Brookline Newcomer 

Sydney and Smizik: Debate Now! 

It's time for Ronny Sydney and Frank Smizik to schedule a debate. I know there's still two months until the Democratic Party's primary election, but a debate now between Brookline's candidates for state representative would help clarify issues and positions while we've still got time to come up with new questions. And instead of a polite but boringly stilted interview-style format, the debate should allow some direct give-and-take so that each can pin down the other on the differences between them.

As described recently by John Lauerman in the Boston Globe, the race has increased the widespread hostility and disarray among town progressives that began two years ago when Sydney unseated longtime representative John Businger. With Smizik now trying to unseat the new incumbent, the main question is simple: Does it really make much difference which liberal wins? It's often just such slugfests among former comrades-in-arms that get the juices flowing and the troops motivated.

I had only been living in Brookline two weeks when Sydney beat Businger, so I wasn't around for that particular battle. But from what I can tell, some issues remain the same. Are the privileges of incumbency worth maintaining? Would the challenger be more effective than the incumbent? Do the candidates differ philosophically or only tactically, and how much do tactics really matter?

Smizik stakes out more progressive terrain than Sydney, whose cautious positions are sometimes harder to discern and who sometimes seems to be playing catch-up. But on many issues the candidates' views are more alike than different. Neither will thrill me by straying far enough leftward from mainstream liberalism's traditionally modest core.

Where the candidates differ most is in tactics and style. Sydney beat Businger partly by claiming she'd be more effective at building congenial working relationships in the House. Now Smizik says Sydney's gone too far, opting for rock-no-boats congeniality with conservative Speaker Thomas Finneran, at Brookline's expense. Most significantly, according to Smizik, Sydney has abandoned progressive principles and refused to support efforts to change autocratic House rules that block action on a host of issues.

Sydney should respond more fully to this charge. Smizik has documented a number of examples where the incumbent failed the activism test; Sydney's responses have varied in completeness and persuasiveness. A debate moderator who required specific, substantive answers from both candidates would go a long way to clearing the air on this central campaign issue.

As for Smizik, I'd like him to explain why a liberal incumbent should be tossed out after only one term in office. Even if he'd be more aggressive than Sydney in resisting Finneran's stranglehold over the rules, is there any evidence the rules will change? Will adding one more activist voice to the dozen or so legislators willing to buck the Speaker really have an impact beyond warming the hearts of Brookline progressives?

There's a second issue for Smizik, discussed privately by many but, as far as I can tell, rarely raised in public: the woman question. Women hold only 26 percent of statewide seats in Massachusetts (though half of Brookline's six positions). Smizik should clarify the rationale for ousting a liberal female legislator. Numerical parity may be a superficial goal, a sad retreat from an early feminist agenda aimed at transforming elite power-abusive institutions rather than merely becoming an equal part of them. But because it remains highly symbolic, the issue should be addressed openly.

Both Smizik's aggressive, independent style and Sydney's nonconfrontational work-through-the-system approach might simply be chalked up to traditional gender roles. Yet there's an irony here: Smizik focuses on reducing the Speaker's ability to dominate others and on empowering House members to make decisions as a deliberative legislative body. This emphasis coincides with the broader feminist goal of ending abuses of power by whatever man is at the top. So it's up to Sydney to explain how her Speaker-friendly approach will change the legislature's curry-favor-with-the-boss culture.

Voters with faith in the legislative process should find debates useful. Those who doubt the election will make much difference would enjoy the spectacle. Let the debates begin!

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