The Democratic Party is not what it used to be—at least not in Massachusetts.
The party has gone so woke as to be unrecognizable to regular Democrats who still cling to hope that the party will eventually rediscover common sense.
Yet the problem goes beyond that.
It is party patronage — the lifeblood of the party — or what has become of it.
It concerns how Beacon Hill Democrats allowed four new high-paying jobs at the MBTA to go to guys from New York — New York! — rather than to guys from Boston or from the Democratic-controlled State House or to other connected Democrats.
We are not talking about low level but essential jobs at the T that nobody seems to want, even though you can sleep on the job. No, we are talking about some of the top paying positions in the state.
And nobody has said a word about caving into New York, not Gov. Maura Healey, not Senate President Karen Spilka, not House Speaker Ron Mariano, all Democrats.
What is the world coming to?
Never would that have happened in the past when the transit agency traditionally functioned as a dumping ground for the Democratic Party.
That was why years ago it was nicknamed “Mister Bulger’s Transportation Authority” in tribute to former Senate President William M. Bulger of South Boston who stacked the place with relatives, cronies and constituents.
Now the progressives conduct nationwide searches to fill jobs that used to go to some Democrat’s brother-in-law.
The hiring of the New York Four was done so quickly and stealthily by MBTA General Manager Phil Eng, who is also from New York, that it was a fait accompli before anyone on Beacon Hill knew what happened.
Perhaps Eng, a former head of the Long Island Railroad and interim president of New York City Transit, used his experience dealing with the New York Assembly to avoid tipping of the Massachusetts Legislature.
If word got out that Eng was looking for people to hire for these newly created, high-paying jobs, he would have been bombarded with requests from politicians at the State House.
If there were jobs to give out, Eng apparently was determined to give them out himself without Beacon Hill interference. And they were going to go to people he knew and not to people he was told to know.
Eng, who is paid a base salary of $470,000 plus bonuses, was after all hired by Gov. Healey after a nationwide search with a mandate to save the broken-down transit system.
Former Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, despite his overall popularity, had eight years to fix the beleaguered MBTA and failed to do so.
Eng is expected to turn things around in Healey’s first term as governor.
Toward that end, Eng has hired Dennis Varley, a veteran of the LIRR, as the T’s first chief of stations; Sam Zhou, formerly with the New York Department of Transportation, as assistant general manager for engineering and capital; Doug Connett, a veteran leader of transit agencies in New York and Washington, as chief of infrastructure; and Rod Brooks of the LIRR as senior advisor of operations and safety.
Varley will be paid $265,000 and Connett and Zhou will make $260,000. Brooks will be paid $120 an hour.
What is important about Eng’s decision to hire the four outsiders is that none of them, including Eng, have ties to the politics or the politicians at the State House.
And it is apparently all right with Gov. Healey.
While the new jobs may be a patronage loss, Healey has been able to make up for it by doling out many other patronage jobs in the growing climate change industry, like her newly created Office of Possibility to come up with new ideas.
One idea is to do away with patronage. Another is to call it something else. Besides, when progressives do the hiring it It’s not patronage anyway, but good government.
What is patronage?
As the late House Speaker David M. Bartley used to say, “Patronage, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.”
Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.