LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR Jane Swift has no doubt that the staffers she has pressed into providing day care for her daughter Elizabeth are only too glad to volunteer their services.
 Lieutenant Governor Jane Swift |
"I would be stunned if there was anyone who was feeling pressure to spend time with her and care for her," says Swift. To prove the point, she offers a compelling argument: Elizabeth is "adorable and engaging and she's learned to blow kisses." Well, I've got a little one who is adorable and engaging and a pretty skilled kiss-blower himself, and I really need a baby sitter next Wednesday. Would Swift mind getting one of her staffers to "volunteer" a few hours that night to take care of my son? I, too, would be stunned if any of them objected.
When the stories about Swift's use of state employees to perform personal chores broke last week, she switched the subject to her busy schedule. Her job, she apparently believes, is infinitely more demanding than those of mere mortals. "It's not always easy and convenient for me to just pop in and out of errands like it is for everyone else," she offered by way of explanation.
But the issue isn't Swift's schedule and it isn't Elizabeth's charms.
The issue is ethics.
"Both the governor and I take very seriously the public trust placed in us and we will not tolerate any breaking of that trust by anyone associated with our administration," Swift declared in August, as she announced that Peter Blute's midday booze cruise on a state-chartered boat would cost him his job as director of the Massachusetts Port Authority. "Utilizing state resources for personal use is not acceptable."
It is hard to square that admirably clear principle with Swift's own behavior. To review the bidding so far, she has: (1) repeatedly asked state employees to baby-sit, without pay, both at the State House and in her home; (2) had staff members "voluntarily" give up vacation days so they could drive the U-Haul when she moved from Boston to Northbridge; and (3) ordered a police helicopter from the Bureau of Tactical Operations to fly her home to North Adams for Thanksgiving.
"Utilizing state resources for personal use is not acceptable."
Swift is unforgiving of the lapses and foibles of others. When Blute turned up on that booze cruise, the lieutenant governor hotly denounced him. After James Carangelo was overheard making rude personal remarks during a junket to Mexico, she engineered his ouster from the Massport board of directors. And when Joe Moakley, the 72-year-old dean of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, colloquially referred to Blute's female successor at Massport as a "girl," Swift made a noisy federal case of it.
"I just think it's inappropriate . . . to call an accomplished 34-year-old woman a girl," she barked. "I have a problem with it. He should be picking up the phone and calling Virginia Buckingham and apologizing to her."
Yes, indeed, Jane Swift readily spots the motes in the eyes of others. The beams in her own, she doesn't always notice.
During the same Mexican junket when she was so attuned to Carangelo's transgressions, Swift was happy to accept unpaid first-class upgrades on her plane tickets — a practice Buckingham has since banned.
Swift doesn't scruple at taking $25,000 to teach one course per semester at Suffolk University, a school where other part-time instructors earn no more than $3,100 per course. Suffolk, as it happens, has sought and received tens of millions of dollars in loan guarantees from state agencies.
While serving in the Massachusetts Senate, Swift availed herself of a tax break that exists only for legislators who live more than 50 miles from their state capital. Intended to ease the costs borne by lawmakers who must travel long distances to the State House, the loophole is worth $140 for each day that the Legislature is in session. The Senate only meets a few dozen times a year, but because it technically stays in session year-round, Swift claimed $140 for every day of every year that she was a senator. Result: For six years, she paid almost no federal income taxes.
None of these things is illegal. But none of them fits the rigorous ethical standard to which Swift seems to hold everyone but herself.
The state's lieutenant governor is blessed with many fine traits. A touch of humility is not among them. Rather than acknowledge that commandeering a police chopper to fly her home for the weekend might not have been such a good idea, Swift bristles. "I'm the lieutenant governor," she snaps, "and the lieutenant governor and the governor are allowed to use the state police helicopter." Rather than admit that accepting a $25,000 kiss from a university eager to score political points might not pass the smell test, Swift insists she is worth every penny. "Suffolk," she brags, "is paying me based on the valuable experience I bring to that class."
And rather than concede that state workers should not be dispatched to pick up her dry cleaning or baby-sit her daughter, she complains about how tough her job is.
Swift is acquiring a reputation as a corner-cutting pol who brazenly defends her perks while blasting the ethics of others. Is that really what she wants? If not, it's time to make some changes. She might begin by learning to say, "I was wrong."
Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
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