Richard Voke, popular House leader, dies at 76

‘He showed a lot of fiscal discipline but also fought for a lot of issues that impacted the working poor . . . ’

MICHAEL BELLOTTI, Norfolk County sheriff

Richard Voke, a Chelsea native who served 10 terms in the Massachusetts House, where he led the powerful Ways and Means Committee before rising to the position of majority leader, died Sunday after an illness, his family said. He was 76.

Voke’s sister, Kathleen Manning, said he died in the early afternoon at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was surrounded by family.

“This is a great family loss,” she said in a phone call Sunday night. “He was an amazing man, and we are very saddened.”

Voke represented Chelsea and Charlestown for two decades and rose to become one of the most prominent members of the state Legislature. He was named chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee at age 37 in 1985 and appointed majority leader in 1991.

A highly popular legislator among his Democratic colleagues, Voke was seen as a lock to become speaker of the House in 1996 but lost a hardfought battle with Thomas Finneran, a Mattapan Democrat.

Voke, a lawyer who maintained a private practice while serving in the Legislature, decided not to seek reelection following the speaker’s race. The decision was difficult for some in Chelsea, who felt they’d lost a champion on Beacon Hill.

“I don’t know if anyone could ever do it as well as Richie,” then-Chelsea City Council president Stanley Troisi told The Boston Globe in 1996. “It’s like Tom Jones was singing, and then I go out and do my karaoke.”

Jay Ash, a former longtime Chelsea city manager who went on to serve in former governor Charlie Baker’s administration as secretary of housing and economic development, was Voke’s chief aide when he was House majority leader. In a phone interview Sunday night, Ash said Voke “worked tirelessly as a legislator” and made an impact in every corner of his hometown.

“There wasn’t a person in the district with Chelsea and Charlestown who didn’t know who he was or didn’t have some connection to something that Richie was able to accomplish for his district,” he said.

Norfolk County Sheriff Michael Bellotti, who served in the Legislature with Voke, recalled his leadership on ways and means.

“He showed a lot of fiscal discipline but also fought for a lot of issues that impacted the working poor and folks who needed help,” he said.

Some of Chelsea’s most challenging years came in the early 1990s, when the city went bankrupt and was placed into receivership.

“He was a calming voice during a tumultuous time,” Ash said. “Chelsea was going into receivership, politicians were getting indicted, and he was the one who helped lead the city through its darkest days.”

Voke came from a family with a long tradition of public service. His grandfather was a Chelsea firefighter and a granduncle, his namesake, was elected mayor of Chelsea in 1912. His father also served as Chelsea mayor and spent six years in the Massachusetts House.

Voke attended Chelsea public schools and graduated from Suffolk University and Suffolk Law School. He made several unsuccessful runs for alderman in Chelsea while he was still a college student, finally breaking through in 1976 with his first run for state representative.

In a profile for the Globe when he took over as Ways and Means Committee chair in 1985, Voke described himself as a “workaholic, who’s getting worse.”

Ash recalled working on an advertisement for Voke during one of his reelection years in which they mapped out the various projects he had helped fund in the city. “Every neighborhood, almost every street had some connection to Richie Voke delivering for an impoverished community that needed help,” Ash said.