Governor of Massachusetts
On November 3, 1998, Paul Cellucci was elected as Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, narrowly defeating Democratic attorney general Scott Harshbarger. He had successfully fought off a challenge from State Treasurer Joe Malone in the September primary. He was officially sworn in as the 69th Governor of Massachusetts on January 7, 1999.
Cellucci was a fiscally conservative, anti-tax Governor who had the ability to work in a bipartisan fashion with an overwhelmingly Democratic State Legislature. In 2001, the libertarian Cato Institute, in its fifth biennial fiscal policy report card, gave Cellucci an "A" grade and said he "earned the distinction of having the best record of reducing taxes and restraining spending growth" among the nation's 50 governors. Governor Cellucci spearheaded the statewide initiative to reduce the state income tax from 5.95% to 5%, which was approved 59% to 41% by the voters of Massachusetts in November 2000.
Cellucci was also successful in maintaining the state's high education standards for its public schools. Those standards, which required students to pass exams in basic Math and English to receive a high school diploma, were a major piece of the Education Reform Act of 1993 and were phased in over time. The teachers unions wanted to weaken the standards just as they were about to take effect, but Cellucci worked with Speaker of the House Thomas Finneran and Senate President Thomas Birmingham, both Democrats, to hold the line on this issue. The standards have remained in effect and in its June 4, 2007 report card on "No Child Left Behind," Time Magazine found that Massachusetts students score the best on the federal tests.
The biggest controversy during Cellucci's tenure was the huge cost overruns on the "Big Dig" – an enormous project to replace the elevated central artery highway in Boston with an underground tunnel. Cellucci removed the project manager, Jim Kerasiotes, and put his Secretary of Administration and Finance, Andrew Natsios, in charge of the project.
Cellucci, in 1998, signed into law one of the toughest gun control measures in the United States. He was also known to take a conservative approach to crime. He supported Roe v. Wade and abortion rights, which did not always make him popular with the Catholic Church. When he was Lt. Governor, Cardinal Bernard Law "disinvited" him from speaking at the commencement of his alma mater, Hudson Catholic High School.
Cellucci appointed many women to high ranking positions, including Margaret H. Marshall as the first female Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Marshall's appointment marked the first time a woman headed a branch of government in Massachusetts history. He was succeeded by Jane Swift, whom he had asked to be his running mate in the 1998 gubernatorial election. Swift became the first woman in Massachusetts history to occupy the Governor's Office.
On April 10, 2001, Cellucci resigned to become U.S. Ambassador to Canada, being appointed by President George W. Bush. This made him the second consecutive Massachusetts governor to resign in order to assume an ambassadorship: his predecessor William Weld resigned after being nominated to be Ambassador to Mexico by President Clinton. (Weld was never confirmed by the United States Senate, however, and hence never served as Ambassador.)
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Famous quotes related to governor of massachusetts:
“Three years ago, also, when the Sims tragedy was acted, I said to myself, There is such an officer, if not such a man, as the Governor of Massachusetts,—what has he been about the last fortnight? Has he had as much as he could do to keep on the fence during this moral earthquake?... He could at least have resigned himself into fame.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)