Romney Takes Control of GOP State Committee

New Chairman Works for Kerry Healey's Husband

By MassNews Staff
January 24, 2003

Mitt Romney took control of the GOP State Committee on Jan. 22 with the election of Darrell Crates, an employee of Kerry Healey's husband, as its chairman.

There was opposition from Atty. Mike Gilleran, former Deputy Chairman of the Committee, who campaigned for the position but was defeated by a vote of 54 to 11 with 4 abstentions.
"Obviously I had hoped for something better. I still hope to have a role going forward in reaching out to the moderate and conservative Democrats and Independents" in Massachusetts to help build the party at the local levels. "I'm still committed to that."

Gilleran tells MassNews that he believes there is a large group of conservative Democrats in Massachusetts who will vote Republican at the top of the ticket but vote Democrat locally out of some sense of history. "We must find a home for these conservative Democrats in our party."

During the committee meeting, Atty. Gilleran appealed to his fellow Republicans to choose a leader who could succeed at attracting such people to help win elections on the local levels. "I am such a person!" he assured them.

Meanwhile, Crates maintained that he had much success at fund raising for Lt. Governor Kerry Healey's campaign and that he has a good working relationship with Governor Romney. He also stressed that one of the key goals of the GOP State Committee will be to gain seats in the state Senate to enable the governor to sustain his veto power.

Many saw this as a coup, similar to that by Gov. Bill Weld who was elected in 1990 by Independents who did not wish to see Democrat John Silber as Governor. Weld then took charge of the State Committee, but did little to build the Party. The number of GOP Senators subsequently dropped from sixteen when Weld was elected to six today.

Gilleran is a litigator and senior partner at the Boston law firm of Pepe and Hazzard. He has been active in the Republican Party and says that he is still committed to building the Party from the grassroots.

He made an issue of the number of Committee members who also hold patronage jobs with the state. He called for an end to that practice and said that Romney had an obvious conflict of interest.

"At the same time the Governor has come out against patronage," Gilleran said, "he should not be using patronage employees to control the choice of the leader of the Massachusetts Republican Party."

The new Chairman is Chief Financial Officer of Affiliated Managers Group, whose boss is Sean Healey, who is Kerry Healey's husband.

Gilleran announced his candidacy in a January 13th press release and called for an end to patronage jobs for Committee members. He told MassNews then that "a substantial number" of members are employed by the Commonwealth. He further stated that he "believes the system must be changed and that state employees must not be allowed to be State Committee members." He added that "patronage jobs should not be used to compromise the needed independence of the State Committee."

In an effort to determine the magnitude of the patronage problem, MassNews spoke to several Party activists. There are 80 members of the GOP State Committee. Estimates of the number of members who are also state employees, range from 20 to 36. The person who estimated thirty-six was certain of the number but would not divulge which of the committee members were employed by the state or where they worked. This person did say, however, that the 36 number was firm but "that doesn't even take into account appointments."

By "appointments," he meant those who are appointed to local or regional authorities and receive payments from the Commonwealth in one form or another. Patronage in Massachusetts, therefore, has many gradations. After three consecutive Republican governors, the Democratic Party no longer has the market in patronage jobs. It is truly a bipartisan problem.

As of press time MassNews was able to check on only 52 of the 80 State Committee members. Eleven were state employees, an additional seven were either employees or appointees, and thirty-four were not on the payroll.