Bay Windows - June 22, 2006
Ethan Jacobs, ejacobs@baywindows.com

"It's not a legislative battle. It's not even a partisan battle. It's a Sen. Lees battle," said McWilliams "Both chambers have voted overwhelmingly in favor of this act, and it really is a case now of Sen. Lees utilizing every possible tool to derail it."

Lees, who did not return calls from Bay Windows to comment for this story, used procedural maneuvers to delay a vote in the Senate on the bill for nearly a month until its passage June 7 by a 26-8 vote. McWilliams said she expects him to attempt further delays to run down the clock between now and July 31 as proponents of the bill work to overcome several hurdles, including a likely veto by Romney, in order to pass the bill into law.

Thus far momentum appears on the side of proponents of the needle bill. The House approved the Senate's changes to the bill the day after the Senate vote, and both houses voted to adopt an emergency preamble to the bill that would allow it to take effect immediately after final passage into law. The House and Senate must now each vote to enact the bill, which would send the bill to Romney's desk. McWilliams said she is confident that the bill will make it to Romney by the end of this week.

"I'm very confident it will make it to the governor's desk," McWilliams said. "The challenge for us is making sure we have enough time to survive the governor's procedural maneuvers."

Once the bill comes before Romney he has 10 days to sign or veto it. McWilliams said Romney could wait the full 10 days and either veto the bill or send it back to the legislature with an attached amendment that they would have to consider. Romney's office did not return a call to comment for this story.

Lees told the Boston Globe June 8 that he would work to build a group of 14 senators necessary to sustain the governor's veto, but McWilliams said she is confident both houses will be able to override the veto. The House passed the bill by a veto-proof majority in November.

Yet Romney appears to be exerting considerable political pressure to block passage of the bill. While the state Department of Public Health (DPH) has historically supported clean needle sales, this month in the wake of Romney's public comments against the bill commissioner Paul Cote told the Globe that DPH had changed its position from favoring needle sales to favoring allowing individual cities to choose to set up their own needle exchange programs. A spokesperson for DPH did not return a call to comment, but Jean Flatley McGuire, former director of DPH's HIV/AIDS Bureau until November 2003, accused Romney of pressuring DPH to change to further his political ambitions.

"I think as his national aspirations have expanded, his scrutiny as far as administrative programs and policies has increased, and it's not in the interest of public health, and Paul Cote's remarks after the [Senate] action on pharmacy access I thought were regrettable," said McGuire, who headed the HIV/AIDS Bureau for more than five years and who now serves as a visiting professor at Northeastern University's Bouv College of Health Sciences.

McWilliams said that AIDS Action plans to ask its supporters to lobby the legislature by phone and e-mail and ask them to support passing the bill. She said the efforts by both houses to help the Pharmacy Access bill to clear procedural hurdles by approving the emergency preamble suggests that advocates have a shot of passing the bill into law before the end of the legislative session. The Senate approved the emergency preamble June 20 during an informal session with little difficulty, and McWilliams said Lees was not in the chamber during that session.

"I actually think [the Senate vote on the preamble] is a really good step and I'm really heartened by it, and I expect to see the legislation go to the governor's desk by the end of this week," said McWilliams. "As long as the supporters continue to make their voice heard about the need for this I think we stand a good chance of getting it passed."

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