Jake Auchincloss, age 32, won the seven-person Democratic congressional primary election to succeed Joe Kennedy in the Fourth Massachusetts District and is heavily favored to beat the Republican nominee in the November 3 final, Julie Hall. Based on the way he has campaigned -- promising to oppose President Trump's agenda at every turn -- we can expect Auchincloss to spend a lot of time in Washington on big national controversies. If I had his ear, I'd counsel otherwise. And I'd hold up the example of South Boston's Joe Moakley (1927-2001) on how better to become a serious legislator, a force to be reckoned with, an endearing figure, in the U.S. House.
Before his 28-year run in the Congress (1973-2001) in the old Ninth District, Moakley served as a state representative (1953-1960), a state senator (1965-1970) and a Boston city councilor (1971-72). At the State House, Boston City Hall, and the Capitol in D.C., he was known for his geniality, sense of humor, common touch, dedication to constituent services, and ability to establish trust with members of the opposing party and, generally, anybody who held an opposing viewpoint. With the help of his friend and fellow congressman, Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, Speaker of the House from 1977 to 1987, Moakley moved unobtrusively up the ladder until he was appointed, in 1989, as chair of the powerful House Rules Committee, which has critical, discretionary power to set the terms for debating and voting on bills. He leveraged that power to deliver federal funding for such major projects as the clean-up of Boston Harbor and other big infrastructure works in Massachusetts.
Jim McGovern, the congressman for the Worcester-centered Second Massachusetts District since 1997, got his start in politics as an aide to Joe Moakley and became an indispensable part of Moakley's operation during his time on the staff (1981-96). Four days after Moakley's June 2, 2001, funeral at St. Brigid's Church in South Boston, McGovern sponsored a House resolution registering the "profound sorrow" of members upon Moakley's passing and recording the adjournment of the House that day "as a further mark of respect to the memory of the deceased." Here, in part, is what McGovern said on that occasion:
"Mr. Speaker, I had a front-row seat to watch a real master in action. Joe was guided by the simple but powerful principle that no one is unimportant. From the streets of South Boston to the jungles of El Salvador, Joe Moakley stood for and fought for fairness, and fought for justice. He made sure that Mrs. O'Leary got her lost Social Security check. He fought to make sure that our veterans got the health care services that they were entitled to receive. He cared deeply about the environment, and he had a passion for civil rights and equal rights and human rights.
"And yes, Mr. Speaker, he was a Democrat and very, very proud of it. He believed in the Democratic Party and he fought hard for the principles and values that he believed in. But, as I am sure that my Republican colleagues will acknowledge, Joe respected and admired those who had different views and even a different party affiliation. Joe Moakley was a people person and his influence and his power in this institution was based not merely on his seniority or his status on the Committee on Rules but instead it was based on personal relationships and friendships with men and women of both parties.
"His advice to me after I first got elected to Congress was not to give the most fiery or partisan speeches or even to hire the most experienced or expensive press secretary, but to get to know everyone on a first-name basis. Building coalitions and building friendships, he would say, was the surest way to be effective."
Close to a thousand persons attended Moakley's funeral Mass, including the nation's top Republican at the time, President George W. Bush, and the man then third-in-line to the presidency, the Republican Speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois. Many thousands more watched the rites on television.
Anne E. Kornblut, who covered the funeral for The Boston Globe, noted that Bush had met Moakley only twice, and only after becoming President, five months before Moakley's death. Bush's advisors told Kornblut that the president's attendance "was motivated purely by personal respect" for Moakley. She quoted Ari Fleischer, Bush's press secretary, as saying, "He (Bush), on his visits with the congressman, instantly came to the same conclusions that everybody else has, about what a wonderful man Congressman Moakley was, his human touch. The good-natured spirit that Congressman Moakley brought to the job moved the president."
A little more than five months ago, on April 21, a retired professor by the name of Richard F. Fenno, Jr., a native of Winchester, Massachusetts, who held a Ph.D. in history from Harvard, passed away at age 93 at his home in Rye, New York. Fenno taught at the University of Rochester for five decades and wrote 19 books, most focusing on the U.S. House and Senate. One of his final books, "Congressional Travels: Places, Connections, and Authenticity," was inspired, according to a New York Times obituary on Fenno, "by the national attention and bipartisan affection accorded to a relatively anonymous House member, John Joseph Moakley."
Intrigued, I purchased a copy of "Congressional Travels..." online. Here are three key excerpts from Chapter 1, which is titled, "A Story About Place: Joe Moakley's Funeral":
"...a House member's designation, as prescribed in the U.S. Constitution, is not Congressman, it is Representative. And whereas 'congressman' or 'congresswoman' tends to call our attention to a House member's Capitol Hill activities and to his or her relationship with colleagues, 'representative' points us toward a House member's activities in his or her home district and to relationships with constituents."
"I believe that while the examination of Joe Moakley's activities and relationships in Washington provides, at best, a weak explanation of the ceremony after his death, an examination of his activities and relationships in his home constituency provides a strong explanation. We could know all there was to know about Moakley's life in Washington and not explain the attendance at his funeral. I will argue that he was not a memorable congressman but he was a memorable representative. The story of his funeral should not be read as a national story at all. It was primarily a local story."
"Joe Moakley can be known best as someone with recognizable connections to a place and to a constituency, for it is these connections -- and the strength of these connections -- that made him a remarkable politician. Therefore, answers to the question 'What is he like?' cannot be found in Washington. They can only be found at home. Answers to the question 'Why did so many people come to memorialize him?' can only be found at home. Joe Moakley was indeed, 'a heavyweight' -- not in Washington, but at home."
Professor Fenno saw Moakley as a "local hero," if you will, and not a figure of national import. I think Moakley might have objected to that assessment; I certainly object.
Toward the end of his career, Moakley said that he considered his efforts to cut U.S. military assistance to El Salvador and to force legal action against those responsible for the 1989 murder at the University of Central America in San Salvador, the capital, of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and the housekeeper's daughter to be his "greatest achievement."
All his life, no matter what position, situation or contest he happened to be in, Moakley stuck to his fundamental principles and instincts. He followed his principles and instincts wherever they led them, and to the end point of wherever they led. That made him a great representative of his district, a great champion of our nation's ideals, and a figure of historical importance.
I'm sure that young Jake Auchincloss would like to achieve great things, to perform deeds worthy of history books. Assuming he'll get the opportunity to serve on Capitol Hill, I'd encourage him to resist the urge to be give fiery and/or partisan speeches every time a microphone or TV camera is available. I'd tell him to keep in mind instead the example of Joe Moakley, who never forgot where he came from (and lived his whole life), South Boston's Ward 7 peninsula, and who remained faithful all his days to the humble tenets of his upbringing and neighborhood.
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