Deval’s Quid Pro Vote

Change your vote, and I’ll give you a job.

That’s Deval Patrick’s latest tactic to usurp the democratic process and keep the gay marriage amendment from making it on the ballot in 2008.

Gov. Deval Patrick has dangled job offers in front of anti-gay-marriage lawmakers to persuade them to switch their votes and kill a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex nuptials, sources said.

Two sources close to the gay-marriage debate said Patrick has used the controversial tactic as lobbying has intensified in recent weeks. The Legislature adjourned a Constitutional Convention yesterday without voting on the proposed ban, tabling the matter until a session scheduled for June 14.

Supporters of gay marriage said Patrick has worked extremely hard behind the scenes to defeat the proposed ban, and the sources said those efforts have included approaching lawmakers believed to be amenable to a vote switch and telling them they would be considered for administration jobs if they helped defeat the ban.

The governor’s office would not comment, but an administration source said, “That is not the policy of this administration. Hirings are based on the merits and qualifications of the individual candidates.”

This comes just a few days after Governor Deval Patrick told 50 GOP appointed managers they would need to reapply for their jobs, effectively giving them their termination notices.

It is a shame that the Governor and many of our elected legislators are doing all they can to prevent the citizens to vote on an issue that has gone through all the steps to make it on the ballot. Deval Patrick, a lawyer by trade, the legislators, many if not most of which share the same legal credentials, are letting their politics trump the law.

Aaron Margolis is a life long resident of the Bay State, and works at an architectural firm north of Boston. Aaron has a Master of Architecture Degree from Boston Architectural College and is currently in the process of becoming of a Registered Architect.