Senate President Lets Marzilli Keep Chairmanship, Stipend
Senator Bob Hedlund (R-Weymouth) asked Senate President Therese Murray to take away Senator James Marzilli’s chairmanship, citing that he is “clearly incapable of fulfulling his duties as chairman…I cannot think of a single argument why the taxpayers of Massachusetts should be paying for a chairmanship stipend to a senator who is incapable of fulfilling his duties and who has announced he does not plan to return to the Senate.”
Sounds reasonable, but Murray will do no such thing, and Marzilli will continue to take his $7,500 tax-payer funded stipend.
“The Senate has a process in place through its Committee on Ethics and Rules to discipline a senator if and when a legal matter is resolved,” said Murray spokesman David Falcone when asked about Hedlund’s letter yesterday.
The Senate Ethics Committee is investigating whether Marzilli (D-Arlington) should be removed from office but won’t make findings public until after the charges against him are settled in court.
Marzilli will have a tough time fulfilling his chairmanship duties from McLean Hospital, let alone his duties as a state senator. Seeing as Marzilli was caught trying to grab several woman and ask them for sex, it’s not going out on a limb to suggest that this is political backscratching.
Considering this is Senator Marzilli, maybe there is more than backscratching going on…
1 comment July 15th, 2008
