WAS IT only a few short years ago that William Weld cast the longest shadow on Beacon Hill?
All politicians lose clout once they leave office. What is surprising about Weld is how little it seems to matter that he ever was in office.
 Former Governor William Weld and his successor, Paul Cellucci. |
Weld was the first Republican in 30 years to win two gubernatorial elections. His share of the vote in 1994 was a triumphant 71 percent, more than any Massachusetts governor in this century. For almost seven years, his name was in the paper every day. His puckish personality delighted the public, to judge from the polls that routinely confirmed his popularity. He was an original, surprising and deft, able to charm South Boston townies at a St. Patrick's Day brunch — or conduct a press conference in French during a trade mission to Paris.
Weld's was the foremost political presence in Massachusetts in this decade. So where is his legacy? Where are the lasting changes he made to the state's political and legal landscape?
He campaigned as a fervent downsizer of government, but state government is bigger today than ever before.
He spoke of fiscal restraint and zero-based budget, but state spending skyrocketed during his term (and is rocketing still).
He pushed to adopt the death penalty, but of the two Supreme Judicial Court justices he appointed, one is a death penalty opponent, and the other has just resigned.
He never wavered in his demand for tax relief and even signed a string of tax cuts into law — most of them invisible to average taxpayers — but the Massachusetts tax burden remains one of the heaviest in America, and the Department of Revenue continues to extract record-breaking amounts of money from the public.
This is not to say that Weld achieved nothing. He deserves credit for a number of successes, such as ending the fiscal crisis he inherited from Michael Dukakis and abolishing early parole for prison inmates. Of course he left footprints behind him when he walked out of the State House two years ago this month.
But they were footprints in sand, not concrete.
Consider three current developments in the state Legislature:
* The fiscal year 2000 budgets passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives reimpose a capital-gains tax on long-term investments. Repealing that tax was a priority of Weld's, one he introduced year after year. It was finally eliminated in December 1994, an accomplishment that Weld called the "pride and joy" of his strategy for boosting the Massachusetts economy. But later this month, when the Legislature votes on a final budget, Weld's pride and joy will be gone.
* The budget is also likely to contain a provision opening a large loophole in the 1995 welfare-reform law. A key element of that law was the requirement that able-bodied welfare recipients work 20 hours a week. From the outset, opponents of reform demanded that the law be softened so that taking classes or going to job training would count as work. Weld refused, arguing that in the real world, people don't get paychecks for going to school. When the Legislature gutted a similar work requirement for food stamps in its 1998 budget, Weld vetoed the offending language. But now Weld is gone — and even Republicans say they are willing to change the law.
* Another bill working its way through the Legislature would revive the $30 biennial fee for renewing automobile registrations in Massachusetts. Three years ago, Weld ordered the Registry of Motor Vehicles to stop charging for renewals. It was no doubt one of his most popular actions, since it meant cash in the pocket of every car owner in the state. The argument for reinstating the fee is a classic piece of big-government expansionism. In the words of Representative Joseph Sullivan, House chairman of the Transportation Committee, "We need to have other revenues available so we can do projects in all four corners of the Commonwealth."
To be sure, Governor Paul Cellucci is likely to veto all of these measures. But there are more than enough Democrats in each chamber to override the governor's vetoes, and it will take adroit and energetic footwork to make his vetoes stick.
Weld's legacy, what there is of it, is paper-thin. Cellucci will have to struggle constantly to keep it from being shredded. It will not be easy. In the Beacon Hill poker game, Cellucci holds a weak hand. He was elected with only a bare majority of the votes. Other than the lieutenant governor, he is the only Republican holding high political office in Massachusetts. Though generally liked, he does not generate public enthusiasm and is not sustained by a passionate power base.
He is, however, unlike Weld, willing to work. For all Weld's big talk about reducing taxes, he was never prepared to actually fight for it. Cellucci is. Already he has put the legislators on notice: Roll back the income tax to 5 percent, or I'll lead a ballot campaign to roll it back for you. That is a gauntlet Weld never threw down.
In the fullness of time, Weld is likely to be remembered as little more than the quirky governor who dived into a river fully clothed, mailed out photos of himself with a dead boar, demanded to be made ambassador to Mexico - and walked away from the job in midterm. What a fine irony it will be if his successor turns out to be the hero who finally brought tax relief - real tax relief - to Massachusetts.
Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
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