Governor Charlie Baker’s inaugural parties are history — by over three months — but money is still rolling into the coffers of the special committee that so far has raised $2.3 million and now has a modest surplus that is being used to burnish the governor’s image, bolster some friends — and help out some kids.
The committee — free from the restraints of donation limits and public inspection of expenditures — took in more than $326,000 in February and March, much of it from donations of up to $25,000 from special interests and large corporations with business before the administration.
Baker’s political aides said the flood of money was merely donations that had been pledged before the inauguration and just now getting to the committee. Among the donors for that period:
■ Coco-Cola, battling attempts to tax candy and soda, donated $25,000.
■ Boston Scientific, which spent more than $100,000 lobbying Beacon Hill last year, gave the same amount.
■ The Boston Red Sox, which needs state cooperation on development issues around Fenway Park, donated $15,000.
The committee is now so flush that it is donating $100,000 in surplus to charities. The biggest chunk, $50,000, is going to Roxbury-based youth services group The BASE, created by Robert Lewis, a big Baker supporter in the election. The chairman of The BASE board is Ron Walker, Baker’s secretary of labor and workforce development.
Baker’s Facebook page, in fact, has a big photo of the governor handing an oversized check to the organization, while surrounded by a handful of smiling teenagers.
Lewis’s support of Baker in the campaign was hugely significant for the GOP candidate, who in his previous 2010 run for governor hardly went near the state’s minority communities. Lewis’s involvement in the campaign gave him a foothold in one of the Democrats’ most solid constituencies.
As worthy a cause as The BASE is, should the governor be using money raised from special interests doing business with or seeking to influence his administration to promote his image and reward political supporters?
Baker doesn’t see it that way, said his aides. The donation to The BASE is merely an expression of his support for its work.
“The governor is humbled by the outpouring of support around the inaugural and is proud to be a part of BASE’s efforts to help kids find a better future through sports and academics,’’ said his spokesman Tim Buckley.
Short of providing details (state law requires only a listing of donors, not expenditures), Baker’s office said $1.8 million of the $2.3 million went to 20 or more inaugural events. Another $400,000 went for overhead, such as staff and fund-raising expenses. The rest of the $100,000 surplus will be divided among a series of charities, yet to be named.
Lottery chief to step down
After 15 years in and around state government, Beth A. Bresnahan, executive director of the Massachusetts State Lottery, is making an unusual detour back to journalism.
Bresnahan, a lifelong Lynn resident, will step down to become CEO of the Lynn Daily Item at the end of the fiscal year, she told the Globe this week. Once an aspiring sports reporter, Bresnahan found herself in sports public relations, then legislative affairs. She served as marketing director and communications director of the lottery before taking the top spot last year.
Bresnahan said she looks forward to helping reshape what was a 138-year-old family newspaper; a local investment team, Essex Media Group, bought the company last year. “It really is about following my heart,” she said. Treasurer Deborah Goldberg said Bresnahan will help in the transition and that, “we’re sad to see her go but we include her as part of the lottery family forever.”
A return engagement at the RMV
The Welducci restoration continues apace in the Baker administration.
Kim Hinden, who worked in both the Weld and Cellucci administrations before being named motor vehicles registrar under acting Governor Jane Swift, a role she continued to hold for much of the Romney era, is headed back to the RMV. Hinden, who later worked at Beth Israel, will be chief of staff under Interim Registrar Erin Deveney.
She left the RMV in 2005 after losing a bureaucratic power struggle with Romney’s transportation chief, John Cogliano.
Scions on the sidelines
Observers of Massachusetts politics and college basketball might have recognized the gentleman clad in a black T-shirt behind the Kentucky bench during Saturday’s Final Four game with Wisconsin.
That was former treasurer Joseph Malone, an avid sports fan and friend of the Wildcats’ head coach, John Calipari, whom he had met during Calipari’s stint at the University of Massachusetts. But Malone had a more personal reason for being there: his son Sam, a Scituate High product, was a senior guard on the team.
And not the only son of a Massachusetts politico to reach the Final Four. Nick Pagliuca, son of Celtics owner and former Senate candidate Steve Pagliuca, is a sophomore guard for Duke out of Milton Academy.
Malone and Pagliuca walked on to their respective teams.
Where every lawmaker is above average
The legislative scorecard is a standard tool for advocacy groups: a way to track lawmakers’ votes and, of course, exert a bit of pressure.
But the Environmental League of Massachusetts, which released a scorecard of its own this week, says the traditional approach does not go far enough.
Too many controversial issues are settled by voice vote, with no formal record of who voted what way, the group says. And a handful of recorded, roll call votes does not provide enough information on who is a champion for the group’s agenda and who is not, according to ELM.
So while the organization puts roll call votes at the heart of a legislator’s score, it adds points for sponsoring environmentally friendly legislation or amendments, while subtracting points for sponsorship of legislation or amendments that do not pass muster with the group.
“It’s essential that we recognize leadership and courage, not just votes,” said George Bachrach, president of the Environmental League.
So, what did the newer, tougher approach produce? The bulk of legislators got scores of 95 or 100 percent from the green group.
This is Massachusetts, after all.
Romney’s even better than the 1 percent
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney probably has more money, a better education, a closer family, and all around a more interesting life than the rest of us. And, it turns out, he also had a better NCAA men’s basketball tournament bracket.
Over the weekend Romney aides released his bracket, which showed he correctly picked all final four teams and had Duke beating Wisconsin in the championship game, as it did on Monday night.
Before the championship game, The Huffington Post found that of the 11.57 million brackets submitted to ESPN.com, Romney was in the 99.98 percentile of correct brackets. For comparison, President Obama’s bracket was in the 40th percentile.
Romney has come a long way since he was a candidate three years ago and declined to fill out a bracket because he wasn’t “plugged in well enough this year to do that.”
During that same campaign, you’ll recall, Romney offered fellow candidate Rick Perry $10,000 in a bet during a televised debate. The line fell flat, but this week, he poked some fun at himself, via Twitter: “Should have put $10,000 on my bracket,” he said.
In honor of Brooke
And the winners are . . . Armel Romelus of Dorchester and Timmy Nguyen of Worcester.
The young men are recipients of the inaugural MassGOP scholarship named in honor of Edward Brooke, the first African-American elected to the US Senate in the post-Reconstruction era. Brooke, who died in January, was elected senator in 1966 after two terms as attorney general — the first African-American to hold that office in any state.
Romelus is a freshman at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he is majoring in human services, and Nguyen is a sophomore at UMass Amherst and majoring in biochemistry. Each will receive $1,500 from the Massachusetts Republican Party.
The state GOP is funding the scholarship and worked with Bottom Line, a nonprofit that helps students with college applications and offers them support once accepted, to pick the students.