Cambridge Civic Journal Forum

Cost Per #1 Vote – 2007 Cambridge Municipal Election

How many Cambridge voters have voted in the last 20 elections without a miss, including all primary elections? Are you on the list?

I just loaded the latest registered voter list, the most recent street listing, and all of the voter history files from November 1997 to November 2008 into my database software. Anything else you’d like to know???

— Robert Winters

Anyone who knows anything about the manner in which people are appointed to the Cambridge Election Commission knows that it’s all about politics. Sometimes it’s also about payback, and the Republican City Committee is giving Republican Commissioner Artis Spears much the same treatment that the Democratic City Committee gave former Commissioner Sondra Schier in 1994. Commissioner Spears has served on the Cambridge Election Commission since 1980, the longest of all four current commissioners. Each political committee nominates three people in alternate years from which the City Manager must choose (by April 1) to serve for a four-year term.

Two years ago, in 2007, the Republican City Committee forwarded a ranked list of three nominees to the City Manager as their nominees: Peter Sheinfeld, Fred Baker, and Ethridge King. Though not required to do so, the City Manager typically chooses the first choice of the committee, but in 2007 he passed over the top two nominees and chose Ethridge King to fill the slot. The word at the time was that Artis Spears had lobbied the City Manager heavily to appoint Ethridge King. As one might expect, this did not go over so well among Republican City Committee members.

On Monday, February 9, the Republican City Committee met for their biannual nomination meeting and chose Peter Sheinfeld as their #1 nominee on a 22-9 vote. Their 2nd nominee was Henry Irving on a 20-13 vote. Their 3rd nominee was Fred Baker on a 20-12 vote with 1 abstention. In each case it was a choice between two candidates, and Artis Spears was defeated in each round.

The rules governing the process are spelled out here: http://rwinters.com/docs/Acts1921Chap239.htm. The relevant section is this: “SECTION 3. As the terms of the several election commissioners expire, and in case a vacancy occurs in said board, the city manager shall so appoint their successors that the members of the board shall, as equally may be, represent the two leading political parties, and in no case shall an appointment be so made as to cause the board to have more than two members of the same political party. Every such appointment shall be made by the city manager from a list to be submitted to him by the city committee of the political party from the members of which the position is to be filled, containing the names of three enrolled members of such party in said city, selected by vote of a majority of members of such committee present and voting at a duly called meeting; provided, that not less than thirty such members are present and voting at such meeting; and every member of said board shall serve until the expiration of his term and until his successor has qualified. No appointment to said board need be confirmed by the city council.”

State law does not specify that the list of three nominees be a ranked list. This is a practice that both party committees choose to do in an effort to have as much control as possible over the eventual choice, but it has no legal standing whatsoever.

This year (2009) is an odd-numbered year and that means it’s a municipal election year. Normally we’d be hearing rumors by now about who might be seeking a City Council or School Committee seat in November, but Cambridge has been quiet. [Feb 5]

So….., as Tip O’Neill used to ask, “Whattaya hear?” Let me know. Let’s get those rumors flying. – RW

The Rumor Mill:
The word is that Kevin Moore (who ran for City Council in 2007) will throw his hat in the ring for School Committee in 2009. We’re still waiting to hear about Richard Harding and Gail Lemily Wiggins. [as reported by Deep Throat]

The word from our CCJ correspondent in South America is that Jeff Ross (one of the four candidates who ran for Jarrett Barrios’ vacant Senate seat in 2007) may be interested in a Cambridge City Council seat. [Feb 16]

Luc Schuster wrote a letter (Feb 20) in the Cambridge Chronicle stating that he will not seek reelection to the School Committee later this year.

Feb 16, 2009 – With Brian Murphy’s departure from the Cambridge City Council (and Larry Ward’s soon-to-be ascension to a Council seat on Feb 24), there are rumblings in East Cambridge about assembling a slate of candidates or recruiting individual candidates to seek a Council seat. The fact that Brian Murphy was essentially the successor to Jim Braude who was essentially the successor to Frank Duehay may be an indication of where there are some votes to be had this November.

All City Council and School Committee seats are at-large seats, so you can’t absolutely say that any one councillor succeeds another, but it’s still a good first approximation. Few would argue, for example, that Alice Wolf was succeeded in 1993 by Katherine Triantafillou and Kathy Born (a twofer with Ed Cyr getting bumped in that election), and Marjorie Decker’s election in 1999 was clearly at the expense of Triantafillou. “Mickey the Dude” Sullivan’s seat was passed to his son Edward Sullivan in 1949 and then to his brother Walter Sullivan in 1959 who passed it on to his son Michael Sullivan in 1993 who served until 2007. Lenny Russell was succeeded by his wife Sheila Russell in 1985, and the “Russell base” was effectively passed to David Maher in 1999. In recent years, the changing demographics of Cambridge have created opportunities for candidates like Craig Kelley and Sam Seidel, and those same shifting sands together with changes in voter turnout could create further opportunities for future candidates. That said, there’s nothing like the departure of an incumbent to create a scramble by other candidates for the “base” of an exiting incumbent. The Sullivan and Galluccio (Independent) bases are still very much out there to be courted, and now you can add Brian Murphy’s more CCA-oriented base to the mix.

Though it seems strange to have to say it, for those relative newcomers, the CCA (Cambridge Civic Association) was a local civic/political organization that was formed in 1945 out of three entities that had existed from the 1930’s. The CCA aligned itself with the politically advantageous issue of rent control in 1969 and essentially died when rent control was wiped out in 1994. The CCA soldiered on and continued to endorse municipal candidates through the 2003 election, though half-heartedly at best. There have been no substantive organized candidate endorsements since then, and the winners and losers are now primarily determined by demographics and incumbency.

As one measure of the votes that may be lurking out there for this year’s election, yesterday I ran the election software to determine who would have been elected in the 2007 election if Brian Murphy had been excluded. In that hypothetical, Edward Sullivan (Michael’s cousin) would have picked up the 9th seat. However, under the “Vacancy Recount” provisions in state law for Cambridge’s elections, the vacancy will be filled (officially on Feb 24) by Larry Ward. The basic logic of the procedure is that a vacancy should preferably be filled by that candidate who best matches the exiting incumbent. However, there really is no obvious match in this case among viable challengers. This observation should not be lost on those considering tossing their hat into the ring later this year.