SCOT LEHIGH
Reilly wins Romney duelIT WAS an hour that pitted Governor Mitt Romney against Attorney General Thomas Reilly -- and a window that revealed a telling contrast between the two men who may face off in the 2006 gubernatorial race.
Mere minutes after the Legislature approved a "compromise" proposal to amend the Massachusetts Constitution by banning gay marriage but establishing civil unions, Romney strode into his press room to read a prepared statement. Based on the Legislature's action, Romney said, he would move immediately to ask the Supreme Judicial Court to stay its decision that gays must be allowed to marry after May 17. His statement read, Romney hustled out, taking no questions on one of the most controversial issues in recent memory. And make no mistake, there are questions aplenty for the governor. Here's one: In an appearance timed for the evening news, the governor spoke of the respect and decency due people of differing lifestyles and then noted that "real people and real lives are deeply affected by this issue." But how does that soothing tone square with Romney's initial efforts to win passage of a stricter constitutional amendment, one that would have banned gay marriage while offering only a watered-down requirement for civil unions? And here's another: On Monday, the administration urged Republican legislators to support the civil unions compromise that ultimately passed. But with conservatives now talking about an initiative amendment -- which would require the approval of only a quarter, rather than a majority, of legislators -- to put a strict ban on gay marriage on the 2006 ballot, will Romney still support the civil unions compromise next year when it comes up for its second legislative vote? Rhetoric aside, the impression the governor left was of a man who is concerned not about the important question of rights but rather with preventing gay marriage at any cost as he eyes his growing national profile. Cut to Reilly. Less than an hour after Romney spoke, the attorney general walked into the ceremonial room on the 20th floor of One Ashburton Place to announce that his office would not argue the governor's cause before the SJC. And, indeed, that he had told Romney as much before the governor appeared before the cameras. Having lost the initial case and having failed in an attempt to persuade the high court to accept civil unions rather than outright marriage, he saw no valid legal basis for trying again, Reilly said. "We have made every conceivable argument . . . with the court," the attorney general said. "The court has rejected all of these arguments." Yes, there might be problems if gays are allowed to marry only to have gay marriage banned at the ballot in 2006, the AG conceded, but homosexuals who make the decision to wed should go into it with their eyes open. The process would have to work its way along, in all its potential messiness, without his intervention, Reilly said. Now, whatever one thinks of the governor's course, given the momentousness of this issue, Reilly might better err on the side of letting all arguments be heard and thus, having made his own stand clear, appoint a special assistant attorney general to represent the governor before the SJC, as Romney formally requested yesterday afternoon. That would at least give the state's chief executive access to the high court. That said, legal experts insist that the attorney general is under no obligation to do so. "The guy who determines the legal policy is the attorney general, and he has the right to set a unified legal policy," says former attorney general Francis X. Bellotti. "He could do it if he wanted to be a nice guy," Bellotti continued, but Romney's argument "is not going anyplace. The SJC has been very clear on this." Yet even with that caveat, Reilly seemed like a man who had grappled with the complexity of a difficult issue and was balancing his own feeling that the SJC had overreached with a recognition that the court has spoken twice. And with an understanding of what the SJC ruling means to thousands of gay and lesbian couples. "I am not in the business of taking people's rights away," Reilly added. "That is not what I do." What happens next is anybody's guess. But on Monday, as the state's decision makers confronted the controversial issue, it was hard to be particularly impressed with Romney's performance. And harder not to credit Reilly with putting his personal reservations aside to treat an important issue in a serious manner.
Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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