Romney directs his ire at legislators
Governor Mitt Romney yesterday sent a sharply worded letter and copies of the Massachusetts Constitution to state legislators who helped block a popular vote on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages, telling the lawmakers they are violating the constitution and frustrating the democratic process.
On Nov. 9, the Legislature met in joint session as a constitutional convention and voted 109-87 to recess before taking a vote on whether to put the proposed amendment on the 2008 ballot. Fifty "yes" votes would have been needed to put the amendment to a popular vote, which a record 170,000 citizens had signed a petition in favor of holding.
"The Constitution plainly states that when a qualified petition is put before them, the legislature 'shall' vote," Romney said in a letter to the 109 who favored recessing. "Not 'may' vote . . . not 'could' vote . . . not 'perhaps' vote . . . It's very clear."
Romney aides said the governor based his assertion -- and a suit he intends to file this week with the Supreme Judicial Court -- on Article 48 of the state constitution, which contains the wording "final legislative action in the joint session . . . shall be taken only by call of the yeas and nays." The suit will ask the court to order that the amendment be placed on the ballot. The aides said the suit would be similar to one filed by proponents of universal health care, whose proposal also was not voted on at the constitutional convention.
Same-sex marriages have been allowed in Massachusetts since six months after the state's Supreme Judicial Court ruled in November 2003 that gays and lesbians have the right to marry under the constitution. The proposed amendment would withdraw that right.
In addition to the copy of the constitution, Romney attached a copy of the legislator's oath of office to each letter, and concluded: "Those words meant a lot to me when I said them and I know they still mean something to you."
Supporters of equal marital rights for gays and lesbians reacted with scorn and sarcasm to the Romney letter and to the planned lawsuit, charging that the governor is playing national political games in his expected run for the White House.
"He is a fraud -- this whole thing is a fraud," said Senator Jarrett T. Barrios of Cambridge, one of the legislators who voted to recess. "It is a ploy for his run for president. The Legislature had rejected his efforts to insert discrimination into the constitution."
Arlene Isaacson , a leader of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, said the letter "is a very clever and creative move. Because he has been rendered powerless in the current situation, his handlers need a vehicle to assert his right-wing credentials. . . . He needs to show his anti gay credentials across the country, and this will do it very effectively."
The legislative leadership did not react to the letter or the planned suit. Senate President Robert E. Travaglini did not return a call for comment, while a spokesman for House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi said, "The speaker is not going to respond every time the governor stages a cynical political ploy designed to impress right-wing Republican voters in primary states."
But supporters of a ban on same-sex marriage hailed the governor's actions, and his legal counsel said the precedents set by the court in the early 1990s pave the way for the court to order that the amendment be placed on the ballot if the Legislature refuses to act.
"The governor is doing the right thing," said Edward F. Saunders , executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, whose bishops support the referendum. "What is at stake here is the petitioning rights that the people have under the constitution. The [Legislature's] procedures are undermining the wishes of 170,000 citizens who indicated their wish to vote on this."
Scott Helman of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Charles A. Radin can be reached at radin@globe.com. 
