With a new gubernatorial election on the horizon, Mitt Romney's term at the helm of the state is drawing to a close.
Still, the debate over his effectiveness on Beacon Hill is likely to continue well into the future.
For Republicans, he will be remembered as the fiscally responsible politician that steered the state out of a recession and guided it toward universal health care.
Democrats remember Romney as the source of an endless number of vetoes, decreased local aid and socially backward policies.
In a four-year term that has been characterized by frequent and often widely publicized disputes between the Governor's office and the state legislature, Romney has left very different impressions on each party.
"From my party's perspective, the [administration] ... has been very helpful both in terms of how they've approached the district in Massachusetts that we represent, but also from the point of view of making sure that the administration was accessible and communicated ... policy goals," Republican state Senator Michael Knapik told the Daily.
Many Republicans feel that this communication played a key role in bringing the Massachusetts budget out of debt and leaving it with a surplus.
"You can say what you want, but it's through his leadership and hisinitiatives that we have gotten to this point," Republican state Senator Michael Knapik told the Daily.
Democrats have taken an opposite viewpoint. "In my opinion, [Romney] didn't really feel as though he needed to interact with the state legislature," Democrat and Assistant Majority Leader in the Massachusetts House of Representatives Lidia Harkins told the Daily.
Although they admit that the economy has improved, Democrats have tended to credit both the work of the legislature and external factors.
According to Harkins, the economy highlighted Romney's lack of communication with the state legislature.
"He would write his budget, and we would write ours, and often times there were areas of his budget that we would not embrace," she said, with the final product often bearing the mark of the legislature.
She said that at least some of the growth has come from national trends. "I also think that there are cycles that are beyond our control. The economy goes up and down," Harkins said.
With the government still spending from reserves, she said that the idea of a surplus may be misguided.
Such disputes have reached beyond economic issues and have extended to disagreements between the Republican Governor and the heavily Democratic legislature over same-sex civil unions, stem cell research and a score of other social issues.
According to Knapik, these disputes are needed to assure balance in state politics. "A Republican governor and a Democratic legislature ensures that as messy and difficult as it might be from time to time, [you hear all opinions], and with the art of compromise you hope to come to a solution," he said.
The result has been frequent vetoes from Romney, many of which were overridden but still, according to supporters, put pressure on legislators to reconsider many positions.
Representative Bradley Jones, the minority leader in the state House of Representatives, said that the threat of a veto from the Governor is one of the main reasons that the Massachusetts legislature has not passed the proposed In-State Tuition Bill, designed to grant in-state college tuition rates to children of undocumented immigrants living in Massachusetts.
"The certain veto of that initiative and the attendant dialogue and discussion on that issue made it one that ultimately Democrats were not likely to support," he told the Daily.
Romney has also attempted to use his influence in other ways.
According to Brown, his administration is responsible for making the state safer through support of legislation such as Melanie's Bill, which increases penalties for drunk driving.
In crime prevention, the Governor "really got on the bully pulpit and made a difference," Brown said.
But even in instances of apparent cooperation, tension often existed between the Governor and the state legislature.
Last spring saw bipartisan support for an effort to bring universal health care to the state, but Democratic legislators supported mandatory contributions from many employers whereas Romney vetoed the section of the bill calling for them.
Although the legislature overrode the veto, it left many Democrats with a bad taste.
State Senator Pat Jehlen, who represents both Medford and Somerville, said that the contributions were a critical part of the bill. "He tried to take out one of the legs," she said.
Still, Brown said that Romney deserves much credit for the new health care bill. "We've gotten half a million people insured, and it's at little or no cost to the Commonwealth," he said.
Locally, similar strains have been evident. Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone said that Romney has been unhelpful to cities and towns.
"What has been evident is that there has been a lack of partnership," Curtatone, a Democrat, told the Daily. "Cities and towns have virtually been abandoned."
He said that although Romney promised economic growth when he came into office, local aid has been severely cut.
According to Maeghan Silverberg, a public information officer for Curtatone, Somerville received $6 million less in local aid this year than in 2001 and has seen a 22 percent decrease in the size of the Somerville Police Department.
"For a Governor that touted himself as a Governor who's going to deliver economic development, bring fiscal responsibility, [and] bring new jobs, he has just not delivered," Curtatone said.
Knapik disagreed with this assessment, saying that the blame for cuts in local aid rests equally with the legislature that approved them.
He said that Romney has done a lot to restore the cuts and was responsible for the return of state lottery money to cities and towns this year.
"Cities and towns have received the single largest [influx] of local aid in the history of our state, and the legislature had no choice but to meet that challenge," he said. "The Democrats control the legislature," Knapik said. "I think [Romney's] administration was pretty responsive for the most part."
