Oops . . . this is one that University of Massachusetts president Martin T. Meehan would love to take back — only he can’t.
Just a year ago, Meehan, trying to shed his image as a politician and take on the stature of a learned educator, washed his hands of his bulging $4.35 million campaign account.
Meehan, who served 15 years in Congress, donated the funds to an educational foundation that he had specially created. He declared he was out of politics for good, after spending a congressional career establishing himself as a most prodigious fund-raiser — in either party — during his tenure in the US House of Representatives.
But now his former wife, Ellen Murphy Meehan, is seriously considering jumping into the race to replace retiring US Representative Niki Tsongas in the Third District. The two divorced amicably over a year ago, but the former congressman has made it clear he will be doing what he can to get her elected to his former seat.
Only, those funds are locked up in his foundation, untouchable after all that hard work of raising them.
And that $4.35 million would have saved a lot of work. While there are restrictions on direct donations to a candidate’s committee, Meehan’s congressional committee, for example, could have donated all the funds to the state Democratic Party, which, post-primary election, could have used them to promote its campaign operations in the district.
Frank Phillips
Baker’s boosters raise big bucks in MassachusettsThe Republican Governors Association continues to collect significant donations — up to $250,000 — from some of Massachusetts’ most wealthy residents (including the wife of a Cabinet official) and corporations whose interests depend on Governor Charlie Baker’s administration.
The RGA was a major funder of Baker’s 2014 victory in the governor’s race, spending about $11 million in an election he won by a razor-thin margin.
Since January, the RGA — which has paid a former Baker fund-raising aide $120,000 for “consulting’’ since January — has raised close to $1.5 million from pharmaceutical companies, IRS records show. That sum includes $100,000 from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, of Boston, and $100,000 from Alkermes, of Waltham, during those six months.
In June, Baker unveiled his own plan for a $500 million state biotech initiative.
However, the most curious RGA donation in its latest report — $250,000 — came from a Dover woman, Denise M. Dupre, who heads a company named Champagne Hospitality.
How wealthy is she? Several years ago, she and her husband, Mark E. Nunnelly, a businessman who was Baker’s former revenue commissioner and recently made secretary of technology services and security, bought an 1872 manor house and a vineyard operation around Épernay, deep in French wine country.
According to its website, the 49-room “Royal Champagne’’ hotel is closed for refurbishment until the end of 2017.
Frank Phillips
Ex-N.H. senator wants panel to determine Trump’s mental healthA former Republican US senator from New Hampshire is urging his state’s congressional delegation to pass legislation that would set up a commission to determine President Trump’s mental health. If Trump were found by the commission to be unwell he could be removed from office.
Gordon Humphrey sent letters to both of New Hampshire’s US representatives and US senators, all Democrats, asking them to support HR 1987, the Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity Act, which follows the language of the 25th Amendment and would allow for Trump to be removed from office if the commission the law creates finds him incompetent.
Humphrey described the brinkmanship of nuclear war with North Korea as the reason why the commission needs to be established.
“President Trump’s threat to rain down ‘fire and fury’ on North Korea is like pouring gasoline on a fire. It’s crazy,’’ Humphrey said in a statement. “Donald Trump is impaired by a seriously sick psyche. His sick mind and reckless conduct could consume the lives of millions. The threat of nuclear war is steeply on the rise.’’
Humphrey represented New Hampshire in the US Senate from 1978 to 1990, during which time he was viewed as one of the body’s most conservative members. He has been one of the biggest Republican Trump critics in the country. He was a John Kasich delegate to the Republican National Convention last year, but eventually endorsed Hillary Clinton in the general election.
Given that Republicans control both the House and Senate, it is unlikely that the bill Humphrey wants passed will go anywhere.
james pindell
Chaffetz, ex-congressman and Clinton critic, to come to HarvardFormer Utah US representative Jason Chaffetz, who pushed for an investigation of Hillary Clinton and quit in the midst of a probe into Trump’s firing of former FBI director James Comey, will join Harvard’s Kennedy School this fall, the school announced Wednesday.
As a fellow at its Institute of Politics, Chaffetz will “guide students through a discussion of the possible political, regulatory, and personal impacts developing information technology may have on our expectations of privacy,’’ the school said in a statement on its website.
Chaffetz was a dogged critic of Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server during the presidential campaign, and as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, sought to continue an investigation of Clinton even after Trump took office.
He departed the House while playing a key role in the investigation into Comey’s firing.
The Institute of Politics fellows program is designed to “encourage student interest in public life and to increase interaction between the academic and political communities,’’ the school said on its website. Six fellows were chosen for the program in the fall.
“This exceptional group of leaders and practitioners will offer our students diverse and multi-layered insights into a range of issues through their up-to-the-moment experience and demonstrated commitment to public service and civic engagement,’’ William Delahunt, the institute’s acting director and a former congressman from Massachusetts, said in a statement.
The institute’s lineup could make for an interesting pairing: Alongside Chaffetz will be Karen Finney, a former spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton.
Other fall 2017 fellows include Yohannes Abraham, senior adviser at the Obama Foundation; Dan Balz, chief correspondent at The Washington Post; Sally Jewell, former US secretary for the interior; and Mark Strand, president of the Congressional Institute.
Chaffetz served in Congress from 2009 to June of this year and has since become a contributor on Fox News. He apparently has time to take a vacation before coming to Harvard: On Wednesday, he tweeted he was traveling with his family to Africa for a safari.
The institute has been a home for past public officials, including former Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley; Kelly Ayotte, a former Republican US senator from New Hampshire; former Massachusetts senator William “Mo’’ Cowan; and former Boston police commissioner Ed Davis.
john hilliard
TOPPED OFF — While General Ngo Xuan Lich, Vietnam’s minister of national defense, met with Secretary of Defense James Mattis at the Pentagon this week, Vietnamese military leaders left their hats behind.
