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i lew Englandjournal ofpublic policy . 15, no. 1 (1999-2000) mGJK Periodicals K22S5.N53 N5 received: 10-27-1999 -i H -\ — Ml Fall/Winter 1999/2000 1 - — ^mm " \r- i P ..w .« ihrarv HecewBi i I 1 §J OCT 2 7 1999 ^ Mace; R0c 1 New England I Journal of _r Public Policy * n ^SSI^I r :/ * rnalofthe JohnW. McCormac ofPub NewEnglandJournalofPublicPolicy AJournal oftheJohnW. McCormackInstitute ofPubli.cAffairs University ofMassachusetts Boston PadraigO'Malley, Editor EdmundBeard,Director JohnW. McCormackInstituteofPublicAffairs SherryH. Penney, Chancellor University ofMassachusetts Boston Geraldine C. Morse, CopyEditor Ruth E. Finn, Design Coordinator EricaM. White, Manager Sheila L. Gagnon, Subscriptions University ofMassachusetts Boston Central Reprographics,Printer TheJohnW. McCormackInstitute ofPublicAffairs isnamedforthe Speakerofthe United StatesHouse ofRepresentatives from 1962 to 1971. JohnW. McCormackwas born in South Boston, less than amile fromthe University ofMassachusetts Boston HarborCampus. The Mc—CormackInstitute represents theuniversity's commit—mentto appliedpolicy research particularly on issues ofconcerntoNew England andto public affairs education and public service. TheNewEnglandJournalofPublicPolicy is published by the JohnW. McCormack Institute ofPublicAffairs, University ofMassachusetts Boston. Subscriptions are $40 per year for libraries and institutions and $20 peryear for individuals. Manuscripts and correspondence should be sent to theNewEnglandJournalofPublicPolicy, John W. McCormackInstitute ofPublicAffairs, University ofMassachusetts Boston, 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, Massachusetts 02125-3393 (telephone 617-287-5550; fax: 617-287-5544). See Guide for Contributors on inside back cover.Articles published in the New EnglandJournal ofPublicPolicy are abstracted and indexed in Sociological Abstracts(SA), SocialPlanning/Policy&DevelopmentAbstracts(SOPODA), SagePublic AdministrationAbstracts(SPAA), SageUrbanStudiesAbstracts(SUSA),andCurrent Index ofJournals in Education (CUE). Copyright © 2000 by the JohnW. McCormackInstitute ofPublicAffairs ISSN: 0749-016X New Enaland FaW'Winter ,999/200° ** Vol. 15, No. 1 Journal of Public Policy Editor'sNote Padraig 'Malley Irish Identity Politics: The Reinvention ofSpeaker John W. McCormack ofBoston Garrison Nelson FamilyValuesandPresidentialElections: The Use andAbuse ofthe Family and Medical LeaveAct in the 1992 and 1996 Campaigns 35 StevenK. Wisensale, Ph.D. The Massachusetts Welfare to Work Program: HowWellWillItServeItsCustomers? 51 AbigailJurist Levy WelfareReform: LessonsfromNewEngland 65 RichardM.Francis ThomasJ. Anton Race, Class, and the Distribution ofRadioactive Waste in New England Douglas J. Anderton John Michael Oates Michael R. Fraser Received in Library OCT 2 7 1999 Univ. of Mass Boston The MechTech Program: An Education and Training Model forthe Next Century p7 RobertForrant, Ph.D. The Sargent Governorship: Leader and Legacy 113 RichardA. Hogarty Editor's Note Padraig O'Malley When you receive this issue ofthe New EnglandJournal ofPublic Policy, we should be crossing the threshold from millennium mania to millennium madness. The formerhas concerned itselfalmost exclusively—with the etiquette ofmillennium rites, where one ought to be on the occasion itself embracing the starlit grandeur of the ancientpyramids, as ifto remind ourselves that some things preceded the outgoing millennium and even exceeded the achievements ofour own: in the silence ofa Tibetan monastery to contemplate in serenity the philosophical implications of the momentous transition and reflectperhaps on the meaning oflife itself, the imponderables ofthe seamlessness ofeternity, the indivisibility ofa universe that continues to confound our attemptstounravel itsmysteries, or, asmembers oftheless esoteric masses, partofworld- widerevelries linked by satellite feeds thatpromise little more than massive hangovers on the first day ofthe new millennium. Millennium specials abound, all customer-designed to ensure that all wishes, fanta- sies, daydreams, and whateverexotics can be squeezed onto the millennium smorgas- bord ofthe once-in-a-lifetime experience can be accommodated. Want to be on the re- mote island where the last sunset ofthe millennium will occur? No problem. Want to be on theeven moreremote island wherethe firstsunrise ofthe new millennium will occur? Noproblem. Want therightchampagne? Problem: there's been arun on the stufffor over ayear. Wantto make areservation at arestaurant that specializes in once-in-a-thousand-years menus? Problem: you should have made that reservation back in 1998. Want to have adrink at your local watering hole? Problem: bartenders the world over, itseems, wanttojoin the inebriated mobs, notcaterto them. In NewYork, weare told, even at guaranteed rates of$600 for bartending on the night plus the lavish tips one could expect from therollicking throngs, there are few takers. Having aboisterous time is more important than seeing that other people are enjoying one. The lists arebeing compiled: lists ofthe millennium best and worst in every conceiv- able category ofhuman endeavor. Endless treatises are being written on the meaning ofit all. Pundits scold themselves on the redundancy oftheir punditry while happily trotting outreams oftheredundancies they bemoan as irrelevant: wasAttilathe Hun really worse than Genghis Khan? Or wouldAdolfHitlerputthem both to shame? (These comparisons —are notmean—tto slightJosefStalin, who certainly has aplace on anyone's list ofthe best orworst masskillersoftheperiod.) Butthese are considerations and concerns thatpertain to our world: the world ofthe "haves," the world oftheprivileged few who comprise less than 20percent ofthe world's population and consume more than 80 percent ofthe world's output. As a species we haven'tparticularly distinguished ourselves in the last ten centuries, but then again, in terms ofevolution and the endless elasticity ofthe boundaries oftime and space, one thousand years is merely a blip on a continuum that has no beginning and no end, too short atime to attach the significance with which we have endowed it. Padraig O 'Malley isaseniorfellowat theJohn W. McCormack Institute ofPublicAffairs, UniversityofMassachusettsBoston. NewEnglandJournalofPublicPolicy — But we do have one singular achievement to our credit. We have through pure dent ofobstinatepersistence in the face offormidable obstacles, tenacity ofalmost unendur- able proportions, dedication t—hat goes farbeyond the call ofany duty, sacrifice that turns the conceptitselfon its head managed to perfect the means to obliterate ourselves, notjust once buthundreds oftimes over. We can make time and space meaningless. In achieving the capacity to annihilate every living thing, we have eliminated the need foraHigherBeing, for aGod who is the custodian ofour lonely existence in the vastness ofan infinitely expanding universe. Fallible in all things, we have engineered infallibility at the cost ofourceasing to be. With no memory traces ofourexistence as re—ceptacles ofourhaving everbeenhere, we have managed to make life itselfan illusion and we have the conjurers to perform the final act. Only we would notknow itto be so. Memories are not forthepresent; they are artifacts thatallow us to put conceptualizations ofthe future into some rational context. But rationality is predicated on the assumption that some actions are contrary to our genetically ingrained instincts for self-preservation. We can no longer cling to this comforting assumption. Since the appurtenances ofuniversal self-destruction are proliferating, and we continue in our questto find evermore refined andcost-ef—fective ways to exterminate ourselves (irratio- nal?), we have come to the end ofhistory notin the mannerFrancisFukuyamaenvis- ages in The EndofHistory andthe LastMan, butin our ability to eliminate selfand consciousness ofbeing. History requires memory; with the eradication ofmemory there is no history. The termination ofall life, now orin the coming millennium, terminates all preceding life. Itis not amatter ofclosing the book, but ofthe book neverhaving been written. But less ofthe theology ofoblivion, andback to the more mundane. Ifsomehow in the next millennium we manage to navigate the circumstances ofourcontinued existence as a species, we will face one overriding challengethatwill, ifnotmet, makethat navigation more difficult, given the capacity ofeven the most meager among us to ac- quire the means ofmutually assured self-extermination. That challenge is to bring about a more equitable distribution ofincome and wealth both within countries and between countries, especially between the countries in the northern and southern hemispheres. To our everlasting discredit, there is little evidence that, on arelative basis, we have done much to alleviate di—sparities ofwell-being between rich and poor during the millennium about to close although I emphasize the word relative. Increasingly, we live in aworld ofthe "haves" and the "have-nots." Ifthe issues ofthe growing imbalances between north and south and the intolerable burdens ofdebt with which countries in the southernhemisphere, especiallyAfrica, are overwhelmed ornot addressed, the anger, resent—ment, and sheer desperation—thathavebeen smoldering in these countries fordecades centuries in many cases will ignite into aconflagration —ofhostility and animosity with unforeseeable and, perhaps, uncontrollable consequences consequences farremoved from the small gestures ofimpotence thathave character- ized theirpleas forhelp in thepast. Tired ofbeing perpetual supplicants, feeling isolated in the global economy with its dog-eat-dog ideology, forever having to sanction severe and often counterproductive conditions donor countries and international agencies attach to loans, the poor countries in the south feel abandoned, not part ofthe global village we love to meander on about but inhabitants ofthe squatter camps that surround it. Marginalized and forgotten, they 4 arc not in a forgiving mood. Living on the scraps ofthe world's wealth their well-to-do northern neighbors throw in their direction, they would rather suffer in dignity than swallow silently the humiliations that in the end leave them no belter off. Even in the United States, there is a creeping recognition that something has gone awry. After enjoying an unprecedented period of uninterrupted prosperity during the nineties, with no end to the boom in sight and a stock market that has hit levels no trader in his wildest dreams would have imagined ten years ago, the distortions that the market-driven economy has produced are beginning to undermine some ofthe funda- mental tenets that madeAmerica the beacon ofhope, the land ofopportunity for millions in the past. According to figures released by anumberoffederal agencies andresearch organiza- tions, weekly wages forthe averageAmerican are 12 percentbelow their inflation-ad- justed levels of 1973; median family household income in 1999 is, in real terms, about the same as it was in 1989; the onepercent ofthe country's highestincome earners make more than what 100 million workers earn; the average working week has expanded to forty-seven hours, which, for the average middle-income family, translates into an addi- tional nine weeks ofwork annually. But the real pay forthe extrahours worked comes to ameager $2.20. Therichest one percent ofAmerican households retain 40 percent ofthe country's wealth. That is double the percentage ofwealth they held in 1976. The bottom 40 per- centofAmericans experienced acollapse of80percentin theirnet worth. The figures on debtburdenjust getworse, leading LesterThurow, aprofessor atthe MIT Sloan School ofManagementto write, "The greatAmerican middle class has become anon-participant in theAmerican dr—eam." One wonders where thatleaves those not fortunate enough to fall into that class once aspired to by tens ofmillions, now adebt trap. Millennium madness refers to increasing concerns about possibleY2K glitches. Even as evidence mounts that the probabilities ofserious glitches are minimal, concerns continue to increase. All may be well in the United States, but whatabout the restofthe world into which this country is wired?And since perceptions are everything, and people are more prone to believe thatmore things—will go haywire than the government and the private sectorwouldleadthem tobelieve who afterall wants to cry—fire in acrowded theaterandraise the specterofpanic, amadrush forthe nearestexit? they aremore likely to put theireggs in more than one basket, which, ofcourse, leaves open the possi- bility that we might run out ofbaskets. This issue oftheNew EnglandJournal ofPublic Policy covers a range ofpublic policy subjects, all pertinent to the direction federal- and state-level government will take in the coming decades. I draw your attention to two in particular, not because they deserve any special signaling outbecause ofsuperiormerit, butbecause each addresses the issue ofpersonal characterand public life, already the focus ofthe 2000 presidential campaign. Richard Hogarty, inhis essay on the legacy ofFrancis Sargent, who served as governor ofMassachusetts from 1969 through 1975, prefaces his narrative with an epigraph from David McCullough: "History reminds us that nothing counterfeit has any staying power, an observation, incidentally, made by Cicero about 60 B.C. [in apre- millennium era, to keep things in perspective!]. History teaches that character counts. Character above all." This same epigraph wouldmake an ironic preface to Garrison Nelson's essay on the late Speaker ofthe House JohnW. McCormack, one ofthemajor architects ofboth Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson's GreatSociety. The irony is NewEnglandJournalofPublicPolicy that according to the norms oftoday's custodians ofthe politically correct, McCormack would nothave beenjudged fitto run fordogcatcher. Nelson also raises amore intrigu- ing question: What is character? If, perchance, the next issue oftheNewEnglandJournal ofPublic Policy does not reachyou, you may take itthatwe atthe McCormack Institute fell afoul ofY—2K. In this event, your copy, written in longhand, will be hand-^delivered in due course that is, if wecan findanyone whoremembershow to write! Irish Identity The Reinvention of Politics Speaker John W. McCormack of Boston Garrison Nelson From his election in 1940 as Majority Leader to his last day as Speaker ofthe U.S. House ofRepresentatives in 1971, John W. McCormack ofBoston occupied the highest rungs ofleadership in the Congress. Many biographies and autobiogra- phies cover the lives andpublic careers offive Speakers, but not one has been — devoted to McCormack not because he was unimportant and irrelevant. He was a veryprivate man who could rearrange thefacts ofhis life to suit his politica—l needs. The story had great resonance in Boston because its Irish gatekeepers James Michael Curley,—John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, Patrick J. "P.J." Kennedy, and Martin Lomasney led lives identical to that of McCormack. They accepted the reinvented history and watched him move rapidly up the city's political ladder. Through a detailed examination ofcity, state, andfederal documents, secular and sacerdotal, in the United States and Canada, a clearerportrait ofMcCormack emerges. Of the twenty-seven amendments added to the Constitution since 1789, the successful passage ofone may be attributed to a single news photograph taken November 27, 1963, fivedays after the murder ofJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty- fifth president ofthe United States. Newly installed PresidentLyndon B. Johnson was pictured at therostrum oftheU.S. House ofRepresentatives giving his first formal ad- dress to the Congress, the nation, and the world. Two very old whitemen were seatedbehind Johnson: to thepresident's left. Demo- cratic SenatorCarl Hayden ofArizona, thepresidentpro tempore ofthe Senate, second in line to PresidentJohnson; to the president's right, Democratic Congressman John W. McCormack of Massachusetts, the Speaker ofthe House and next in line to President Johnson. SenatorHaydenentered Congress asArizona's firstelected U.S. representativein 1912, the yearhis state entered the union. Hayden left the House for the Senate in 1927. serving in that chamber until 1969, when he retired at the age ofninety-one. Speaker McCormack was first elected to the House in 1928 during the closing days ofthe Coolidge administration and served until 1971, when he retired at the midpoint ofPresi- dent Richard Nixon's firstterm, atthe age ofseventy-nine. Garrison Nelson isaprofessorofpoliticalscience at the UniversityofVermontanda senior fellowat theJohn W. McCormackInstitute ofPublicAffairs, UniversityofMassachusetts Boston. NewEnglandJournalofPublicPolicy point of President Richard Nixon's first term, at the age of seventy-nine. When thephotograph was taken, John McCormack was seventy-one and Carl Hayden was eighty-six. Lyndon Johnson, who had served with both men in theirrespective chambers, wasonly fifty-five. PresidentJohnson suffered from awell-knownheartcon- dition, which had kept him out ofthe 1956 presidential nominating contest; and it was an ailment that would end his life, at the relatively young age ofsixty-four, in 1973. In his compilation ofPresidentJohnson's taperecordings, Michael Beschloss re- ported, "ManyAmericans were frightened at the sight ofthe two elderly men nextin line for the presidency behind LBJ, whohad once suffered amassiveheartattack."1 To disinterested observers ofthe photograph, SpeakerMcCormack and Senator Hayden seemed to representtheghosts of"Congress Past." Butthey hadbecome the ghosts ofCongress Present and mostlikely, CongressYet-to-Come. In an effort to diminish the likelihood ofeither ofthese two gaining the presidency through the legislated line ofsuccession, Democratic Senator Birch Bayh ofIndiana proposed a constitutional amendment entitled the Presidential Succession and Disability Amendment. This amendment would allow Congress to fill the vice presidency ifit became vacant and to limit the operation ofthe 1947 Presidential SuccessionAct, which placed the Speaker and the Senate president pro tempore right behind the vice president. To hammer home his point about the necessity ofthe amendment, the fateful 1963 photograph graced the cover ofSenatorBayh's book, One HeartbeatAway.2 It worked, and theTwenty-fifth Amendment wasratified on February 23, 1967, one year and ten months afterCongress had approved itand sentit to the states forratifica- tion. The time it took to move though the state legislatures was close to the median of other constitutional amendments. The photograph had alerted, but had not panicked, the nation. Once the solution had been implemented, SenatorHayden was spared further specula- tion abouthis fitness forthepresidency. SpeakerMcCormack was not so fortunate. Ques- tions raised during his tenure continued to dog his speakership, which McCormack had to defend formuch ofhis time in thechair, and motions to ousthim surfaced frequently during his last years in the post.3 Twenty-eightyears havepassed since SpeakerMcCormack leftthe House andnine- teen years have passed since his death, butheremains the leastwell known ofthe Speak- ers ofthepasthalfcentury. From 1962 through 1970, Boston's JohnW. McCormack served as the forty-fourth Speakerofthe U.S. House ofRepresentatives.Although he was amajorlegislative archi- tect ofboth the New Deal and the Great Society, he is still relatively unknown. That was the plan. It is my contention that John McCormack enjoyed and took pains to preserve his relativepublic obscurity. He was a very private man in apublic office. In the words ofhis longtime assistant, Dr. Martin Sweig, "John McCormack was themostsecretiveman I have ever met."4 Why?Therein lies the tale. TheAustin-BostonSpeakers From 1940 through 1989, the House ofRepresentatives had only six Speakers: Sam Rayburn, JoeMartin, John McCormack, CarlAlbert,Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill,Jr., and Jim Wright. Five were Democrats withJoseph Martin ofMassachusetts the only Repub- lican. McCormack and O'Neill were also from Massachusetts, Rayburn and Wright 8