(Press Release composed by Alison Long of the Training Resources of America in Brockton.)
Thirty-five adults from Training Resources of America (TRA) in Brockton spent Thursday evening hosted and toured by Senator Thomas P. Kennedy and Representative Michael Brady, both of Brockton. Sen. Kennedy explained that Speaker Robert DeLeo agreed to the first-time-ever evening visit thanks to the willingness of freshman Rep. Brady to advocate for the unique visit. TRA South Shore Regional Manager Barbora Hazuková led the group.
Bused from TRA headquarters at 231 Main Street, the group fought traffic and arrived at the Bowdoin Street entrance by 6:45, where they were met by Al DeGirolamo, aide to Rep. Brady. They shuffled through security and rode elevators to the third floor, where Sen. Kennedy met them and explained the history of the chamber. He had been a representative for 26 years before being elected senator in 2009.
Students stood around him in the well of the House as he explained the history of the Sacred Cod, a gift in 1784 from John Rowe, a prosperous merchant who had made his fortune from fishing. He then pointed out the method of voting and the traditional separation of powers, more pronounced in Massachusetts than in most states. Here, a senator cannot enter the House without an invitation from a representative and vice versa. Even a governor must be invited to enter either chamber. A further courtesy requires that anyone who “has the floor” (is speaking) cannot be forcibly interrupted while he or she is speaking, but may choose to yield the floor to someone else.
All 8,000 bills typically filed by legislators and residents (with the assistance of a legislator) must have a public hearing and a vote every year. To become law, a bill must be agreed upon by a total of four votes in each house and the governor. Few proposals make it all the way through that process, which normally includes endless modifications. Many people can and do express their encouragement or concerns. The process follows the Massachusetts Constitution, ratified in 1780. It was the blueprint for our national Constitution.
From the House of Representatives, the voters walked in groups to the Senate, pausing to read the name on a statue or the information on a mural from our national history. The Senate chamber is a more quietly elegant room and originally was the House of Representatives. The building was designed by Charles Bullfinch to rise well above the city on land donated by John Hancock. Boston grew up around it. A century later, in 1898 and again in 1917, the building expanded to the one we know today. The 160 members of the House moved to a larger chamber and the 40 members of the Senate took over the round room they use today.
No loudspeaker system is used in the Senate, as it must be in the House, but microphones and cameras do allow the public to watch the proceedings. Members all have equal power. In order to emphasize that equality, their chairs are adjusted so all members are at eye level. They are literally surrounded by leaders from our past. Almost all are Massachusetts leaders; even Benjamin Franklin was born here. Both Presidents George Washington and then-Congressman Abraham Lincoln visited here, the only State House to host both.
The Marquis de La Fayette is the third non-local. At 19, believing in independence from royal power, he came to fight on the side of the American Revolution. He was a French aristocrat and military officer who taught farmers and shopkeepers how to fight, provided much of the military materiel required, and even spent his personal fortune on food for the cold, hungry fighters at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-78. He was wounded three times. Sen. Kennedy said that Lafayette returned as an old man to lay the cornerstone for the Bunker Hill Monument in 1825. He wanted someday to be buried in America. Unwilling to break generations of tradition by shipping his body to Boston, his family instead came to get some soil, so he is literally buried in Boston soil – in France.
It was thus the efforts of Lafayette and Franklin, who convinced the French court to support us against England, that allowed the early would-be Americans to defeat the greatest army of late-18th century Europe.
Drifting out of the Senate chamber, students were invited to stand out on the front balcony, overlooking Boston Common and the night sky of the city. There in the early years stood Boston merchants, able to see the Harbor Islands in those days and waiting – literally – for their ships to come in.
On the other side of the Lobby is a beautiful, formal room mostly used today for meetings and “events.” Paintings of prior Senate presidents line the walls. They, along with Horace Mann, the Father of Public Education, overlooked the visitors. (Massachusetts was the first state to require free, universal, public education in 1852.) The central table shows “pie wedge” marks symbolizing the first 15 states. New York is largest and Massachusetts nearly so as it included all of Maine at the time. A tiny wedge inside “Massachusetts” represents Rhode Island. Next year, this room will revert to its original purpose as the Senate Chamber while the current one is rehabbed and returned to its original condition.
The unique tour ended as students and faculty overlooked paintings of Paul Revere’s ride warning “The British are coming! The British are coming!,” James Otis arguing against “taxation without representation” with royal judges who owed their livelihood to King George III, and the Boston Tea Party as they protested the same issue. The group descended the Grand Staircase to check out the bronze memorial statue to Civil War nurses in the Nurses Hall. Before they headed home, they peered through now-dimmed lights at reliefs of long-ago soldiers and busts of yesteryear’s leaders, some of whose descendents are active in public affairs today. They circled the Hall of Flags – American, Massachusetts with Massasoit in the center, and the black and white POW-MIA one which reminds us never to forget.
Few who were there Thursday night are ever likely to forget this personal tour conducted by Sen. Kennedy and organized by his and Rep. Brady’s staffs.
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