Last modified: Saturday, March 29, 2008 1:32 AM EDT GOUVEIA: State, local pols guard their power Repeat after me: It's not the people, it's the system. When we complain about our local and state government, we would do well to remember the above axiom. Much has been made recently about the power-play pulled off by House Speaker Sal DiMasi. The powerful leader orchestrated a ridiculous scenario where Gov. Patrick's casino bill was buried without debate or chance of amendment. DiMasi has been taking his hits, but is hardly worried. In the House, the speaker's power is nearly absolute. Is that DiMasi's fault? No, he is merely the latest in a long line of despotic speakers. Like his predecessors, he came in promising openness and honesty, but is only delivering more of the same old politics-as-usual. So why don't lawmakers change the system to dilute the speaker's power? Simple - they all hope to someday share in it. If they can't be speaker, they hope to hold leadership posts to advance their own career and pad their own wallets. They won't change the system. They ARE the system. The same kind of problem exists on the town level. Local officials and the folks who regularly attend Town Meeting run our governments pretty much as they see fit, regardless of what the majority of the community may want. To prove that point, you need only look at situations such as in Norton, where three years ago selectmen tried to kill the recommendation of a study committee to change the form of government by placing it on the ballot as a non-binding question. The townspeople surprised them by approving the proposal. Yet three years later, absolutely nothing has been done. Selectmen insist it will take an elected charter commission to achieve this objective, even though several other towns have done the same thing without that cumbersome and political step. It is not hard to figure out why selectmen would kill an attempt to eliminate their own board - the will of the people be damned. A similar situation occurred years ago in North Attleboro. An overwhelming majority voted to approve a home rule petition changing the form of government. Rep. Betty Poirier dutifully filed the bill, which is usually approved with little problem if it only involves the local community. But the legislative chairperson of the committee hearing the bill sandbagged supporters by unexpectedly killing it. She did so at the quiet urging of town officials who saw the change as eroding their power bases. Rep. Poirier expressed surprise, and her claim was as believable as the recent ones by Speaker DiMasi. In each of these situations, it is the system that allows for abuse. Replacing the officials will not eliminate the potential for selfish manipulation. While no system is perfect, our systems are much less perfect than others. We need to reform our state government so power is more evenly distributed amongst the leadership. We need to change our local governments to be more representative of the people they serve. But that is easier said than done. Our elected leaders would have us believe we are the problem. After all, they tell us, you elect your officials. You have the ability to go to Town Meeting. They slyly infer that if you do your job better, the system will work just fine. But that's not true, and they know it. People avoid Town Meetings because they are unwieldy, inefficient, and obsolete. They discriminate against elderly citizens and those with children at home who can't sit in a gymnasium for hours on a weeknight. They don't come out and vote in local elections because they don't believe their vote really matters. They don't believe their leaders have the ability or the power to make a true difference. Yes, citizens should vote. And yes, they should go to Town Meeting. But we should be concentrating on changing the government to suit the people, rather than trying to change the people to suit the government. Increasing turnout at Town Meeting is not the answer - replacing Town Meeting with a truly representative government such as a town council is the solution. Replacing the speaker will not fix state government - but restructuring the speaker's role just might. It's not the people, it's the system. Why is that so hard to understand? BILL GOUVEIA'S column appears every Saturday. He can be reached at aninsidelook@aol.com.