Copyright The Boston Herald
Boston City Councilor Julia Mejia publicized her bid for Council president, thrusting the typical backroom negotiations into the public eye while citing a desire to disrupt a process that has become exclusive and turned the job into an appointment. Mejia launched a campaign video on her Facebook page, saying that she opted to throw her hat in the ring after learning of a rumor that one of the two candidates jockeying for Council president had secured the necessary seven votes to secure the position ahead of last week’s election. “I’m going to disrupt the way we do business,” Mejia told the Herald last Thursday. “Right now, from what I understand, allegedly, somebody has already been named, and I don’t understand how that’s possible if the election hasn’t even finished. And so, for me, if that is true, I don’t think that’s really good democracy. “In the spirit of transparency, and how things should be done, I am creating space to bring my followers on a journey of what the city council president election process should look like,” Mejia, an at-large councilor, said. City Hall sources told the Herald that Gabriela Coletta Zapata, chair of the powerful Government Operations Committee and an ally of Mayor Michelle Wu, was making claims that she had the presidency locked down. Mejia told the Herald that was the rumor she heard as well, but couldn’t “confirm or deny” whether it was true. Coletta Zapata did not respond to a Herald inquiry about the matter. Coletta Zapata and Brian Worrell, the body’s vice president and chair of the Ways and Means Committee, have been jockeying for the Council presidency behind closed doors, but Coletta Zapata is rumored to have secured commitments from at least six of her colleagues for the coveted position, according to sources. Worrell is still pursuing the Council presidency, and unlike Mejia, who didn’t accept a nomination for the position during the first meeting of this two-year term, when Ruthzee Louijeune was elected, he would accept the nomination should one of his colleagues put his name forward, the Herald has learned. Per the city charter, the City Council votes on its president during the first meeting of the new, two-year term, on the same day the 13 councilors are sworn in. Louijeune cannot pursue the nomination, as a Council president can’t serve for consecutive terms. That meeting takes place next year on Jan. 6, or the first Monday of January as stipulated in the charter. Mejia said she chose not to accept the nomination for Council president two years ago, when Councilor Ed Flynn, who preceded Louijeune, put her name forward because she didn’t feel comfortable pursuing a role that she hadn’t lobbied for — by talking to her colleagues beforehand or laying out a vision for her leadership. “I wasn’t prepared to lead a body that I didn’t understand, with where they wanted to go,” Mejia said. “Whereas this time, I’m starting at the beginning and going through a process that allows me to be a better president if I get chosen to be.” Mejia also mentioned her discomfort with the exclusive way the Council president has been chosen over the last two terms — with Louijeune announcing she had secured the necessary votes two days after the 2023 election and Coletta Zapata seemingly having the votes ahead of this past election. Prior to that, there was more of a democratic process, Mejia said, while pointing to Flynn’s announcement that he had secured the necessary votes to become president in early December 2021, several weeks after that year’s election. “I just feel like one time, OK, but two times, it’s not OK,” Mejia said. “These last two terms, it’s been appointments. People have decided who is going to be the next person, and then just passing down the baton. That’s not what democracy is.” Part of the jockeying for Council president involves behind the scenes deal-making, with contenders vying to secure votes from their current and future colleagues, by promising chairmanships for their preferred committees, City Hall sources told the Herald. For example, Worrell and Coletta Zapata were seemingly rewarded for their support of Louijeune with the two most coveted committee chair assignments — those that oversee the budget in ways and means and play a key role in finalizing legislation proposed by the mayor and Council in government operations. Worrell was approached by his colleagues to be Council president last term, but didn’t actively pursue the role, instead opting to throw his support behind Louijeune, a City Hall source told the Herald. Should there be multiple candidates who accept nominations for the presidency on the Council floor in January, it would be the first contested vote in recent years. In 2014, then-Councilor Wu famously cast her vote to help a conservative candidate, Bill Linehan, get elected president, drawing blowback from progressives. Linehan defeated then-Councilor and now U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, by an 8-5 vote. Two years later, the progressive Wu was unanimously elected as Council president. Given speculation that Wu may pursue higher office and not finish out her four-year term — despite her insistence that she has no national ambitions — the designation of Council president as acting mayor in a mayor’s absence could be more significant in the next two Council leadership elections. The Council passed a rule change that would allow it to remove a Council president in June 2021 — at a time when then-Council President Kim Janey had ruffled feathers by dropping the acting part of her mayoral title in official communications, after succeeding former Mayor Marty Walsh, who left mid-term to join the Biden administration. “These are very personal decisions — it’s not all ideological,” former city councilor Larry DiCara said of the presidency. “This is not an ideology battle. It’s a personality battle.”
