Patrick calls out legislature for leaving Hill amid 'crisis'

A frustrated Gov. Deval Patrick demanded Thursday that lawmakers return to Beacon Hill to complete work on sweeping education and sentencing proposals, and to further address the state's fiscal woes.

"It is more than a little frustrating that they would leave for, whatever it is, six or seven weeks, with so much of the commonwealth's vital business undone," Patrick said during an unscheduled sit-down with reporters in the State House press gallery.
"We have really difficult choices facing state government and they are values choices."

"And we're in the middle of a crisis right now," he added. "We're in a crisis fiscally. We're in a crisis in terms of the achievement gap.
We have a crime package that's been sitting around for a long, long time. I appreciate that the Senate moved on the ed reform bill and on the crime package. But it's not done until it's done. And we need both houses here to finish this and deal with the fiscal issues as well."

The Senate approved an education reform bill and a criminal record access and sentencing bill this week.  House Speaker Robert DeLeo says the House will consider the education bill in January and the crime bill sometime next year.  Lawmakers are scheduled to hold light-duty informal sessions until the new year.

Patrick's 5 p.m. visit to the press room, his first in months, came unannounced and featured perhaps his harshest critique of the Legislature in his term.

Under the Legislature's rules, formal sessions - when most major business is conducted - in odd-numbered years, end on the third Wednesday in November and resume in January of the following year.

Patrick said lawmakers had a "moral obligation" to suspend their rules and return to action immediately to finish work on a bill to lift the statewide cap on charter schools and empower his administration and school superintendents to intervene in poorly performing school districts.

"It's my hope that the members will realize that their rules are of their own making, that they have it within their power to work a couple more days or, frankly, as long as it takes, to get this work done," he said, flanked by a handful of aides.  Patrick noted lawmakers often suspend their rules.

Dressed neatly in a white shirt and tie, sans jacket, Patrick, whose reelection fight is less than a year away, characterized as "brinksmanship" the House's decision to postpone debate on the education bill until January.

His remarks drew the quick ire of Speaker Robert DeLeo's office.

"Governor Patrick's comments seem to be more about political necessity than 'moral obligation,'" said DeLeo spokesman Seth Gitell, in a statement. "Speaker DeLeo's obligation is to the Commonwealth's schoolchildren - not Governor Patrick's political calendar.""

A spokesman for Senate President Therese Murray noted that the Senate had already passed versions of the education and crime bill and would be working with the administration to finish dealing with the state's fiscal situation.

Aides to the speaker and Senate president declined to make either available to respond to specific charges leveled by Patrick, and neither office addressed the governor's call to return to session.

DeLeo said this week it would be a "disservice" to residents to "rush" through the education proposal and crime legislation aimed at reducing sentences of some non-violent drug offenders and revising rules governing access to criminal records. In a letter to colleagues, he emphasized that the House would act quickly on the education bill after the holidays, giving the Legislature enough time to pass the education bill before a mid-January deadline to apply as much as $250 million in federal education grants.

Patrick said he feared that special interests would attempt to water down the education bill during the six-week recess.

"There are interests lined up all around this bill and that they will use the time between now and final action to influence the bill, and the bill is strong now, it is strong coming out of the Senate," Patrick said.

In June, faced with a declining economy and at odds with the Legislature, Patrick used a threat to veto a proposed sales tax hike as leverage to prod lawmakers to enact pension, transportation and ethics proposals. Asked what leverage he had in this latest skirmish, Patrick, resting on a file cabinet coated with political bumper stickers, said, "They call it the bully pulpit which is what I'm sitting on right now. I hope that you will help me use it."

The governor said he was examining his "constitutional prerogative"
to call the Legislature back into session, and he said he was fairly certain "they have the constitutional prerogative to ignore it."