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Visiting the ‘friends and favors’ office

EDITORIAL | Opinion | LAWRENCE HARMON

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

February 11, 2012|By Lawrence Harmon

GOVERNOR PATRICK’S “appointments office’’ in Room 271M is tucked away between floors in a section of the State House that political insiders call “middle earth.’’ This is patronage central, where a handful of employees in close quarters juggle referrals for management jobs in the executive agencies and vet candidates for appointments to more than 700 boards and commissions.

These are skittish times in the appointments office. A spotlight is shining powerfully on the “friends and favors’’ culture in Massachusetts. And what it reveals isn’t flattering. Former House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, now serving a corruption sentence in federal prison, is expected to testify before a federal grand jury on rigged hiring and promotion practices in the state judicial system’s Probation Department. Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray, who is widely perceived as a conduit for patronage jobs, is desperately trying to disentangle himself from Michael McLaughlin, the shady former head of the Chelsea Housing Authority. Murray, according to recent reports, helped McLaughlin’s son land a cushy state job. The scrutiny from investigators and reporters is so intense that the flow of job referrals from state lawmakers has trickled to a halt.

“We’re operating in a different world,’’ said Sydney Asbury, the governor’s deputy chief of staff. “People are getting indicted for doing inappropriate things around hiring.’’

Asbury ran Patrick’s successful reelection campaign. Now she oversees the appointments office. The lion’s share of its work, she said, involves finding members for the state boards and commissions, ranging from the trustees of the University of Massachusetts to the Band Instrument Commission. It’s the low-risk side of the operation because the positions are unpaid. Campaign donors, party loyalists, and friends are openly welcomed, provided they push the governor’s agenda, pass a criminal background check, and don’t appear on the state revenue department’s list of tax scofflaws.

The rest of the office serves as a clearinghouse for job referrals and resumes that arrive from people with political juice, both inside and outside of state government. Asbury says that the office will arrange interviews for such candidates, but not interfere in the actual hiring process at the executive agencies. Unionized jobs, which make up about 90 percent of the positions in the executive agencies, remain outside the purview of the appointments office, she said. That leaves about 4,000 management jobs in play.