If you can't buy their vote, buy their job
Howie Carr
The Boston Herald
Friday, June 01, 2007
The way the gay "advocates" look at it, it shouldn't be this hard to buy a few votes.
The "We're a Family Too" crowd wants to make sure the voters of Massachusetts never get a chance to weigh in on "gay marriage" next year. Funny how all the Globe polls claim the homosexuals would win at the ballot box, but the gays don't seem that confident.
In fact, they're hysterical. Maybe because no electorate ever votes for gay marriage - when they get the chance, that is. So here's the convoluted deal. Gay marriage, so-called, imposed from above by a bare majority of a renegade court, will be on the ballot here in November 2008. But only if the supporters of the constitutional amendment banning it can get 50 votes out of 200 in the Legislature.
This vote will be taken at a joint meeting of the House and Senate scheduled for June 14. Last January, the let-the-people-decide forces got 62 votes. (They have to take two votes, in different legislative sessions - I told you it was convoluted).
The problem is, several of those 62 were lame ducks, who are now out of the Legislature. The consensus is that the let-the-people-decide crowd is down to 53 or 54.
If they can stay at 50 or above, the electorate will make the decision. But if the gays can switch - or eliminate - three or four of those 50-plus votes, then the highhanded decision of four PC mandarins will trump the will of the people.
Which is just how the "advocates" want it. So they ask each other, can't these nasty homophobic reps be bought off? With a nice hack sinecure, somewhere. I mean, Gov. Deval Patrick owes the homosexual lobby, big-time. The Mass. Teachers Association, run by leading lesbian Arline Isaacson, pumped millions into his campaign last year.
There's only one problem with Deval handing out jobs for votes. It's Chapter 268A, section 2 of the Mass. General Laws. The law prohibits "corruptly offering gifts, or anything of value, to influence any official act."
OK, say the gays, maybe you can't buy them off. But what if you just got some of the hetero hacks to take a hike, and not vote? Sorry, that's covered by Chapter 268A as well. You can't get any public official to "omit any official act."
This isn't to say the gays haven't been busy, beyond the $700,000 TV buy and the endless vigils, candlelight and otherwise, at the State House. They've already flipped at least one vote in the squishy Senate - an epiphany on the road to Northampton.
Meanwhile, Rep. Brian Wallace of South Boston, one of the 62 let-the-people-vote reps last January, is checking out of the Legislature today. Got himself a nice hack state job.
Hey, look, here's another hack job opening - sergeant-at-arms. You know, the guy with the top hat and the stick who leads the governor into the House chambers for the State of the State address.
Kevin Fitzgerald, a/k/a "Money Fitz," a sleazy crony of Tommy Taxes, just retired with a $4,542.78-a-month pension.
The gays daydream. They count and they recount. They scheme and they make up their lists and they check them out twice. How about Paul Kujawski? Does the commonwealth need an official beer taster, perhaps?
The gays figure, they're just hacks, we can buy 'em. Probably not, and anyway, there's not much time left, and think of the spotlight the solons would be shining on themselves.
In the end it would all be up to Deval to try to fix the case. As inept as he has proven himself to be as governor, Deval did once work at DOJ.
He understands how easy it is to be taken down, if someone with subpoena power and an appropriate statute (Chapter 268A) has a mind to do you in. And if he's forgotten, he can always take a stroll down Beacon Street and ask Buddy Cianci.