News

Two years after 'rock bottom,' floor keeps falling for state GOP

By Kyle Cheney
Statehouse News Service
Published: November 6, 2008

BOSTON — After the 2006 elections, Republican leaders insisted they had hit "rock bottom," as their party saw its ranks decline in the House and Senate and the Corner Office ceded to a Democrat for the first time in 16 years.

On Tuesday, "rock bottom" dropped out from under them, as the Democrats padded by three seats their already crushing dominance in the Legislature.

The House in January will feature a 144-16 Democrat edge, and Statehouse observers can expect to see dozens of key votes break along those lines for the next two years. In the Senate, the balance of power will remain unchanged at 35-5 in favor of the Democrats, with GOP Sen. Scott Brown of Wrentham hanging on to his seat Tuesday. The current House features 141 Democrats and 19 Republicans.

Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, won another term in the Senate after he was unopposed for the 1st Essex and Middlesex District.

The Democrats' gains came as all legislative incumbents were swept back into office and the Democrats grabbed seats in three long-held Republican districts with departing incumbents.

Rep. Mary Rogeness, R-Longmeadow, will see her seat of 18 years transferred to Democrat Brian Ashe, who defeated Republican challenger William Scibelli 54 percent to 46, a nearly 2,000 vote margin. Ashe is a three-term Longmeadow selectman and longtime employee of the Hampden County Sheriff's department.

Democrat Bill Bowles will turn GOP Rep. John Lepper's 14-year Attleboro seat blue, having beaten GOP opponent George Ross by 1,300 votes, a 54 percent to 46 percent win. Bowles, a Vietnam veteran, worked for Raytheon for 20 years before joining the Attleboro City Council in 1993, where he served for 13 years.

Democrat Carolyn Dykema of Holliston eked out a 52-48 win over former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey staffer Dan Haley, a Republican. The seat was vacated by GOP Rep. Paul Loscocco, an early supporter of Sen. John McCain for president. Dykema, a Wellesley University and Indiana University graduate, has worked for an environmental engineering and consultant company, and served on the state's energy facilities siting board.

The loss of Lepper and Rogeness, two members of the minority party leadership, will force a reshuffling of the party's power structure, giving two rank-and-file Republicans a chance to help steer the flailing GOP. With just 16 members, House Republicans will also be stretched thin next session, straining to participate meaningfully on the Legislature's 26 joint committees and seven House committees.

The Republicans continued a nearly two-decade trend of hemorrhaging seats to the Democrats, even at a time when several prominent Democrats are mired in legal and ethical investigations and economic woes forced the Patrick administration to slash $900 million out of an unbalanced state budget. Republicans, who said even a one-seat pickup would represent a victory for their increasingly marginalized party, failed to deliver on Tuesday, in part because they didn't bother to challenge 115 House incumbents.

In the few races Republicans did challenge incumbents, most were decimated by two-to-one margins or more.

After a yesterday morning House session, Rogeness told the News Service she was "disappointed" that her district flipped Democratic.

"Sadly, I think this state is headed for the same kind of insolvency that we had around the time I came in," she said, citing declining revenue and an appetite for tax hikes among lawmakers. "The will of the body so far has been to raise taxes rather than cut spending."

Rogeness, elected in 1990, rode in on a wave of voter discontent that saw the Senate GOP ranks swell to a veto-proof majority and Republican Bill Weld secure the governorship. She said there hadn't been a backlash among voters this year because "the tax increases have been hidden from people."

Rogeness chuckled when asked what, barring a full-blown fiscal crisis, would help Republicans get elected. "We fielded good candidates. We ran good campaigns," she said. "We did that this time, and yet we didn't win."

No incumbents in either party were knocked out Tuesday, although a handful faced stiff challenges, including Reps. Paul Kujawski, D-Webster; Rosemary Sandlin, D-Agawam; and Robert Hargraves, (R-Groton. Early returns in Kujawksi's race against Uxbridge Republican Kevin Kuros gave the GOP a glimmer of hope. But that hope quickly faded and Kujawksi won by a 53-47 percent margin, about 1,300 votes. Sandlin's race against Independent Nicholas Boldyga was the closest any incumbent came to a defeat, as she won a 52-48 percent victory, winning by fewer than 800 votes.

In one of the most watched races of the year, Democrat Sonia Chang-Diaz enjoyed an emphatic victory, winning 92 percent of the vote for the seat long held by Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, who suspended her write-in campaign upon allegations she had accepted bribes to influence legislation. Chang-Diaz's other challenger, William Leonard of the Socialist Workers Party, garnered 5 percent of the vote.

Turning the page on another legally challenged lawmaker, Ken Donnelly, a Democrat of Arlington, won election to the seat held by Sen. James Marzilli, who has been charged with several counts of sexual assault. Marzilli has remained in his seat, although he has not returned to the State House since the charges surfaced. Donnelly, a 35-year firefighter who retired in 2007, beat Republican Brion Cangiamila by a two-to-one margin.

In the only four-way race in the state, Independent Tim Madden, a small business owner and former Nantucket selectman, beat out a Democrat and two unenrolled candidates to fill the seat vacated by 19-year veteran Eric Turkington, D-Falmouth. Turkington, who gave up his seat to run for Barnstable County register of probate, finished second to Republican Anastasia Perrino in that race.

Stow Democrat Kate Hogan ensured that the seat of departing Rep. Patricia Walrath, an 18-year veteran, will remain Democratic. The UMass graduate and small business executive defeated Republican Sonny Parente and Independent David Goulding, garnering 48 percent of the vote to Parente's 44 percent and Goulding's 9 percent.

By a nearly identical margin, Marlborough Democrat Danielle Gregoire defeated GOP city council president Arthur Gregoire and Independent Joseph Valianti. Gregoire, a Suffolk Law School graduate who spent several years working for Rep. Stephen LeDuc, fills the seat her former boss vacated earlier this year.

In Winchester, Democrat Jason Lewis kept the seat of departing Rep. Paul Casey in the Democratic column. Lewis, a Harvard Business School graduate and longtime management and marketing official in the software industry, won a three-way race against Republican Brian O'Connor and Independent Chad Riley, garnering 52 percent of the vote.

Acton Rep. Jamie Eldridge will take his place in the upper chamber, having defeated Republican opponent Steven Levy by about 11,000 votes. The three-term Democrat will fill the seat vacated by retiring Sen. Pam Resor. Jennifer Benson, Democrat of Lunenberg, will fill Eldridge's House seat. She has served for five years on the Lunenberg School Committee and has previously served on the Democratic Town Committee.

Democrat James Cantwell will fill the Marshfield seat vacated by veteran Democrat Frank Hynes, who will retire after a 26-year legislative career. Cantwell beat Independent John Valianti by more than 5,000 votes, garnering 62 percent of all ballots cast. Cantwell has served as a Marshfield selectman, assistant district attorney in the Norfolk County Juvenile Justice Unit, as a staffer to U.S. Rep. William Delahunt and co-owns a private law firm.

In the Senate, Millbury Democrat Michael Moore won 60 percent of the vote in the race to replace departing Sen. Edward Augustus. Moore fended off Shrewsbury Repbulican John LeBeaux and Green-Rainbow Party nominee Steven Baer, also of Shrewsbury, to win the seat. Moore is an 18-year environmental police officer and has worked as an investigator in the attorney general's office.

A shakeup in the ranks of veteran lawmakers will guarantee some leadership changes come January, when the speaker will fill vacant chairmanships covering veterans' affairs, health care financing and tourism. In the Senate, chairmanships covering education, election laws, tourism, state administration, the environment and the judiciary await new leadership.

Several races were over before they began, as Republicans failed to field challengers, and no independents or write-in candidates mounted a challenge.

Two-term Rep. Jennifer Flanagan, D-Leominster, will fill the seat of departing Sen. Robert Antonioni, who has held the office since 1992. Democrat Dennis Rosa will fill her seat in the House, having beaten unenrolled candidate Claire Freda by about 2,000 votes.

Rep. Thomas Kennedy, who has held his Brockton seat for 25 years, will move to the upper chamber as well, filling the seat of Sen. Robert Creedon. Creedon won an unopposed election to fill the vacant Plymouth Country clerk of courts post. Democrat Michael Brady will fill Kennedy's former seat, winning a dominant 84 percent of the vote against Republican Lawrence Novak. Brady, a Massachusetts State Lottery employee, is also a local city councilor.

In Gloucester, Rep. Anthony Verga will be succeeded by Ann-Margaret Ferrante, a lawyer and fisherman's daughter who defeated him in the September primary.

In the season's other primary upset, Woburn's James Dwyer, a three-decade employee of the Middlesex County Juvenile Probation Department, knocked out two-term Democrat Patrick Natale, and will replace him in January after running unopposed in the general election. The Democrat is in his second term as a Woburn alderman.

Watertown resident Jonathan Hecht, a graduate of Stanford University, Tufts University and Harvard Law School, and Watertown Town Council since 2005, will replace Rep. Rachel Kaprielian, whose seat has been vacant since she was picked by Gov. Deval Patrick to head the Registrar of Motor Vehicles. Hecht has been an active member of the Massachusetts Municipal Association and is a member of the group's Local Government Advisory Council, which meets regularly at the State House with state leaders.

In one bright spot for Republicans, Sen. Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, handily defeated challenger Sara Orozco, a Democrat, 59-41 percent, by more than 14,000 votes. Orozco was unable to capitalize on support from high-powered Democrats, including Gov. Deval Patrick, who campaigned on her behalf.