BAKER SHRUGS OFF BEACON HILL SECRECY, SPENDING
Stands by $5G Chinese feast funded via taxes
Gov. Charlie Baker is backing House Speaker Robert DeLeo on the exemption they both enjoy from the state’s public records laws — and the governor shrugged off DeLeo’s $4,745 taxpayerfunded Chinese food feast.
When asked Wednesday if he supports opening up all state books to the public, Baker indicated he doesn’t.
“Do we support or do we abide by all the issues associated with standing Supreme Judicial Court decisions with regard to public records? The answer to that is yes,” Baker said. His staff later said he was referring to a 1997 Supreme Judicial Court ruling.
When asked if he had any problem with DeLeo’s Chinese takeout spread on April 22 to kick off budget deliberations, Baker said: “There are a lot of people in this building working on the budget when it’s going on.”
Massachusetts was the last state in the country for a second year in a row to approve a budget for the current fiscal 2020. The budget finally passed on July 22.
Mary Connaughton, director of government transparency at the Pioneer Institute, knocked Baker for leaning on an old case that she says no longer applies.
“Governors since (Paul) Cellucci have been hiding behind this case,” said Connaughton. “The governor could take bold actions and reject this shady veil and move forward with more transparency in the name of the people.”
The governor’s office, Legislature and the judiciary are all exempt from the state public records laws — making Massachusetts the only state in the nation with such blanket protection.
DeLeo has denied numerous record requests — steadfastly defending the Legislature’s exemption. Notably he has refused to discuss nondisclosure agreements, shielding public officials who have been accused of sexual harassment. His office Wednesday declined to say whether the speaker personally ordered the General Gau chicken, sesame chicken, rice, noodles and other dishes from Hong Kong Dragon in Winthrop — DeLeo’s own district — for April’s budget dinner.
Meanwhile, state credit card records — which offer a rare look into government spending habits — show Baker’s executive branch has also pulled the plastic out for hefty spending on the taxpayers’ dime. P-card, or procurement card, expenditures are tracked by the state comptroller’s office. The Herald obtained those records using the Public Records Law.
Those records show Baker’s bill from last fiscal year was $36,849 for trips, hotel stays and Cape Ann Coffees — with the largest bill topping $3,500 at the Marriott Marquis in March for the National Governor’s Conference in Washington, D.C.
“I would say attending the National Governor’s association is a worthwhile trip,” said administration spokesman Brendan Moss in defending the trip.
But other state agencies — including Baker’s Department of Correction — also dipped into the P-card budget for junkets. DOC staffers used the credit card to attend
a trade show in New York City in late March, records show, where they paid $2,080 for a stay at the InterContinental Hotel in Times Square.
The Committee for Public Counsel Services, state-paid defense attorneys for the indigent, also used a P-card for a stop at the Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner in McLean, Va., in April, records show.
A spokeswoman for the agency did not return multiple calls from the Herald seeking a reason for the trip to the hotel that bills itself as a “luxury” destination that blends “comfort and elegance with fashion and couture.” That hotel recently completed a multimilliondollar “redefinition,” the website states, that was “inspired by the elegant boutique hotels and shops of Europe, in particular Paris.”