State House News Service Weekly Roundup: Olde Home Days
His was not the story of Deval Patrick, or Mitt Romney or Bill Weld. Argeo Paul Cellucci started local on the Board of Selectmen in his beloved town of Hudson and worked his way up: state representative, state senator, lieutenant governor, governor, ambassador. He was the Calvin Coolidge of his time, according to former Minority Leader Richard Tisei, and Democrats, Republicans and Canadians, alike, loved and respected him for it. Cellucci passed away last weekend after a battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease at the age of 65, and on Thursday he became the 13th public figure to lie in state under the State House rotunda. The memorial service and public viewing for the former governor drew a who’s-who to Beacon Hill, including Romney, Michael Dukakis, Jane Swift, faces from the Weld and Cellucci administrations who haven’t seen the inside of the capitol since the late 1990s, and even William Bulger and his old Senate rival David Locke. Above all, Cellucci was remembered as a classy public servant, one who put people before party (as Gabriel Gomez is prone to say), worked across party lines, and helped define what it is to be a successful Massachusetts Republican. He never lost a political race, had a memorable affinity for movies and played a mean game of bocce, even if his talent for the game remained in question. Click here to subscribe to MASSterlist, a free morning newsletter by State House News Service that highlights political news from a wide array of newspapers and journals in Massachusetts and New England Among the faces in the faces in the crowd on Thursday was Bulger, the former Senate President. While jurors in the murder and racketeering trial of his brother Whitey Bulger heard about a gun cache the alleged mobster kept close to Billy Bulger’s South Boston home, the aging pol quietly took in the Cellucci ceremony before venturing back into the chamber he led for 18 years to watch as Linda Dorcena Forry was sworn into the Senate. A daughter of Haitian immigrants, Forry’s swearing in was routine, but symbolic of the changing face of Boston. She takes over as the representative of a Senate district that includes Mattapan, Dorchester and South Boston, the traditionally Irish stronghold from which Bulger drew his power for 26 years. Ironically, Forry began her political career 17 years ago as a State House aide to former Rep. Charlotte Golar Richie, who is trying to make her own history running to become the first minority, female mayor of Boston. Forry mentioned her early work for Golar Richie during remarks to the Senate after she was sworn in by Patrick. […]