State Attorney General Thomas Reilly Brings Bid for Governor to the Island

By James Kinsella
Gazette Senior Writer

On a warm Sunday afternoon, Thomas F. Reilly, the man who stands a chance of becoming the next governor of Massachusetts, sits in the shade of an East Chop porch and appreciates Martha's Vineyard.

"Every time we take the ferry across here, our eyes just light up with the beauty of Martha's Vineyard and how relaxing it is and what a wonderful place this is," he said.

Mr. Reilly, the Massachusetts attorney general and a Democrat, traveled to the Island with his wife, Ruth, to attend a fundraiser on Sunday in Edgartown.

Mr. Reilly also appreciates Massachusetts: once the bloodied birthplace of American independence, but more recently a punching bag for conservatives across the country.

"It's a beautiful state," he said. "It has wonderful natural resources. We're right in the midst of that right now . . . . It's the state my parents came to. I'm the son of Irish immigrants. I love this state, and in order to lead this state, you have to love it."

Mr. Reilly faults current Gov. Mitt Romney for failing to stand up for the Bay State in 2004, when he said the state became a laugh line in George W. Bush's presidential campaign.

"We got hurt in the last election, all the Massachusetts-bashing that was going on," he said. "The governor didn't lift a finger to stand up for Massachusetts."

More recently, Mr. Reilly said, the governor has let his national political hopes distract him from his stewardship of the state.

"I think it's pretty obvious that his focus is not on our future," he said. "We have a governor who really now has put his own personal ambition over what is best for Massachusetts."

As part of his efforts to win the governor's seat in 2006, Mr. Reilly traveled to the Vineyard to attend a fund raiser hosted by Island Democrats Richard Friedman and Ronald H. Rappaport at Mr. Friedman's home in Edgartown.

His longtime friend, former U.S. Attorney Wayne Budd, and his wife, Jacqueline, hosted the Reillys at the Budds' East Chop home, where the candidate sat for a brief interview with the Gazette on Sunday afternoon.

Mr. Reilly said the commonwealth is at a crossroads. He said thousands of residents, many of them between the ages of 25 and 35 with college degrees, are leaving the state. He said the state economy is troubled by uncertainty, its health care system needs to be fixed and its system of public higher education needs to be better coordinated.

The governor, Mr. Reilly said, has been a disappointment. He said Mr. Romney has been more interested in pursuing partisan politics than in bringing together people to help forge solutions to statewide problems.

In contrast, he said his participation in the rescue of the Harvard Pilgrim health plan was a model for how to bring together different groups to achieve success. After placing the company into receivership, Mr. Reilly said, he and others were able to bring the company back to financial health without any disruption or interruption in clients' medical coverage.

"We didn't do Harvard Pilgrim by ourselves, but you work with people," he said. "This state has tremendous assets. The one thing the governor hasn't done is to bring them together. There's this tremendous spirit, energy, drive, creative ability in the people of Massachusetts. Bring them together to help solve some of these problems, and they'll get it done."

On the Vineyard, Mr. Reilly said a number of issues on the Island have implications across the state and beyond.

That is why he stepped in to oppose the proposed wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal northwest of the Vineyard in Nantucket Sound.

"Coming over today on the ferry, I thought back to the genesis of my opposition to the wind farm," he said. "It came from one of my trips on the ferry. This was in the early stages of this project. Coming across, it was a beautiful day, much like today."

Mr. Reilly asked the ship's crew to point out the proposed location of the farm, which they did.

"It's called the wind farm, but it's really a power plant," he said. "It just struck me: Why would anyone, with the pristine beauty of Nantucket Sound, want to spoil these waters, and just spoil that wonderful, wonderful resource to the state by building a power plant there."

Mr. Reilly said the thrust of the legal argument coming out of his office is that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lacks the authority to issue a permit to convey the seabed without the express authority of Congress.

"That will be the issue we raise," Mr. Reilly said. "The court certainly is aware of it. We will continue to raise it if and when a permit is issued.

"There have to be places that are off-limits, and Nantucket Sound has to be one of those areas," he said.

As for the argument that the wind farm will provide power for the Cape and Islands, Mr. Reilly said the power will go into the regional grid and could well wind up in other places, such as New York or beyond.

"I think the price is too heavy to pay for whatever benefit comes out of it," Mr. Reilly said. "I would be opposed to it and will continue to be opposed to it every step of the way."

Another legal matter with far-reaching implications is the sovereignty case between the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and the town of Aquinnah.

Mr. Reilly intervened on the side of the town, and the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled last year that the settlement agreement signed by the town and the tribe in 1983 trumped the doctrine of sovereign immunity, and the tribe must follow state and local zoning laws. The tribe recently decided to not pursue an appeal of the ruling to the United States Supreme Court. The dispute began when the tribe built a shed and a pier on the Cook Lands without a building permit.

"It was more than a shed involved in this case," Mr. Reilly said on Sunday. "We felt that the position that the tribe was taking - that they were not in any way subject to building or zoning or safety codes - we felt that they were. We're also looking down the road in terms of precedent that would establish that they were not subject to state laws or land laws. We disagreed with that, and the court agreed with us.

"It was an important decision, not only for Martha's Vineyard, but for the state looking forward," he said.

If he is elected governor, Mr. Reilly said he will work to encourage job creation and improve the state's health care and public education systems.

A way to create a more favorable economic climate, Mr. Reilly said, is to pick up the pace of government.

"I think all of government needs to move more quickly, and to move to decisions more quickly," he said. "Business needs predictability and they need timely answers, and not to have it dragged on."

One reason he finds fault with Mr. Romney's opposition to stem cell research is the role he said the research could play in the Massachusetts economy.

Yet in his work as attorney general, Mr. Reilly said some of the greatest rewards have been found in the ways that his office has been able to help ordinary consumers.

"Just the other day, we received a note from a senior citizen, about how we had helped her with a problem she had had with her health insurance," he said. "The reimbursements don't seem like much, but they meant a lot to her. It's fifty bucks, seventy five bucks, sometimes thirty dollars, but it meant a lot to them, living on the margin with fixed incomes. These are very satisfying. We do that every day."