Reilly makes a big promise

By Joshua Resnick - The Lynn Journal

Wedneday, May 4, 2005

Attorney General Thomas Reilly, believed to be on the verge of announcing his candidacy for governor, came to Lynn last week, to the Chamber of Commerce Annual Installation Breakfast at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Route 107, to share his views with the large gathering.

Reilly covered a wide territory and he had harsh words for the builders of the Big Dig while vowing to defend taxpayer dollars by investigating cost overruns and shoddy construction.

For the many Lynn businesspeople, Chamber members, city officials and guests who attended the affair, it was an opportunity to listen to and get a look at Reilly up close.

With more than $2 million in his political account, and his career at a crossroads, the gathering closely examined Reilly’s words and his demeanor.

He said state government should serve people in all corners of the Commonwealth, adding that Romney’s administration has been unable to connect with the needs of urban voters in Massachusetts.

“Something must be done to bring this state together – and I’m the man to do it,” he added.

He decried Massachusetts as the only state that’s losing population. He said some of our best younger residents are leaving because housing prices are too high and opportunity too lean.

“If it were not for the immigrants who have come to Massachusetts in recent years, the population loss — the numbers — would be staggering,” he said.

Reilly gained in notoriety as an aggressive district attorney of Middlesex County before becoming attorney general.

Since being elected in 1998, Reilly has vigorously prosecuted polluters, civil rights offenders, and corporate renegades while paying special attention to issues affecting the elderly, children and women.

He brought to justice those former state officials who were bilking the state treasury.

When Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare encountered severe financial difficulty, Reilly made certain the healthcare giant maintained coverage for the more than the one million membership group.

He fought and won suits with the major tobacco companies.

Recently, he led the fight to investigate and to open the records of the Boston Archdiocese in the sexual abuse scandal which has rocked the church.

Reilly, who grew up in modest circumstances in Springfield, said he understood the problems that cities like Lynn face.

He said he would be able to refocus the energies of the state government to reflect the fact that this state isn’t made up only of suburban voters.

He complained that Governor Romney simply doesn’t get it, and that there is nothing coming from him to people who live in cities like Lynn.

Mayor Edward “Chip” Clancy, in one of his finer recent moments, introduced Reilly, who is an old friend, and whom he supported in 1998, when Reilly was elected to his first term as attorney general and Clancy was still a senator.

“Tom Reilly has done a bangup job as attorney general, unlike Mitt Romney, who has been in Des Moines more often than Lynn during his term,” the mayor told the crowd.

In a real crowd pleaser, where Clancy noted Reilly’s doggedness, he said, “Reilly will chase down the Big Dig whale like Ahab did.”