Mass Power

"Like the 1927 Yankees"

After he led the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in its vote to cut off covert military aid to Nicaragua last week, Committee Chairman Edward P. Boland, a Massachusetts Democrat, asked House Speaker Tip O'Neill, a fellow Bay Stater, to authorize a closed-door session for the eventual floor debate by the full House. O'Neill happily obliged. The next day, Massachusetts Congressman Edward J. Markey helped dynamite a six-day legislative logjam holding up a House vote on a nuclear-freeze resolution by persuading O'Neill to engineer a virtually unprecedented change in House debate rules. The resolution passed 278 to 149.

Such feats are all in a week's work for the two Senators and eleven Congressmen from Massachusetts. The close-knit, mostly liberal delegation is the bane of President Reagan on Capitol Hill. After Reagan nominated Kenneth Adelman to direct the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Massachusetts Democratic Senator Paul Tsongas provocatively suggested that Adelman's defeat would be "the Senate's equivalent of a nuclear freeze." The freeze movement was spearheaded in the Senate by Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy and in the House by Markey. And after Reagan denounced public service jobs as "make work" programs, Boland successfully worked to retain them in the $4.6 billion jobs bill enacted in March. Gloats Markey: "Our delegation is like the 1927 Yankees--the greatest team of all time."

Members of the Massachusetts gang are strategically placed among the most important committees in the House--Appropriations, Ways and Means, and Rules. Three of the past five Speakers of the House have come from Massachusetts--Joe Martin (1947-49, 1953-55), John McCormack (1962-71) and O'Neill (since 1977)--and all have been true to their heritage. "It's kind of like crop rotation," said Massachusetts Democratic Congressman James Shannon. "When Martin and McCormack were here, they made sure that Massachusetts members got on good committees. Now Tip is doing the same thing with us."

The delegation rarely meets formally. But off Capitol Hill, many members are close friends, which adds to the group's political cohesiveness. Until O'Neill's wife moved from Cambridge to Washington, he and Boland were the city's version of the odd couple: the disheveled Speaker and the natty Congressman shared a house for 24 years. The delegation's only Republican, Congressman Silvio Conte, is a gourmet cook who invites the O'Neills over for dinner. Says Conte: "We all have a tremendous relationship. And it makes our delegation one of the most powerful in Congress." . This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.