BOSTON — Senate President Harriette Chandler will “probably” step down as the chamber’s top Democrat before December and expects the ethics investigation into her predecessor to wrap up within a matter of weeks, she said during an interview televised over the weekend.
The Senate elected Chandler as its acting president in December, when Sen. Stanley Rosenberg relinquished the presidency as the Senate Ethics Committee launched a probe into whether he had violated legislative rules in connection with allegations his husband had interfered with Senate business and sexually assaulted men with ties to Beacon Hill.
On Feb. 7, the Senate voted to remove the word “acting” from Chandler’s title, a move taken as other senators jockeyed to succeed her. The goal, senators said at the time, was to provide stability in the Senate and give Chandler a clear path to run the chamber through the rest of 2018.
That timeline was called into question when Sen. Karen Spilka, chairwoman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, declared herself the “Senate president-elect” on March 22, announcing she had lined up sufficient votes. With Chandler by her side, Spilka said she hadn’t yet spoken with the Senate president about when the transition would occur and declined to answer directly when asked if she agreed with Chandler’s hope to stay on “until the end of this term.”
At the March 22 press conference, Chandler then interjected on a follow-up question about whether it might be more beneficial to make the transition now by stating that it’s her hope that she will continue as president “until the end of this term.”
“I think this would not be the best time to transfer any kind of power. I think the point is she has the votes, we know there’s a great deal of certainty here now. There’s not the uncertainty you’ve seen before, so my hope is we will continue to go along as we are,” Chandler said March 22.
Asked by host Janet Wu on WCVB’s “On the Record” Sunday if she was “miffed” that Spilka contradicted her timeline during the press conference, Chandler said. “I think it wasn’t miffed so much as just surprised. Different than miffed.”
Chandler appeared to warm to the idea of stepping down from the presidency before the year’s end, telling Wu that after July — when the fiscal 2019 budget will likely be in place and formal sessions have wrapped up for 2018 — “would be a great time for transition.”
“I probably will move out sooner than December,” she said. “You know, I never planned to stay, and I think when I was here the last time, I told you I’d like to get my old life back, and I feel that way. We’re engaged in talks now of how we’re going to make this happen, make it happen as smoothly and as easily for the body.”
If the Senate elects Spilka as president this year, she would be the third Senate president to hold the post in less than a year.