Court gestures

Ray Mariano's campaign against Loring "Red" Lamoureux has made the normally
sleepy contest for clerk of Superior Court the hottest local race of the season.

by Chris Kanaracus

It was just before summer when Loring "Red" Lamoureux and Worcester Mayor Ray Mariano's battle for clerk of Superior Court began to intensify. Although Lamoureux has remained a ghost figure in local political circles during his three terms as clerk, it became clear his support was broader than his low-profile suggested. And while Mariano has long been one of Worcester's most-talked-about political figures, his popularity was less robust in other parts of the county.

Mariano has campaigned feverishly since then with a barrage of radio, television, and print ads, and the type of door-to-door stumping that he probably hasn't done since his early days on the city council. Coupled with more than 100 endorsements from politicians around the state, Mariano has made an aggressive push. Lamoureux has taken strides, too. He hit the airwaves with his own commercials, and is a top contender in this year's lawn-sign derby. And Worcester County's legal community overwhelmingly supports Lamoureux's bid.

Still, it's Mariano's involvement that has transformed the normally sleepy clerk's race into the hottest local campaign of this election season (see "Open season," News, June 23).

The focus has been on each candidate's unique definition of the clerk's job, which pays $88,000 and carries a comfortable six-year term. Lamoureux maintains the clerk should have a law degree and 10 years of experience working in the clerk's office. Such a pedigree is necessary, his supporters say, to ensure that more than 5000 civil and criminal cases move smoothly through the system each year.

Lamoureux's supporters say he's done a bang-up job, frequently citing a May 1999 article in Lawyers Weekly, which rated five superior court clerk's offices around the state, based on

the staff's courtesy, knowledge, and efficiency. Only Lamoureux's office received straight A's -- the type of excellence, his camp says, that comes only with experience and training.

Mariano, on the other hand, bases his campaign around an entirely different point of view: that the clerk should be an advocate. He says Lamoureux's definition of the clerk as a passive administrator is lacking. Mariano charges that Superior Court has become so bogged down under Lamoureux's watch that some cases don't get settled for as long as five years (a characterization that Lamoureux rejects). The mayor questions why Lamoureux hasn't actively pressed legislators for more funding or looked for ways to improve the Superior Court's operations -- things that Mariano asserts he'll do if elected. Mariano has also released a 12-page plan that purports to contain the cure to the court's ills.

Lamoureux and Mariano are so far apart in their view of the clerk's duties (and, for sure, in their personalities and backgrounds), that this race, curiously enough, presents the most clear-cut and perhaps the most difficult choice for voters this year.

THE RACE has been hard-fought and nasty. Earlier this summer, Mariano alleged that Lamoureux supporters used racial slurs against him on the campaign trail. Lamoureux says the accusation is "repulsive," and that he's not responsible. And an anonymous flyer circulated to area lawyers made much of Lamoureux's "even temperament," hinting that the outspoken Mariano lacks the disposition to be clerk.

You'd expect an aggressive effort from Mariano, 49, who has run for local office 15 times since 1975, and whose calling card has always been his impassioned, forceful rhetoric. He's come on like an attack dog during recent debates. But Lamoureux has risen to the occasion, albeit somewhat more subtly. Consider this exchange from an August 24 debate on the Jordan Levy Show, concerning that vaunted "A" rating:

Mariano: Lawyers Weekly never rated the clerk. They rated the courtesy and efficiency of his staff.

Lamoureux: I should think I'd be able to take some of the credit for a good rating, since I'd no doubt get criticized if it [had been] a bad one.

Yet while he's proven an able debater, Lamoureux, 68, never really saw Mariano coming. He's spent 41 years working at the courthouse, first as an assistant clerk, and later first-assistant clerk, before taking over for Philip Philbin, who died in 1987. In 1988, Lamoureux retained the seat after surviving a three-way race, and he went unopposed in 1994.

This year, it's wildly different. True to form, Mariano has been a rabidly competitive challenger, and many observers say it's his race to lose.

But others say Lamoureux may have only himself to blame should he lose the September 19 election. One observer questions why Lamoureux hasn't prepared or planned ahead for a potential challenge: "If I was in his shoes, I'd be out at events, talking to people, making those connections. Why hasn't he done that?" In contrast, the observer points to long-time Registrar of Deeds Anthony Vigliotti, saying, "[Vigliotti's] always been there, contributing to campaigns, at events, in the mix, etc. But you never hear about his job either."

Lamoureux admits he's had to play catch-up. "If there's anything I would have done differently, it would be to have held some fund-raisers," he says. "But I couldn't ask people for money when I was running unopposed."

Then there's the so-called chicken poll, in which guests at the annual barbecue of state Senator Richard Moore, a Democrat from Uxbridge, cast their primary votes ahead of time. Much like Iowa's "straw poll," the fate of candidates at the chicken poll is often borne out in the fall. This year, when the votes were tallied in August, Mariano won on a commanding 104-38 margin. Ouch.

To be fair, Moore's barbecue is hardly Gallup headquarters, and the vote may not represent the will of the general public. But it does speak for the county's movers and shakers, and the chicken poll indicates Mariano's close ties to them. Some 120 politicians from across the state, including Attorney General Thomas Reilly and US Representative James McGovern, have endorsed the Mariano campaign.

There's talk, though, that many in Mariano's army of well-wishers have a hidden agenda: they just want him out of City Hall, a notion confirmed by several area pols. While his tenure has been marked by accomplishment -- especially on issues that effect the city's youth -- Mariano has many critics, who consider him arrogant and divisive, and eager to latch on to high-profile issues for publicity.

Lamoureux doesn't lack for his own supporters. Most of the legal community is behind him, and these boosters are sure to spread the gospel. Town committees in politically active Clinton and Blackstone have endorsed Lamoureux's campaign. And he's sure to get the support of fans of former US Representative Joe Early, whose son, Joe Early Jr., is running against Harriette Chandler for the 1st Worcester state-senate seat.

But money-wise, with a war chest that's hovered around $40,000, Lamoureux is well behind Mariano, who began the race with $146,000 and has a seasoned campaign manager in Bill Eddy, president of the Democratic City Committee.

During a recent meeting at his down-home, Casablanca-memorabilia-bedecked Main Street office, Lamoureux sounds confident. "We've been encouraged by the response we've been getting throughout the county," he says. "There's been excellent feedback from the debates we've had. . . . People on the street come up to me all the time and say we're doing well.

"I have never believed [advocacy] was ever a primary, or even a secondary function of this job. . . . Let's say you have a 40-hour week. How much time can you spend on advocacy? Everyone in the office, myself included, already has a full day's work assigned to them. I don't know how to be a mayor. I know how to do this."

Lamoureux admits advocacy can be a part of the job, and says he's done it at times, but he adds that others already handle the load. "Three or four times a year, the chief justices meet with the legislature to discuss funding. And I've been content with the funding of my office."

Above all else, says Lamoureux, he hopes voters will recognize his record of service, and keep him in the clerk's office. "All I can ask is that people contemplate what this job needs," he says. "I just want to stress my experience, and rely on the facts."

The clerk doesn't see a problem with a case backlog. Lamoureux says the court uses three judge-mandated "tracks," or estimated time-frames, for various types of cases. Mortgage foreclosures are on the `X' track, and take about six months. Motor-vehicle torts line up on the `F' track and are based on a two-year resolution. Thornier cases, such as medical-malpractice or product-liability suits, have presumptive trial dates of three years.

"I don't set these time frames," Lamoureux says. "Based on the number of available judges and courtrooms, this is the way things currently go." Also, he adds, delays can occur for a number of reasons, such as ill or absent witnesses and evidence testing.

The backlog issue was the focus of a recent Mariano campaign commercial. Over footage of several individuals, a narrator asked viewers to "imagine" the horrors of a four- or five-year wait if they were to file a case. Without offering specifics, the commercial suggested its subjects had endured such an experience.

Lamoureux's reaction to the spot, which he calls "a gross distortion," came during the Jordan Levy debate. After learning the names of two of the people pictured in the ad, he ran a background check to find the details of their cases. He found that one, a motor-vehicle tort, had been resolved in slightly more than two years. Another had indeed been filed more than five years ago, but had been transferred to federal court a few months afterward. Mariano calls Lamoureux's tactic "outrageous." Then again, you have to think Mariano could have found folks with worse horror stories, if only to cover his bases.

But Lamoureux's move -- while slick -- didn't refute Mariano's contention the courts are backlogged.

One local lawyer and courthouse employee, who asked to not be identified, says an open secret has hovered over the race. "Delays, in a lawyerly sense, can be a good thing," the source says. "Sometimes you need that extra time to make sure your case moves forward in your favor."

MANY HAVE questioned why Mariano would run for the clerk's office. Some say it's the $88,000 salary; as mayor, he makes only $18,000. Mariano, who also works as a political consultant, dismisses the idea. "I make a nice living," he says. "People have offered me two or three times as much [as the clerk's salary] to come and work for them."

Instead, says Mariano, the appeal comes from a need for change. "Do we want a passive administrator or do we want a leader?" he says. "He and his people say that's the way the courts are supposed to run, and I disagree. I've got the skill to go in there and not accept the status quo."

But it's Mariano's skills that Lamoureux's camp questions. For while he holds a degree in public administration, Mariano isn't a lawyer, nor does he have any experience in the clerk's office. While several clerks elsewhere in the state court system don't have law degrees, all except one, Joseph Nucci of Suffolk County's criminal court, have worked in the clerk's office. Lamoureux says that if Mariano wins, it would throw the court system "into chaos."

Mariano scorns the notion. "Look. There was a learning curve when I became mayor. There still is. I learn things every day. And I expect there will be one here. It's certainly going to be a challenge, but I think I can do it."

He already has his blueprints laid out. Mariano's eight-page plan suggests a "for the people" approach. He hopes to reopen Superior Court sessions in Fitchburg, and to recruit retired judges to sit at unused court buildings in other parts of the county. (The latter suggestion has also been proposed by Lamoureux.) To further address the system's alleged backlog, Mariano says he'd publicize alternative dispute resolution, or ADR programs, which use private mediators to settle cases in a non-courtroom setting.

And he says he'll push for changes in the rules that govern evidence handling, another function of Lamoureux's office. Currently, the law requires only one party in a case to be present when evidence is examined. Representatives from the district attorney's office weren't present earlier this year when lawyers for Benjamin La Guer, who has long maintained he was wrongly convicted of raping a Leominster woman, viewed evidence at the court to prepare for DNA testing, raising the possibility of contamination.

Mariano acknowledges that Lamoureux wasn't legally bound to notify prosecutors or police of the evidence handling, but says that such events wouldn't happen on his watch. His campaign's latest television commercial highlights this issue.

But it's the advocacy portion of his plan that best fits Mariano's skills and background, and which could give him the edge in this election. Throughout his 25 years in public office, the mayor has overseen Worcester's ongoing revival and has been lauded for his leadership skills, most notably in the wake of December's Worcester Cold Storage building fire, which claimed the lives of six city firefighters. Worcester voters -- indeed, the entire county -- won't soon forget the mayor's heartfelt, fiery speech at the firefighters' Centrum memorial service, which was broadcast nationwide.

Mariano's plan calls for extended office hours (and satellite offices), a customer-feedback form, and monthly forums involving the clerk and the Worcester County Bar Association. Also, he says he'll form a task force of retired judges, experienced lawyers, and others to monitor the office's performance.

Indeed, Mariano seems eager for scrutiny. "I want people to hold me accountable," he says. "Loring Lamoureux says he works for the judges. I say he works for the people."

Whether Mariano, if elected, can transform the clerk's office into a post that fits his campaign's vision remains to be seen. But, at least, the legislature will find him hard to ignore.

To hear local politicos tell it, it's a safe bet he'll get the chance.

Additional reporting contributed by Melissa Houston.

Chris Kanaracus can be reached at
ckanaracus[a]phx.com.