PEAKE ON THE HILL

Our New State Representative Sarah Peake, with our new Governor, Deval Patrick

Freshman state Rep. Sarah Peake walks across the Grand Staircase in the Statehouse, at the start of a busy day on Beacon Hill and the first session for the new legislature.
(Merrily Lunsford)

By Steve Desroches
Thursday, January 25, 2007 - Updated: 01:43 PM EST

It’s cold and it’s snowing. Winter has arrived. Lynn Mogell is outside, scraping the windshield of her wife’s car. It’s a big day.

“Go on in,” said Mogell, with a smile that defies that frigid task she is undertaking. “Sarah’s inside. Go on in.”

It’s still pitch dark at 5:30 Tuesday morning. A warm glow is cast by the lights on in the kitchen of Heritage House in Provincetown, the guest house Mogell and Sarah Peake, the Outer Cape’s new state representative, live in and operate. While Peake was elected back in November and sworn in earlier this month, today is the first day the Massachusetts House of Representatives will assemble as a whole for the new legislative session.

“Hi, come on in,” said Peake as she holds open the door as it continues to snow. “Coffee?”

The table is covered with newspapers. Peake sips her coffee as she reads, looking for stories relevant to the 4th Barnstable District. She focuses on a story about the new discount prescription drug plan offered by the county, as well as a story about the state’s universal health care plan passed last year.

“It sounds like the wheels are falling off it,” said Peake as she grabs her bag and coat to begin the three-hour drive to Boston, something she will be doing several times a week for at least the next two years.

Before she heads out the door, Peake reviews the day’s schedule on her Blackberry, a technological gadget essential to keeping her day running smoothly.

“Let’s see, well, first we have to go pick up Dottie in Orleans,” she says, referring to her legislative aide Dottie Smith. “We have class elections at 9:30. I’m running for vice president. Then, an ethics meeting at 10. I’ll be in Therese Murray’s office, you know her – she’s the senator from up Cape. The Cape and Islands delegation will meet with folks from the Cape Cod Community Free Clinic. Then I’m going to go to the veterans agent luncheon, which should end just in time for when the Legislature convenes to vote on the new rules for the new session.”

As she walks out the door, Peake is saying what she hopes to squeeze in some “down time” during her day, which already appears fully scheduled.

She kisses Mogell goodbye.

“OK, my love,” said Peake. “I’ll see you sometime tonight.”

Traffic in the bullpen

The snow ends somewhere around Yarmouth and the traffic begins somewhere around Weymouth. It’s already been a long ride to Beacon Hill. And Peake has to be at the State House by 9:30 in time for the freshmen class elections. While it is largely a social position, it will be a useful networking tool to meet fellow representatives.

Her blue green sedan – with bumper stickers showing her support for Gov. Deval Patrick, her own campaign and Cape Cod-grown products, creeps along in bumper-to-bumper traffic. By 9, she passes the famous Corita Kent-painted gas tank with the blue stripe that hides an image of Ho Chi Minh, seen off Interstate 93. By 9:15 she’s headed for her parking space under the State House. At 9:45, Democratic freshmen representative Sarah Peake is elected vice president of the 17 “newbies” in the House.

There’s a flurry of “congratulations” in the “bullpen.” That’s the nickname given to Hearing Room 437, the large room all the new representatives share until they are assigned to committees and receive permanent office assignments. Of the 17 new representatives, there is only one Republican, who already has his own office. There are so few members of the GOP in the Legislature, they receive their committee assignments quicker and hence, an office. In fact, there are only 19 Republicans in the House, compared to 140 Democrats. Massachusetts is essentially tied with Idaho for the most members of one party in the State House, though for Idaho, it’s Republicans.

Any representative may serve on up to three committees. Peake has requested to be on committees relating to agriculture and natural resources, telecommunications, utilities and energy and financial services, committees she feels are related to issues important to her constituents. For example, aquaculture, shellfishing and fisheries fall under agriculture and natural resources.

“And don’t forget about my cranberry growers in Harwich,” said Peake, whose district includes seven towns, from Harwich to Provincetown.

She chose the energy committee because many of her towns are interested in pursuing alternative energy in general, and wind turbines in particular. Being on the financial services committee would be helpful as Cape Codders are grappling with sky-high home insurance, something she and the rest of the Cape and Islands delegates are trying to address.

She’s made her preferences clear, but there are no guarantees. No matter what committee she is on, Peake knows that she needs to deliver to her constituents not only the roughly 60 percent that voted for her, but the 40 percent that did not. So she said she has hit the ground running and filed her first piece of original legislation. As she promised during her campaign, Peake introduces an amendment to the Community Preservation Act, which creates funding for open space preservation, historic preservation and affordable housing. Peake wants to expand the definition of affordable housing to make more room for middle-income households. To do this, the income level eligible for affordable housing needs to include those that make 120 percent of the county’s median income, said Peake.

“I was at the Chatham Housing Summit and they found that about 30 percent of their population makes too much money to qualify for affordable housing, but makes too little to buy or rent at the market rate,” said Peake. “These are our police officers, firefighters and teachers. We must close this gap.”

Peake has about 10 minutes before a meeting on House ethics. What is she going to do with the unusually large amount of “down time”?

“Coffee and a trip to the bathroom,” says Peake, laughing.

But that only takes about two minutes. The other eight are filled with returning phone calls, opening the mail, checking e-mails, scheduling and preparing for other meetings peppered throughout the day. These tasks continue as Peake walks down the corridors and others scurry by, creating a hypnotic chorus of “click-clack, click-clack” of leather-soled shoes on the mosaic tiled corridors of the historic State House.

“I should be done about 11,” said Peake as she disappears into an elevator near the Hall of Flags, where each town in the commonwealth has a flag hanging from the rafters. (The press is not allowed to the ethics rules session.) She checks her Blackberry. One of her many e-mails is from Mogell and it’s a photo of the snow-covered moors in Provincetown. Peake smiles.

“I’ll be meeting with the veterans agents near the grand staircase. I’ll…”

The closing of the elevator doors cuts off her voice.

No longer the ‘good ol’ boys’ club

It’s 11 o’clock and the speeches have begun at the veterans agent luncheon. Peake is nowhere to be seen. For that matter, many of the listed attendees aren’t there yet. As the crowd grows, Peake, along with Smith, seem to suddenly appear. They were in the bullpen, catching up after meeting with the Cape Cod Community Free Clinic representatives and a quickly called meeting of the Women’s Caucus, which includes all female members of the Legislature. Peake joins 33 other women in the House. She is also the fifth openly gay or lesbian legislator serving in the 185th general court. This distinction, along with hailing from Provincetown, should garner her much attention as the issue of gay marriage appears before them again sometime this year.

Peake married Mogell soon after it became legal to do in May 2004. She has pledged to vote down any attempts to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage rights. Being a woman and a lesbian in a government that is still largely run by white men may or may not be an issue. But it’s clear from the number of navy blue suits that Peake, along with her female colleagues, is still very much in the minority, but are successfully breaking up the “good ol’ boys” club.

But the controversial issue of gay marriage is far from the minds of legislators as they assemble with veterans agents in front of the Grand Staircase to talk about challenges facing the commonwealth’s former servicemen and women. State Rep. Robert DeLeo reads a chilling statistic: that one out of every three homeless people in America used to be a member of the armed services. And he goes on to say that the men and women returning from Iraq are not getting the services they need and deserve. Peake whispers that she has signed on to every piece of legislation regarding veterans services and assistance. Friday she is traveling with Cape Codders for Peace and Justice to Washington, D.C. to protest the war.

“I want to make sure that every veteran gets what they need when they return home,” said Peake. “And I’m going to Washington because I think we need to bring our troops home.”

The speeches are over and Peake weaves her way to the crowd and finds Norman Gill of Harwich, the veterans agent for the Outer Cape, along with Sidney Chase from the Hyannis office of the Department of Veterans Services. But it’s time to go. The Legislature is meeting at 1 p.m. It’s the first assembly of the new legislative body and it’s important to be on time.

Tick-tock, tick tock

It’s 1 clock and the Legislature is supposed to assemble. But, for the most part, the only people in the House of Representatives chamber are the 17 freshmen. The full body doesn’t assemble and call to order until about 2. At least that’s what it sounds like.

“I’d like to call the…..to order….take a….quiet….,” said a barely audible Speaker of the House Salvatore DiMasi into a sound system the state must have bought at an MBTA clearance sale.

He bangs the gavel and says something that sounds like “quiet” again and then turns to continue his conversation as the first speaker takes to the podium to debate the new rules for the House in the 2007 session. The crowd’s conversation drowns out the speaker.

“Cleon Turner warned me it was chaos,” said Peake on the way into the chambers, referring to the advice and words of caution the representative from Dennis gave her.

And it is. And it’s in this chaos that Peake will need to advance the interest and directives of her district, all at the same time as each and every other member is trying to do the same. The wheels of democracy are spinning, but the real work is getting them to spin in the same direction.

In addition to Peake’s legislation on the Community Preservation Act, she also refiled eight home rule petitions that didn’t make it through the last legislative session.

It’s impossible to hear exactly what all the conversations are about on the floor of the House. Some are small groups in a huddle, while others are loud and boisterous interrupted by laughter. Peake at first sits quietly, watching and listening, like most of the other freshmen. But soon she too is talking to the representatives around her. It’s how it works, for better or for worse.

It’s going on 3 o’clock and the first legislative session of year is far from over. The Republican leadership has introduced a series of amendments to the rules. After significant debate and 20 roll call votes, which fell along partisan lines, the Legislature closes the day’s activities around 5.

The day eventually ends, with another flurry of calls and e-mails. It’s getting dark in Boston, and by the time Peake and Smith hit the Sagamore Bridge, it’s nighttime. When they hit Orleans, it’s snowing and come Wellfleet, Route 6 is a mess.

It’s a long commute home, but Peake reaches a snowy Provincetown at 8 p.m., where Mogell is waiting to hear about the day’s events over dinner. They watch the State of the Union address and then Peake begins planning her schedule for tomorrow, checking her Blackberry before turning in. She sets the alarm clock for 5 a.m.