Geez Jim. You sound so surprised. Why?

This has been going on for decades here in Massachusetts, and will continue to go on forever. You hope things will change at the ballot box, but they won't and you know why? Because no one in the Democratic party has the courage to stand up and challenge it. What they'll do is just give more handouts to their supporters, ensure a strong turnout at the polls, and keep running things as they have. Let the republicans have the governorship. That way, they can blame Weld/Cellucci/Swift/Romney for things that go wrong. If they ever got a democratic governor to go along with their house and senate monopoly, then people might just realize what's really going on.

They've created a nice little inbred state here. The same privileged few, the same unions and the same special interests are allowed to run rampant and make money while anyone with opposing views is ignored and labeled as prejudiced/racist. Rather than fight, they simply pack up and move out of state. The census stats show that, but we sit here and act surprised and befuddled about why it's happening.

You sit here and decry the legislature now, Jim, but who will your paper endorse in November. Will you call to task the local reps and senators who stood by and allowed the people's voices to be ignored? No, what you'll do is tell us what a great job Golden, Murphy, Panagiotakos, Tucker, et al have done raising money for Lowell and the Merrimack Valley. Then you'll encourage us to support them, ingoring the fact not a single one of them had the courage to stand up and challenge the leadership. All it would take is one or two to speak up, and many more would follow. But as long as they bring home the pork, who cared about the big picture, right?

That's why no one stands up and does what's right. Why should they? There are no repurcussions. It's easier to be a coward and accept the prestigious committee positions that are handed out. Why rock the boat when doing so might actually drown your political ambitions, right?

Pretty much a shameless tactic to push the decision out past the election so as to not fear the wrath of voters. We have a sad and pathetic legislature.

Mr. Double Standard, there are always repercussions for our elected officials. Unfortunately, most of them run unopposed, so there is little choice in the matter. I think we've done a good job praising our local legislators when they've done well and chastizing them for making votes that are aimed to curry favor with leadership. On the gay-marriage petition, you have to give most of them credit for voting against adjournment for the Constitutional Convention. In today's Sun, there is a chart of how they voted. Special credit should go to Rep. Tom Golden. While he supports gay marriage, he voted against adjournment. In his words, he wanted to stand up and vote. That's admirable, because he saw the issue for what it is: a citizens' initiative petition that deserved to get a hearing. He did not get hung up on the emotions or the passions. He took a reasonable stance for democracy, as did the other Lowell reps.
I, like you, am concerned about the lack of respect the people get at the Statehouse for attempting to change their government. When 180,000 people sign a petition, and play by the rules, it should get a hearing. The Legislature, however, simply turns its back on them, like they don't even exist. The power of incumbency is overwhelming in this state because we lack a two-party system. And the lack of competiton will mean citizens can easily be denied true access to free expression under the state Constitution. It's a very sobering thought. John Adams once wrote, "We are a government of laws, not men." I think he'd see it differently today. We are a government of cowards, who take the law into their own hands.

While I realize most of our local reps voted not to adjourn, it's a little difficult for me to believe this process and who would vote which way was decided long beforehand. I know you're not naive enough to believe that many times the votes of particular legislators are decided ahead of time and manipulated to save face for them. Did our local pols really want this to go to a vote, or was it pre-arranged and since their vote didn't matter, they were "allowed" to vote their conscience? Maybe I'm too cynical, but is it unreasonable for me to question how Mr. Golden would have voted had his possibly been the deciding vote? And why aren't they out there railing against the leadership and helping to lead the revolution to change things? They quietly slip a quote to the local paper, then disappear. Why aren't they out there joining the those in protest?

Voting has nothing to do with the democratic process when it comes to a civil rights issue of a minority group.

I don't know why anyone is wasting their time talking about this because nothing is ever going to change and it is all our fault. We keep electing the same old people over and over and the balance never changes.

Jack, you make a good point. we do keep electing the same people, but that's because most of the same people keep running without a challenge. Two years ago, more than 60 percent of the legislative races in this state went unchallenged, with the incumbent winning a walkover. It's been as high as 74 over the last decade. I think most of the people entering politics do so with good intentions, but they soon find their ideals and ideas ground into the mud by the perks of incumbency and their willingness to please party leadership. When the Legislature raised the pay levels to "professional status" ($19,000 a year to $42,000 a year) we were led to believe that the pay would attract better candidates. Hardly. It's just given attorneys, insurance brokers and other professionals a second job to creat better networking opportunities for them to build their careers. Massachusetts, with its full-time Legislature, doesn't get any better government than New Hampshire, which has apart-time Legislature that meets only once every two years. I don't see N.H. having the problems that we have, although property tax rates are high. Even so, N.H. manages things well. But N.H. also has a strong two-party system, Massachusetts does not. I think therein lies the problem. Without competition, our Legislature can do what it wants, when it wants and it usually does. Most of the time, it doesn't have the best interest of the entire state in mind.

Jim,

You're right above everyone running unopposed most of the time but there were plenty of opposition in 2004 and if I remember correctly, all incumbents were re-elected.