One of the Massachusetts’s former most powerful Democrats is trying his luck before an unfamiliar state high court to convince them to restore his retirement payments.
Former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Thomas Finneran lost his state pension in 2012 after a lower court determined his 2007 guilty plea for obstruction of justice was an abuse of his power as an elected official. Under state law, certain crimes committed using the power of elected office or government authority can result in forfeiture of pension benefits.
Finneran’s quest to win back over $470,400 in pension benefits put his attorneys in front of a state Supreme Judicial Court that’s been reshaped since Republican Gov. Charlie Baker appointed three new justices this year to replace retiring judges put on the bench by his predecessors.
Finneran’s attorney Nicholas Poser argued before the high court Thursday that when Finneran committed the obstruction during an investigation of legislative redistricting, he was not acting in his capacity as Speaker, and therefor the pension forfeiture was not warranted.
Poser said the state has not shown a direct connection between Finneran’s crime and his role as speaker.
“He was definitely involved in the Redistricting Act. There’s no question about it. But when testifying about the Redistricting Act, he happened to still be speaker. But he was not testifying while presiding over the House. That’s what you have to show,” Poser said, pointing to case law he said puts the burden on the state to prove a connection between official capacity and perjury.
Finneran’s side told the court that testifying before a federal court is not part of any speaker’s primary functions and that Finneran’s motivations for lying, to avoid charges of racism involved in the redistricting, had nothing to do with his speakership.
“... Finneran, took nothing from the Commonwealth when he testified. His “victim” was the federal court and the federal legal system. However, as the suit to throw out the redistricting plan was successful, Finneran’s actions did not, in fact, have any impact on the result of the case,“ Finneran’s court brief states.
The state’s Board of Retirement opposed Finneran in court, arguing that the former speaker’s conviction involved violations of laws applicable to his position and that the decision of a lower court to reinstate the payments be reversed. The board, which oversees the state’s retirement payment system, insists that finneran willfully gave false testimony under oath in his capacity as speaker during a federal lawsuit challenging legislation passed with his direct involvement.
”What he did in this case had everything to do with his office or position, his status as the speaker and as a member of the House,“ Assistant Attorney General David Marks said to the court.
Poser argued that another of Finneran’s motivations for lying, to retain his political position, also isn’t legally a capacity of office and shouldn’t allow for pension forfeiture.
”His testimony wouldn’t have been relevant if he hadn’t been speaker, right? That’s what made it relevant to the case,“ new Associate Justice Kimberly Budd asked Poser.
Poser replied that it was relevant because he was speaker during the time of the Redistricting act, but that Finneran’s status of speaker at the time of his testimony later, when the crime was committed, was not important. Budd asked is that makes a difference.
”It makes an enormous difference because you have to show that while he was testifying, he was doing something related to his job, and there’s nothing in the duties of a speaker of the Massachusetts House, or any member of the House, that implies you have to testify about the crafting of a statute. It’s the furthest thing from the duties of a speaker,“ Poser said.
Finneran was elected Speaker of the House in 1996, after 17 years in the House of Representatives. Known for being fiscally conservative and a strict leader, Finneran created the Commonwealth’s budget stabilization or “rainy day fund” to see the state through tough economic times.
What landed Finneran in trouble was the 2001 legislative effort to redraw district lines after the 2000 census. The redrawn districts were controversial; the Black Political Task Force said the gerrymandering minimized the voting power of minority voters and favored white incumbent politicians. The Task Force challenged the redistricting in federal court for violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2004 that the Massachusetts legislature had to redesign the district plan.
During the Court proceedings, Finneran testified that he had nothing to do with the redistricting plan. In a footnote in its decision, the Court wrote “Although Speaker Finneran denied any involvement in the redistricting process, the circumstantial evidence strongly suggests the opposite conclusion.”
Under investigation for perjury, Finneran resigned from his position as Speaker in September 2004. He was indicted for perjury in June 2005 after the federal probe found he had held eight meetings about redistricting.
In January 2007, Finneran took a plea bargain to avoid prison. He plead guilty to obstruction of justice in exchange, and in exchange, federal prosecutors dropped the perjury charges. He was fined $25,000 and agreed not to run for political office for five years. He lost his $32,900 per year pension in October 2012.
After resigning as Speaker, Finneran was made president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council until 2007, where he made an annual salary of $416,000. He resigned that position after he was indicted. Finneran was also a WRKO morning drive-time radio host from 2007 to 2012.
Finneran is currently a lobbyist at his firm Finneran Global Strategies. According to public record, his company brought in $137,000 from January to June 2016.
