The Genius of Brian: Other Reps Loved Him as He Got All He Could for His City

I don’t know if they’ll ever put up a statue of Brian Dempsey in Haverhill but they should.

During the seven or so years he chaired the Ways & Means Committee of the Massachusetts House, Dempsey did what Ways & Means chairs have done throughout the history of our republic: he delivered the goods to his district.

As the Eagle Tribune newspaper said in its edition of Sunday, July 23, “The last seven state  budgets authored  by Haverhill Rep. Brian Dempsey gave the city millions of dollars to offset  its debts, boost education and create projects to establish Haverhill as a hub of activity in the Merrimack Valley.”

The Eagle Tribune cited a number of large, local projects and developments that came to fruition on Dempsey’s watch because he had the power to get them into the state budget.  These included:

• Harbor Place, a $70-million downtown development “that benefited from more than $40 million from the state.”
• $24 million in state funds to offset the debt the city incurred in operating the old Hale Hospital
• A new $61-million middle school complex. (State share: $40 million.)
• The expansion of Haverhill High School. (State share: $35 million.)
• The renovation of Haverhill’s downtown commuter rail station. (State share: $6 million.)
• The construction of a municipal parking garage. (State share: $2 million.)
• Improvements to two parks and the Bradford Rail Trail. (State share: $2.6 million.)
• Renovations to Trinity Stadium. (State share: $6 million-plus.)
• Grants to the  Haverhill Police Department for staffing and equipment.  (More than $1.5 million over three years.)

Discussing the many grants Dempsey helped to secure for programs in the Haverhill public schools, such as the $218,000 recently allocated for equipment to train high school students in health care skills, School Superintendent James Scully told the Eagle Tribune, “Every single year, he helped us get our technology up to date.  If it wasn’t for Brian Dempsey, we’d be light years behind where we are, technology-wise.  Him leaving the House, it’s as if the Coast Guard were to stop patrolling our shores.”

Said Haverhill Mayor James Fiorentini, “…we’re deeply concerned about him leaving.  He’s going to be sorely missed, there’s no doubt about it.”

If someone has ever run for the Massachusetts House promising to do all he could to ingratiate himself with leadership, build relationships with every mover and shaker in sight, strategically work his way up the ladder over a period of years, and put himself, ideally, in position one day to be appointed chair of the Ways & Means Committee so that he could get maximum state dollars for his district, I’m not aware of it.    

First-time candidates for the legislature, I guess, are usually too idealistic and clueless to do that.  Or maybe they’re afraid they’d come across as cynical or crass.  Such concerns are overblown and unhelpful, in my opinion.

As the good people of Haverhill have demonstrated in their mourning over Dempsey’s decision to quit the legislature and head up a big Boston lobbying firm, (where he’ll be able to make some serious money for the first time in his life), the folks in the district always care more about getting goodies from the state than anything else.  Everybody loves a freebie, an extra, a special deal. That goes for me, too.

We the people are in on the game. We know those discretionary state funds are going to be spent somewhere in Massachusetts, so we figure, Why shouldn’t they be spent on something that will make my town better?

To his credit, Dempsey frankly acknowledges the grab-it-when-you-can imperative of legislative service.  “…as chairman (of W&M),” Dempsey told the Eagle Tribune, “you’re in a tremendous position to deliver, and I certainly wasn’t shy about it.  I felt it was Haverhill’s turn and tried to do as much as I could.”

The wonder of our system is that it works as well as it does, most of the time, and that most legislators who reach positions of top leadership do not become ridiculous and obscene in the utilization of the power granted to them via a biennial vote of their peers.  (The majority party votes for a house speaker and a senate president at the beginning of every two-year session; the speaker and president then appoint all of the committee chairs.)   

During his time as chair of Ways & Means, Brian Dempsey was good to his district but he was also as good as he possibly could have been to his colleagues who did not have the power he had come, through fate and luck, to possess.  One way to put it is that he never forgot where he came from….he remained the friendly, warm, open, humble and understanding person he was at 23 when entering the legislature for the first time.  You just had to listen to the three-minute standing ovation Dempsey received when he was introduced by Speaker Bob DeLeo for his farewell speech in the House chamber on Wednesday, July 19 -- an ovation punctuated by whoops and shouts -- to know that was the case.  There was genuine, deep-seated affection for the man across the breadth of that historic room.  I doubt you could find more than a few persons who served with Dempsey who begrudge him having taken care of Haverhill so well when its turn came around.