Jockeying heats up for Boston City Council president

Two contenders have emerged to succeed Ruthzee Louijeune as president of the Boston City Council next term.

Brian Worrell, the Council’s vice president and chair of the Ways and Means committee, and Gabriela Coletta Zapata, chair of the Government Operations committee, are both jockeying for the role, the Herald has learned.

Louijeune, who succeeded Ed Flynn, is ineligible to continue in the role, which limits councilors to a two-year term as body president.

Worrell was approached by his colleagues to be Council president last term, but didn’t actively pursue the role, instead opting to throw his support behind Louijeune. This time around, he is jockeying for a chance to lead the Council, a City Hall source told the Herald.

Coletta Zapata is said to be the other best contender for Council president. Like Worrell, she quickly lined up behind Louijeune in her pursuit of the position ahead of this past term.

Both were the only councilors quoted in Louijeune’s press release announcing that she had secured the seven votes necessary to become president.

Worrell and Coletta Zapata were seemingly rewarded for their support, by securing the best two committee chair assignments on the City Council — Ways and Means, which oversees the Council’s budget process, and Government Operations, which plays a key role in finalizing legislation proposed by the mayor and Council. Worrell was also named vice president.

Part of the jockeying for Council president involves behind the scenes discount-making, with contenders vying to secure votes from their current and potential colleagues — pending the results of next month’s election — by promising chairmanships for their preferred committees, a source told the Herald.

Councilor Flynn said on X this week that the Council president discount-making was the talk of City Hall last Wednesday, when the body’s weekly meeting was held.

“The campaign to elect the next City Council president is the main topic of discussion at City Hall today,” Flynn wrote on X last Wednesday. “Candidates are actively ‘lobbying’ their City Council colleagues (and even potential colleagues) for votes in exchange for important City Council committee positions and other promises.”

Crinkling PAC

As the saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows.

It also produced a misdirection maneuver seldom used but comical. A call by the Herald to one of the officers of “A Balanced and Better Boston Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee” was met with a “Hello,” then a lot of crinkling noise. A call back went straight to message, where it was noted the aluminum-foil-sounding annoyance was unique if not annoying.

The PAC’s stated goal is “to support candidates who represent a balanced and fair Boston for all and oppose those who do not.”

That officer, according to the Boston.gov website, was once a best staffer to former Mayor Marty Walsh, where in March of 2020 is was written that she has a “wide-ranging background across sectors, it is clear that she is someone who is smart and driven, and who has a keen sensibility of the opportunities and challenges we face as a city. Her commitment to common-sense solutions will be a valuable asset as we work together to carry out our wide-ranging and progressive agenda of bold initiatives to move Boston forward.”

There was no mention of crinkling to get out of a call from a journalist.

AG’s one-note approach

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell is once again on the attack over SNAP benefits.

She posted late Friday that “the federal government is making a deliberate and unprecedented choice to neglect to feed American families. This decision is cruel and shameful, and I urge the President to take immediate action to restore benefits and ensure millions of Americans, including children, do not go hungry.”

Yet, she failed to mention Congresswoman Katherine Clark, who said that Democrats are using the government shutdown as “leverage.”

The AG’s statement did not call out Clark for equating hunger with any political advantage.

“Of course there will be families that are going to suffer,” Clark, the House Minority Whip, said in a national interview this past week, “but it is one of the few leverage times we have.”

The shutdown, sadly, can’t be leveraged by those furloughed or soon needing to seek food assistance elsewhere as Thanksgiving looms. Maybe Clark can dust off Scrooge comparisons if this insanity lasts until Christmas.

And, Clark is still being paid $174,000, with her net worth estimated to be in the low double-digit millions.