Former State Senator Dianne Wilkerson…finally.
Disgraced state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, who was indicted yesterday on eight counts of attempted extortion, resigned today from her 2nd Suffolk seat.
The eight-term senator from Roxbury stated in a handwritten letter to Senate President Therese Murray that she quits as of today:
“Please accept this communication as formal notice of my intention to resign my position as the State Senator from the Second Suffolk District in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This resignation shall be effective today, November 19, 2008. Regards, Dianne Wilkerson.”
Wilkerson’s resignation comes as the Senate Ethics Committee was poised to release their report on her tomorrow.
“Everybody is breathing a sigh of relief,” said state Sen. Richard Tisie, who said the ethics report may not be unveiled tomorrow now that Wilkerson has quit.
“She had a lot of chances,” the Wakefield Republican added.
For more remarks by state Senator Tisei, check out Scaling The Hill.
Tags: Dianne Wilkerson, Richard Tisei
November 19th, 2008
While Deval Patrick is basking in national limelight following his prime time speech at the DNC, his lack of political influence and support from members of his own party at home is quite embarrassing for guy who allegedly raised the roof in Denver. Patrick’s influence is so poor, he had more support from Republicans on Beacon Hill for his vetoes than from members of his own party.
Gov. Deval Patrick got more support from Republican lawmakers than his own party when it came to slashing pork from the state budget this year, according to a Herald review.
Republicans backed Patrick’s $250,000 cut for bullying prevention and $511,634 targeted for osteoporosis education while Democratic legislators overturned more than 70 of his vetoes.
“He was wrong on those,” said Sen. Steve Baddour (D-Methuen) when asked why he didn’t support vetoes from the first Democratic governor in the Corner Office in 16 years. “We would have done more (overrides) if we had more time.”
All told, the largely Democratic House and Senate voted to override 74 of Patrick’s 116 vetoes, approving $56 million in spending as watchdogs sounded alarms about the state’s fiscally stormy outlook.
“I was pretty surprised that no one stood to defend the governor, let alone vote with him,” said Sen. Richard Tisei (R-Wakefield). “It’s embarrassing that (Patrick) couldn’t coerce anyone to give him any support.”
It’s pretty sad considering the paltry number of Republicans on Beacon Hill.
Now that I think of it, it is appropriate that Governor Patrick gave such a high profile speech at Barack Obama’s convention. They both have the exact same number of accomplishments: zero.
Tags: Barack Obama, Deval Patrick, Richard Tisei, Steve Baddour
August 28th, 2008
