Keverian Looks Strong in Speakership Fight

It was on a blustery day last fall that State Rep. George Keverian '53 (D-Everett) met House Speaker Thomas W. McGee (D-Lynn) on Reverse Beach and told the 9-year monarch of the State House that he would challenge his leadership this coming January.

Today, almost 11 months and a primary election later, Keverian, a former ally of McGee, appears on the verge of overthrowing one of the most powerful men in the state. As a result of last Tuesday's primary elections, which showed widespread support for pro-Keverian representatives, the Everett Democrat can now claim 73 firm backers, just eight shy of a majority in the 160-member House.

A triumphant Keverian last Thursday trotted out the names of his supporters, calling the bluff of McGee, who said he still controls a majority of the legislators, McGee has not produced the names of his supporters and has not challenged Keverian's list.

Since 71 of the names on Keverian's list are Democrats, a majority of the 130-odd member House Democratic Caucus, McGee is clearly on the defensivee in the Speakership fight. McGee, to have any chance of winning, would have to break the old tradition of nominating the Speaker within the Democratic Caucus and make a floor appeal to the tiny Republican contingent.

Such an appeal would also be risky. State House observers say, because a good number of the Republican representatives also support Keverian. It is also doubtful that the House Minority Leadership would barter Republican votes for much coveted committee chairmanships and risk what little political clout State House Republicans now have.

"This is over, and this is our way of demonstrating it," Keverian said at the news conference in which he unveiled his list of supporters.

McGee, in his first comment on the speakership fight since the Keverian announcement, yesterday told the Associated Press, "I'm not about to walk away or resign from a job I was elected to," adding, "It's as simple as that."

McGee said neither he nor Keverian now control a majority. A McGee side said the Speaker senses "softness" in Keverian's support and is calling House Democrats for support, the AP reported.

Strange Bedfellows

The success so far of the Keverian revolt has jolted a State House long ruled by a string of leaders who have dictated policy and have controlled the legislative flow in the House.

The House has always given disproportionate power to its leadership--as well as higher pay--and the system has at the same time given rise to some remarkably effective leadership and blatant patronage and corruption. Speaker of the U.S. House Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neil1 Jr. (D-Cambridge) and defeated U.S. Senate candidate David M. Bartley are among a number of former State House speakers credited with using the post for productive ends.

But no speaker has spent as much time a top the State House ladder as Tom McGee, and McGee's hardnosed ruling style has built up some resentment among the rank-and-file. "People have had small and large grievances with McGee for a while," Michael A. Goldman, political consultant to the Keverian campaign, said yesterday.

This resentment came to head last year when McGee--whom Keverian maintains had promised to leave his post at the end of this year--decided to keep the speakership. Keverian, then the second-ranking Democrat in the House as majority leader, had expected to follow McGee as speaker and took the McGee decision as a betrayal.

Soon after the McGee rebuke, Keverian told McGee he would challenge him for the post of House Speaker at the opening of the 1985 session. The decision was met with a retribution that many saw as typical of McGee's rule.

Keverian was stripped of majority leadership, and his main ally, Rep. Charles F. Flaherty Jr. --(D-Cambridge), was stripped of his influential post as chairman of the joint taxation committee. The move meant large cuts in pay, staff, and office space for Keverian and Flaherty, and signalled open war between the two most powerful Democrats in the State House.

The abrupt move by McGee also pushed Keverian into an unlikely alliance with the decade-old House reform movement, and alliance that is credited with providing Keverian much of his strength. Keverian, until his removal from the majority leadership, was never in the reformer camp and, in 1983, twice voted against comprehensive legislation to democratize the legislative process in the House.

"Circumstances have brought rules reform and my candidacy together," Keverian told The Crimson this month. But he added, "Absent the rules reform issue, I would still have gained a large number of supporters."

No Chance?

Rep. Thomas J. Vallely (D-Boston), a Keverian supporter, said yesterday that the "Dean" of the House, Anthony M. Scibelli (D-Springfield), who controls the gavel until the new speaker is elected, may decide Keverian has enough support to ask for him to be elected by acclamation.

Goldman, who distributed red buttons to supporters reading "The K Team," says that even if McGee mops up all the undecided representatives, he will still be 12 or 13 votes short in the all-important Democratic caucus.

What a Keverian victory will mean in as yet undetermined. The legislative process has already been loosened over the last year under McGee's rule--in what many see as a response to the Keverian challenge--and many say Keverian would still resist watering down the power of the Speaker as much as the rules reformers would like.

Says Vallely, "I don't think there'll be a bunch of rules reformers running around running the place."