Allies dominate in legislative leadership, committee assignments

Rep. Marty Walz, the new House co-chair of the education committee, said she expected that a bill to require permission slips from parents for discussion of LGBT issues in schools would likely die in committee.

Last week's announcement of new House Speaker Robert DeLeo's leadership team and the new House and Senate committee assignments brought welcome news for LGBT advocates. Most promising was the appointment of Newton's state Sen. Cynthia Stone Creem, a longtime advocate for LGBT rights, to serve as the new Senate chair of the judiciary committee, which this session will consider the transgender rights bill, a top political priority of LGBT advocates. Creem is an original co-sponsor of the bill.

Last year the bill died in committee under Creem's predecessor, retired Sen. Robert Creedon (D-Brockton), who generally opposed LGBT rights legislation, and House Judiciary Chair Rep. Eugene O'Flaherty (D-Chelsea), who has yet to take a public position on the bill.

Marc Solomon, executive director of MassEquality, believes both Creem and O'Flaherty, who retained his post as House Judiciary Chair, will work to win the bill a favorable committee vote.

"I've had a number of conversations with [O'Flaherty] about the bill last year, and he is supportive and wants to help us get it done. Cyndi Creem is a strong supporter and a fighter for equal rights, and the difference between her and her predecessor, who was a really nice guy but never voted our way on anything, it's really night and day," said Solomon.

O'Flaherty's office did not respond to calls to comment for this story.

Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, agreed that Creem's appointment would bolster the transgender rights bill's chance of success, but she said she does not yet believe advocates have convinced O'Flaherty to support the bill.

"Cynthia Creem has been a strong supporter of GLBT rights from her first days in the Senate ... so that's fabulous, and that bodes only well. ... [O'Flaherty] is playing the proper role for a legislator who is considering an issue, and given his history with us in the ConCon [constitutional convention] I believe he will act in a similar vein, meaning even if he is not yet totally supportive or even comfortable yet with the bill, I believe he'll be fair and will eventually be won over by the merits of the issue," said Isaacson. "But I don't want to tell you he's there yet. I don't believe that's accurate. But he's not an enemy for this bill and certainly not of our community."

O'Flaherty, one of the legislature's more socially conservative members, surprised advocates on both sides of the marriage issue when he came out against any and all further attempts to reverse equal marriage rights in 2005, after having actively supported such efforts previously.

Creem, reached the day after committee assignments were made public Feb. 12, said it was too soon to tell how the transgender rights bill would fare in her committee.

"I did not get my assignment until late yesterday, so I have no idea. I'm assuming it will come to judiciary, but I haven't seen any bills yet. Certainly I'm very supportive, but I have not even had a word with the other side [O'Flaherty]," said Creem.

Yet Creem remains a strong supporter of the bill. Once she learned she was in the running for the judiciary chairmanship she said she consciously avoided becoming a co-sponsor of bills likely to come before the committee, but made an exception for the transgender rights bill.

"It had been something I had been committed to before, and I thought it was certainly an important piece and an important bill, and I thought it would be hard to explain why I hadn't been a sponsor, because it seemed so basic we should do something like this. ... I feel ... it's just a basic human rights bill," said Creem.

Isaacson said as committee chairs Creem and O'Flaherty wield considerable influence in determining whether the bill gets a favorable committee vote. But even if they both back the bill that does not guarantee it will pass, she said. Once the bill leaves committee Isaacson said it would be up to leadership to shepherd the bill through the full House and Senate.

"Chairs can definitely influence the movement of a bill. However, chairs alone cannot determine the movement of legislation outside the committee. That of course involves many others in leadership," said Isaacson.

On that front DeLeo's newly appointed leadership team gives advocates additional reason to celebrate. Three of the four members of DeLeo's leadership team - Majority Leader James Vallee (D-Franklin), Assistant Majority Leader Ron Mariano (D-Quincy) and Second Assistant Majority Leader Patricia Haddad (D-Somerset) - are all original co-sponsors of the transgender rights bill, as is DeLeo himself (see "More than half the legislature signs on to trans rights bill," Feb. 12). Thomas Petrolati (D-Ludlow), the speaker pro tempore, has generally opposed LGBT rights legislation.

Solomon and Isaacson differed in their assessment of the new leadership team, although both were optimistic about the prospects of passing pro-LGBT bills in the current session.

"The DeLeo leadership team is without a question the most pro-equality leadership team in the history of the State House," said Solomon. "[His team shows that] Bob DeLeo is extremely fair-minded, and secondly that equality for all across the board is really a mainstream value in Massachusetts now. It's an embarrassment of riches for civil rights."

Solomon said as assistant chair of Ways and Means under DeLeo's predecessor, Sal DiMasi, Vallee was a key ally in securing funding increases for LGBT youth, elder and domestic violence programs last year. He said Mariano was their strongest supporter in the Quincy area during the marriage battles, and Haddad helped to torpedo anti-gay legislation in her former role as House chair of the Joint Committee on Education.

Isaacson was more cautious in her appraisal of the new team. She said DiMasi's team - in particular Haddad's predecessor, Rep. Byron Rushing (D-Boston) and DiMasi himself - was generally more progressive. DeLeo and his number two, Vallee, both initially voted to ban same-sex marriage in 2004 before later switching their votes, and Petrolati, a holdover from DiMasi's team, has consistently voted against marriage equality. But Isaacson said DeLeo and Vallee's movement from opposing to supporting marriage equality shows that they will support the LGBT community if advocates make a strong enough argument.

"The lesson I cull from the list is that this is a group of legislators we can work with, and we cannot take them for granted, but they are fair, decent, and thoughtful," Isaacson said. "So even if they disagree with us on an issue at first, they're the kind of people who will be open to reconsidering if we make compelling arguments. And that's pretty good."

Several of DeLeo's picks for committee chair positions won applause from LGBT and HIV/AIDS advocates. Solomon and Isaacson both praised the selection of state Rep. Marty Walz (D-Boston), a staunch ally of the LGBT community, to succeed Haddad as House chair of the Joint Committee on Education. Her committee will likely consider several LGBT-related bills this session. LGBT advocates are supporting two pieces of legislation in particular, an anti-bullying bill sponsored by state Rep. John Rogers (D-Norwood) and a bill to add health education to the state education requirements sponsored by state Rep. Alice Wolf (D-Cambridge). Advocates will be working to block several anti-gay bills, including a bill sponsored by state Rep. Bradley Jones (R-Reading) that would force schools to get permission slips from parents to talk about LGBT issues, and several bills filed by the anti-gay group MassResistance, including one to abolish the Massachusetts Commission on LGBT Youth (see "Homophopes have hard time finding sponsors for anti-gay bills," page 7).
Walz said Jones' bill, which has the backing of the Massachusetts Family Institute, would likely die in committee, as did similar bills filed in the last session that aimed to change the state's parental consent law. Currently the law allows parents to opt their children out of sex education classes, but Jones's bill instead requires them to give their express permission if they want their children to take those classes, as well as any classes dealing with LGBT issues.

"I can't predict with complete certainty, because there are new members of the committee ... but I think it is likely that the parental notification bills would meet the same fate this session as they did in the 2007 and 2008," said Walz.

Advocates also praised the appointment of state Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez (D-Boston) to serve as House chair of the Public Health committee. Rebecca Haag, executive director of AIDS Action Committee (AAC), said Sanchez's predecessor, Peter Koutoujian (D-Newton), was a champion on HIV/AIDS issues, particularly around the passage of the 2006 pharmacy needle access bill, and she expects Sanchez to continue that legacy. Haag, a Jamaica Plain resident, is one of Sanchez's constituents and said she has spoken with him over the years on HIV/AIDS issues.

"He's always been a strong advocate with the other black and Latino legislators on the Hill about healthcare disparities issues. He understands with [Jamaica Plain state Rep.] Liz Malia out there how big an impact HIV and AIDS can have in his district, so he's always been on top of those issues," said Haag.

Solomon said with Sanchez and state Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln) chairing the Public Health committee the LGBT community has the opportunity to take a proactive approach to addressing LGBT health issues.

"The fact that we have people who are very proactive on issues of equality gives us the chance to think about - between John Auerbach running the Department of Public Health ... and these committee leaders - we can really think in a smart holistic way about addressing LGBT health," said Solomon. "I don't know if that means there will be legislation this year, but it's something we should be thinking about over the next one to three years."

One of the top priorities of LGBT advocates this session will be holding onto funding for LGBT and HIV/AIDS programs in the face of the state budget crisis. Solomon called DeLeo's pick for chair of House Ways and Means, state Rep. Charles Murphy (D-Burlington), "a good friend [who has been] super on equality issues. He believes Murphy, along with House Ways and Means Vice-Chair Barbara L'Italien (D-Andover) and Assistant Vice-Chair Stephen Kulik (D-Worthington), "will take our priorities extremely seriously, and all three believe in our priorities."

The release of the new House committee chair assignments also included good news for LGBT lawmakers. Two of the state's five out lawmakers, Reps. Cheryl Coakley-Rivera (D-Springfield) and Liz Malia (D-Boston), were appointed to committee chair positions. Coakley-Rivera, who in past years has chaired the committees on public safety and children and families, received her third chair assignment as head of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development. Malia was appointed House chair of the Joint Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse, her first committee chair assignment. Malia was unavailable to comment for this story.

Coakley-Rivera said she was grateful for the chance to serve as a committee chair for a third time.

"[As a committee chair] you get a sense of the needs of the public out there from public safety to children and families and people with disabilities," said Coakley-Rivera. As labor committee chair, she expects to spend much of the session focused on legislation related to sick days for state workers, unemployment insurance, and labor law issues. She said the committee would work to protect the rights of workers during the current economic crisis.

The non-discrimination protections in the transgender rights bill include employment protections, but Coakley-Rivera said she was unsure whether her committee would have any role in working on the bill.

"I would love that bill. Will it come to my committee? That I'm not in charge of. But I think any type of discrimination, whether it's in the workplace or on the public street shouldn't be tolerated. ... I think this bill would really send a clear message to the private industries that hating isn't going to be tolerated, whether it's private or public," said Coaley-Rivera.