the ballot due to an organizational snafu, but he is now running a sticker campaign. Regardless, if Verga votes in favor of the amendment Nov. 9, he won’t be punished at the ballot box.