Our Town
The name of my town, Marblehead, is frequently an apposite description of its residents. This "town" of 21,000 would qualify as a small city in most states, including my birth state. It clings to the common Massachusetts delusion and maintains its political purity with a town meeting form of government. Now, whilst most Massachusetts "towns" conduct business via a unicameral legislature called a town meeting, Marblehead clings to the "pure" open meeting form. Any registered voter can show up, speak, and vote.
This leads to variable results. Our middle school, the largest public meeting space in town, can seat 1800 people in four rooms, about 15 percent of registered voters. The predictable result (if you've played this game a few times) is that shifting coalitions of interest groups dominate the meeting, and attendance reflects pretty much what's on the warrant for that night.
Unpredictable results happen when people unclear on the concept try to read the municipal tea leaves.
A few weeks ago, a special town meeting, which usually attracts a scant quorum, was filled to capacity and spent over three hours debating a single issue, pay-per-throw trash collection. Although it's a coming idea, Marbleheaders of all political stripes tend to be "contr'ry minded" when it comes to paying for things they don't want to pay for, and anything that smacks of additional public regulation and inspection.
The issue arose at the same time that the Republican Town Committee, with a little help from our most noxious political product, Citizens for Limited Taxation, had begun a campaign of running stealth candidates for public office. One wonders why. The town is largely Republican (at least Paleo-Republican). It has had a Democratic legislator for over 20 years, largely because the incumbents have done a fair job at legislating and have no discernible ambitions for higher office. Although that race is explicitly partisan, last fall's Republican offering never, first to last, posted an advertisement proclaiming her party affiliation. Their most successful stealth candidate was John Liming, who won a selectman's seat in 2004.
Liming is one of many illustrations of the premise that Republican horror of "moral relativism' falls short of condemning one of its own. Liming was elected as a native (he is), a non-partisan (he isn't), a college graduate (he didn't) and for a brief period a pro athlete (he wasn't). He has been shocked and offended that most town voters think his character is half a bubble off plumb.
Republican though they are, "Headers" don't care for rancourous partisanship. Call it tradition. Town meeting had been sitting for over 150 years when the Constitution was adopted, and it does damn fine without these newfangled parties. Liming's blatant partisanship--he stuck the "liberal pinko" label on any animate object that disagreed with him-- had annoyed a few people before the defects of his resume became public.
Liming has become a charter member of the local Neo-Republican chapter of Slow Learners Anonymous. For one thing, he's running for re-election. For another, he was one of the chief misreaders of Town Meeting tea leaves.
Our pay-per-throw town meeting was a parliamentary disaster. Town meetings draw on three centuries of precedent to maintain civil discourse that allows for fireworks and humour, but keeps malevolence and eccentricity in check. This one was chaired by an assistant moderator who soon proved incapable of keeping the meeting orderly. The hot-button topic had drawn hundreds of inexperienced "agin" voters who mistook Town Meeting for a youth hockey game, hallooing and catcalling opposition speakers with abandon. In a setting that combined the most charming features of an anarchist convention and the Taiwanese legislature, Liming , the RTC faithful, and CLT's resident pit bull, Barbara Anderson, pulled out the heavy guns, and threw anti-liberal vitriol by the litre at every opposition speaker.
Liming, Anderson et. al. looked at this fiasco and concluded a) that winning the issue meant they'd won the public hearts and b) that they had a mandate for this year's general meeting and slate of stealth candidates.
Well, Meeting's over. We still have to get past the municipal election and the annual sheep-dip called the "Prop 2 1/2 override," but that alleged Neo-Republican mandate was strangely silent. Most of the supporters turned out not to be. A number of them seem to have stayed home in response to CLT's latest demonstration of its commitment to the rule of law. The lobby hired Gerard "Tooky" Amirault, central figure in the notorious Fells Acre day care abuse case of the 1980s, and put him to work as a researcher in their office. The office happens to be across the street from the "lower middle school" (grade 4-6). Whatever one thinks of the jurisprudence of the Fells Acre case, Amirault happens to be a Level III registered sex offender out on parole for a child abuse conviction, as well as the most inexplicable poster child of the Massachusetts Right. Barbara Anderson was shocked and offended that some middle school parents and erstwhile supporters rather thought the CLT action was indecorous. That may be evidence that the evil genius of 1980s state politics has lost her perfect pitch.
Nope, the Republican partisans were swarmed under by the town's real geniuses at issue politics: dog owners, school parents and town employees. The first night was dominated by dog owners outraged at three warrant items that seemed to infringe on the rights of their pooches to bark when they want and shit where they please. The second night was owned in part by school parents who were offended by the partisan contention that the schools didn't need to be excellent, only adequate. They were a happy coalition with town employees (my wife included) who are accomplished at bringing out the vote for their raises and department budgets. As usual , I swallowed my principled objections to this form of legislative manipulation, bowed to higher authority, showed up, and raised my hand as instructed.
Maybe next year I'll cast my lot with the aginners and she'll let me stay home.
This leads to variable results. Our middle school, the largest public meeting space in town, can seat 1800 people in four rooms, about 15 percent of registered voters. The predictable result (if you've played this game a few times) is that shifting coalitions of interest groups dominate the meeting, and attendance reflects pretty much what's on the warrant for that night.
Unpredictable results happen when people unclear on the concept try to read the municipal tea leaves.
A few weeks ago, a special town meeting, which usually attracts a scant quorum, was filled to capacity and spent over three hours debating a single issue, pay-per-throw trash collection. Although it's a coming idea, Marbleheaders of all political stripes tend to be "contr'ry minded" when it comes to paying for things they don't want to pay for, and anything that smacks of additional public regulation and inspection.
The issue arose at the same time that the Republican Town Committee, with a little help from our most noxious political product, Citizens for Limited Taxation, had begun a campaign of running stealth candidates for public office. One wonders why. The town is largely Republican (at least Paleo-Republican). It has had a Democratic legislator for over 20 years, largely because the incumbents have done a fair job at legislating and have no discernible ambitions for higher office. Although that race is explicitly partisan, last fall's Republican offering never, first to last, posted an advertisement proclaiming her party affiliation. Their most successful stealth candidate was John Liming, who won a selectman's seat in 2004.
Liming is one of many illustrations of the premise that Republican horror of "moral relativism' falls short of condemning one of its own. Liming was elected as a native (he is), a non-partisan (he isn't), a college graduate (he didn't) and for a brief period a pro athlete (he wasn't). He has been shocked and offended that most town voters think his character is half a bubble off plumb.
Republican though they are, "Headers" don't care for rancourous partisanship. Call it tradition. Town meeting had been sitting for over 150 years when the Constitution was adopted, and it does damn fine without these newfangled parties. Liming's blatant partisanship--he stuck the "liberal pinko" label on any animate object that disagreed with him-- had annoyed a few people before the defects of his resume became public.
Liming has become a charter member of the local Neo-Republican chapter of Slow Learners Anonymous. For one thing, he's running for re-election. For another, he was one of the chief misreaders of Town Meeting tea leaves.
Our pay-per-throw town meeting was a parliamentary disaster. Town meetings draw on three centuries of precedent to maintain civil discourse that allows for fireworks and humour, but keeps malevolence and eccentricity in check. This one was chaired by an assistant moderator who soon proved incapable of keeping the meeting orderly. The hot-button topic had drawn hundreds of inexperienced "agin" voters who mistook Town Meeting for a youth hockey game, hallooing and catcalling opposition speakers with abandon. In a setting that combined the most charming features of an anarchist convention and the Taiwanese legislature, Liming , the RTC faithful, and CLT's resident pit bull, Barbara Anderson, pulled out the heavy guns, and threw anti-liberal vitriol by the litre at every opposition speaker.
Liming, Anderson et. al. looked at this fiasco and concluded a) that winning the issue meant they'd won the public hearts and b) that they had a mandate for this year's general meeting and slate of stealth candidates.
Well, Meeting's over. We still have to get past the municipal election and the annual sheep-dip called the "Prop 2 1/2 override," but that alleged Neo-Republican mandate was strangely silent. Most of the supporters turned out not to be. A number of them seem to have stayed home in response to CLT's latest demonstration of its commitment to the rule of law. The lobby hired Gerard "Tooky" Amirault, central figure in the notorious Fells Acre day care abuse case of the 1980s, and put him to work as a researcher in their office. The office happens to be across the street from the "lower middle school" (grade 4-6). Whatever one thinks of the jurisprudence of the Fells Acre case, Amirault happens to be a Level III registered sex offender out on parole for a child abuse conviction, as well as the most inexplicable poster child of the Massachusetts Right. Barbara Anderson was shocked and offended that some middle school parents and erstwhile supporters rather thought the CLT action was indecorous. That may be evidence that the evil genius of 1980s state politics has lost her perfect pitch.
Nope, the Republican partisans were swarmed under by the town's real geniuses at issue politics: dog owners, school parents and town employees. The first night was dominated by dog owners outraged at three warrant items that seemed to infringe on the rights of their pooches to bark when they want and shit where they please. The second night was owned in part by school parents who were offended by the partisan contention that the schools didn't need to be excellent, only adequate. They were a happy coalition with town employees (my wife included) who are accomplished at bringing out the vote for their raises and department budgets. As usual , I swallowed my principled objections to this form of legislative manipulation, bowed to higher authority, showed up, and raised my hand as instructed.
Maybe next year I'll cast my lot with the aginners and she'll let me stay home.
posted by Uncle | 22:37
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