The Clogs in the Cogs

Despite the seeming monolithic character of Massachusetts government, its structure is basically just a colonial saltbox illogically encrusted with the bureaucratic gingerbread trappings of the 19th and 20th centuries. Even Foster Furcolo's bitterest enemies do not accuse him of the despotism for which the colonials always suspected George III's governors; and yet the Governor's Council remains, obstructing the chief executive, duplicating other posts and clogging bureaucratic channels. The counties, too, stayed on unchanged after the Revolution, and only inertia perpetuates their costly and relatively useless existence. Yet not since 1917 has a Constitutional Convention studied these antiques thoroughly.

Opposition to constitutional reform itself comes from those who because of political interest and sentimental conservatism will obstruct any attempt to disturb the status quo. The Governor's Council and County officials quite correctly see their positions threatened, and many in the 280-large General Court (the third largest legislature in the nation) fear that any reform movement would cut its size. Since two consecutive legislatures must pass constitutional amendments, action in that body is unlikely. An amendment legalizing the graduated income tax got past the last session, but next time reluctance to have new taxation and inertial resistance to change will probably gang up against this traditional bugaboo.

Considering this natural resistance, constitutional reform is gathering surprisingly broad support both on Beacon Hill and among the electorate. But while politicians praise revision on the stump, its proponents disagree strongly how to accomplish it: through the General Court or a Constitutional Convention.

Some conscientious supporters of reform fear that a popularly elected convention would run amuck over the Declaration of Rights and perhaps abolish the protection against self-incrimination. Backers of a convention answer that this suspicion of the electorate is inconsistent with democratic government; but they add that even if the convention ran wild, people would have a year to cool off and refuse to ratify bad suggestions in the referendum. As a further protection, the bill to put the convention to a referendum bars the body from discussing the Declaration of Rights, but the courts have not yet said that this limitation is constitutional.

The issue has excited many other rivalries. The Globe (for) and the Herald (against) are continually fighting it out, and the Legislature sees the demand for a convention as Executive intrusion upon its authority. Many outside the government, such as the Herald, claim that the General Court is the proper and most responsible body to make reforms. Still, the 13 amendments passed by the General Court since 1919 have been piecemeal revision, and the major ones that have gotten by one session, for instance the 4-year gubernatorial term, have perished the following year. Political interest and inertia make the Legislature a dubious source of initiative for reform.

A convention could provide a comprehensible, thoughtful review of the constitution that the large, harried General Court cannot undertake, even political interests aside. Despite the fiascos that New Hampshire puts on every 7 years, conventions like New Jersey's in 1947 have succeeded when advised by competent research. The uniqueness of a convention overcomes the usual cynicism toward politics and stimulates interest and support that the everyday process of government cannot get. Jerome Rappaport, a member of the Constitutional Conference that has been studying reforms, maintains that "it does a society a great deal of good to examine the organic structure of its government in an introspective fashion, just as it does an individual to examine himself."

Although the convention intends to circumvent the political problems in the Legislature, this does not mean that the professional politicians will not be its dominant leaders--for good or bad. The group will be small--140; 120 will be elected by Senatorial districts and 20 by the whole state, giving the established politician a better chance in these fairly large units. One plan would have given the Legislature 20 seats and barred them from the general elections, but this idea was rejected as both impractical and as an undemocratic restriction on the electorate.

At the 1917 Convention 50 per cent of the delegates had previous legislative experience and, as Attorney Morris M. Goldings points out, the importance of the statistic depend on which half impresses you more. Knowledge of how a legislative body works certainly adds to the efficiency of the group, and, significantly, the leading figure at that convention was an extremely responsible and effective professional politician. Still, despite President Lowell's failure to win a seat in 1917, the gatherings draw out many capable people and provide unique opportunities for political expression in the research done by civic groups and universities.

The Legislature will probably neither initiate reform nor call a referendum to vote on a convention. A petition of 75,000 names would then force the question onto the ballot in 1962 and the body would meet in the summer of 1963. In the end it might give the governor and other top executive officers co-terminous 4-year terms and shift the counties' few duties to the state agencies; it might cut the size of the General Court and require it no longer to play town council for every hamlet, passing petitions for dog wardens' tenure and the like, and clogging up its own operations in the process. It would also face the task of providing a new concept for limiting and organizing the proliferous state agencies (221 at present). Any such reform would be impossible within the Legislature, for it would strengthen the control that the Commission on Administration and Finance wields as the central housekeeping department.

On the other hand, the convention could give back to the Legislature its rightful authority over taxation that the constitution now restricts very tightly. Like the counties and the Governor's Council, archaic limitations on taxation resemble, in the words of a commission several years ago, "a building with a Renaissance frame and a Elizabethan facade." They will require comprehensive, not patchwork reform, and probably only a constitutional Convention could erect such a structure suitable for the 20th century.