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Charlie has a great post on the Big Dig fiasco. He’s right: it’s the biggest issue in this 2006 governor’s race and subtends so many other debates about taxation and government service. I can’t imagine any candidates will be stupid enough to ignore it, but they could easily approach it the wrong way.

There seems to be consensus that the failures of the tunnels reflect a broader malaise in the political culture of the state. Add that to calls for political accountability. The open question is, who/what is to blame for the failure? David has one answer:

maybe it’s unseemly to get partisan about this right now, but here goes.  Since 1991 - which is when most of the Big Dig construction has occurred - Republicans have been running the show.  Yes, there has been an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature in all that time.  But the Governor appoints the Turnpike Authority board members and the Highway Commissioner, as well as the head of every other state agency.  Legislators don’t make appointments.  Every decision made by the Turnpike Authority, the Public Works Commissioner, or whoever was running the Big Dig over the last 16 years, every state inspector who failed to do his or her job, every failure to supervise outside contractors, all of that stuff can be traced directly back to one of four people: Bill Weld, Paul Cellucci, Jane Swift, or Mitt Romney.  The Republicans have been managing this project for 16 years, and they must be held accountable for that.

I agree the Republican governors should be held accountable - though, really, I don’t we can do much other than to tarnish what good name they have - but I don’t see it as David does. To my understanding (and admittedly, I didn’t live in MA for the bulk of this project), the governor may have the ability to appoint Turnpike heads, but his or her authority to fire them or exercise direct oversight was limited. The Turnpike is a semi-autonomous Authority with special status among state agencies. At any point the legislators could have given further control and power to the executive branch but failed to do so for three possible reasons:

• It had partisan reasons to thwart a Republican governor at every turn
• There was a quid pro quo among all involved to allow maximum graft with minimum transparency and accountability
• They stupidly, at every turn, overestimated their ability to exercise oversight.

Whatever the reason, I’m with Jay: the legislature has been hiding behind their collectivity, yet they too share the accountability.

He also points to an interesting Margery Eagan column on the Big Dig Cassandras who were cast aside. Interestingly, the come from both sides of the aisle. While the Democrats and Republican power players colluded in the process, the true believers from the outside (progressives and the anti-RINOs) were the ones voicing criticism.