Playing by all the rules
Be prepared for a weird series of electoral events
Go grab a copy of the Boston governing charter — you’re going to need it these next few months, as a bizarre series of happenings could invoke just about every election rule in the tome.
Acting Mayor Kim Janey’s administration announced that the next elected mayor of Boston will be sworn in on Nov. 16, two weeks after the Nov. 2 general election between City Councilors Annissa Essaibi-George and Michelle Wu.
Janey’s office wrote in the press release — which featured a picture of the three women smiling behind masks at the Francis Parkman House on Beacon Hill — that that will come after the votes are certified on Nov. 15. That is, of course, assuming there’s no recount — like the protracted one in the 2019 at-large council race.
Normally, when Boston elects a new mayor, the person has two months’ time to transition in, with the new term beginning the following January. But in this case, because there’s an acting mayor, the charter say the new elected mayor takes office ASAP, right after the vote is certified.
Janey’s office said it will begin administrative meetings with both candidates in mid-October because of the abridged transition period.
One consequence of the early swearing-in is that it will, no matter what, create a vacancy in an at-large council seat for about a month and a half, as both Wu and Essaibi-George are currently at-large councilors.
For a vacancy in one of the four at-large seats, the charter says the city clerk has 21 days to formally notify the council, which then has 15 days to seat someone. The at-large seats are elected all together, so the charter says the council essentially is supposed to go down the list of the four runners-up until one says they’ll take the gig — though in the unlikely event that no one does the city council gets to choose any registered voter in Boston.
In 2018, when then-Councilor Ayanna Pressley was elected to Congress, the first runner up Althea Garrison, a perennial candidate, took over and served the rest of the term.
How long the new councilor might serve depends how much of the 21 days and how much of the 15 days the clerk and council decide to eat up, City Clerk Maureen Feeney acknowledged on Friday, but she said it’s likely that someone would have that seat at least briefly.
The most recent first runner up is Alejandra St. Guillen, who lost the final atlarge spot 2019 by just a single vote after a long and fraught recount. If she were to end up on the council, she’d sit right next to Julia Mejia, who edged her out by that one ballot.
The other runners up in 2019 were Erin Murphy, Garrison and David Halbert — all of whom are on the ballot in the at-large race again this November, so each would have either just won or lost a race for an upcoming twoyear term to start in January.
But there could be another at-large vacancy, too, as we get into the more speculative situations possible. Rumors have swirled that Gov. Charlie Baker could appoint At-Large City Councilor Michael Flaherty as Suffolk County District Attorney if current DA Rachael Rollins is confirmed to the post of U.S. Attorney. The U.S. Senate committee is expected to vote on Rollins’ nomination this coming week, potentially sending her name to the full body for a final vote at a later date.
If Rollins were approved and Flaherty appointed, the at-large vacancy rules would kick in then, too — whenever that may be, whether that’s before or after the election, or even in the new council term. Either way, Flaherty, the top votegetter in the at-large preliminary earlier this month, will show up on the November council ballot, even if he’s the DA.