Clinton loss disappoints state Senate president

June 12, 2008 11:07 AM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Matt Viser, Globe Staff

Senate President Therese Murray said this morning that she was “deeply disappointed” by the outcome of the Democratic presidential primary.

The state's first female Senate president was one of Senator Hillary Clinton’s most forceful supporters in Massachusetts, at one point ridiculing what she called a pattern of prominent male Democrats abandoning Clinton for her primary rival, Senator Barack Obama.

“We thought that certainly in my generation that glass ceiling would have been able to break by now,” Murray said this morning at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast. “And it looks like certainly in my lifetime I will not see a woman president, and that is not lost on me or many other women of my age group.”

Without mentioning Obama by name, she said she would support him in November.

“I’m disappointed,” she said. “But I’m a Democrat.”

In her 35-minute address, Murray also came out strongly against a November ballot question proposing to eliminate the income tax, saying it “would have devastating consequences across the board, and no city or town would be spared.”

The same proposal almost passed six years ago, getting 45 percent of the vote. State political leaders worry that state voters, in an economic slowdown, may vote in favor of abolishing the income tax. If the binding ballot questions were approved, it would cost the state roughly $12.7 billion – about 40 percent of the budget.

“It would lead to debilitating cuts in local aid, including education and public safety,” Murray said. “That would mean laying off teachers, police, and firefighters, closing schools, and shutting down road projects.”

Murray also touted the life sciences legislation, a plan to spend $1 billion over 10 years that the Senate is expected to approve later today. Murray, along with Governor Deval Patrick and House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, are planning to tout the new legislation next week at an international biotechnology conference in San Diego.

“Our message will be loud and clear,” Murray said. “Massachusetts is open for business.”