From operative to chief of staff, Fitzgerald reflects on his long career in politics

Sean Fitzgerald: Politicker PhotoBOSTON -- Sean Fitzgerald has travelled a long road in politics to his current job as chief of staff to state House Joint Committee on Public Service chairman Jay Kaufman (D-Lexington). Fitzgerald's resume lists a who's who of Massachusetts politics and his numerous accomplishments don't surprise those around him.

"Sean is both incredibly smart and savvy," Kaufman said. "He's the energizer bunny. He definitely makes things happen. He is sort of a high caffeine, high energy kind of guy."

"You'll be talking to him one second then he's down the hall the next second," Charlie Ticotsky, Kaufman's legislative aide, added. "Definitely lots of coffee, lots of intensity."

Talking with Fitzgerald is like getting a lesson in the Bay State's political history. Ticotsky describes him as having an "encyclopedic knowledge of Massachusetts politics."

As Fitzgerald himself said, "In Massachusetts, as it is nationwide, politics is all about connections and what your lineage is."

And Fitzgerald's political lineage is quite impressive.

Fitzgerald, who talks swiftly and happens to have just run out for a fresh cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, grew up in politics. Raised in East Hartford, Conn., he was the youngest of eight children. His father was the sheriff of Harford County and also the 1st district Democratic Chairman. His uncle was the state's Democratic Party chairman. His father and uncle were mentored by John Bailey, the Democratic Party boss in Connecticut for years who was rumored to be one of the major backroom players in getting John F. Kennedy elected president. Bailey went on to chair of the Democratic National Committee from 1961 to 1968, the longest term of any DNC chairman.

"It was something I grew up in," the goateed Fitzgerald said, sitting in Kaufman's spacious first floor Statehouse office. "I was knocking on doors and ID-ing the vote when I was five and six years old."

While all seven of Fitzgerald's siblings have gone into politics and public service in Connecticut, Fitzgerald fled the Constitution State to attend Northeastern University in Boston and never looked back.

"It was a good way for me to get out of there," he said. "I loved the electricity and vibrancy of Boston."

Just as he learned from his father and uncle about Connecticut politics, Fitzgerald quickly immersed himself in Massachusetts politics in the cooperative education program at Northeastern. The program forced kids to work in a job relating to their major starting in their freshman year. Fitzgerald majored in political science and worked for the Massachusetts Democratic Party under then state Senate Ways and Means Chairman Chet Atkins, who became a mentor for Fitzgerald.

In the Northeastern program, Fitzgerald received what amounted to a fast-paced tutorial in Massachusetts politics. As part of the Democratic Party's field operation, he studied all 351 towns and cities in Massachusetts at the grassroots level.

"It was about organizing and getting people in the system," he said. The experience had a lasting impact on Fitzgerald. "It was a very knowledgeable and groundbreaking experience to work with the party when it was very strong structure in the 80s," he said.

Much like Bailey had taught his father and uncle, during his time at Northeastern Fitzgerald developed a strong relationship with Jim Spencer, the former field director of the party who was influential in the Students for Democratic a Society movement and eventually went on to be former Congressman Joe Kennedy's political director.

"Spencer is certainly one of the best in the business as far as organizing campaigns," he said. "He really took me under his wing and taught me a lot."

After graduating from Northeastern, Fitzgerald dabbled in financial services for several years then working at the sales and marketing director at the Cambridge Athletic Club for eight years. All the while, he maintained his ties to the political world. In 1996 Spencer, who had started a political consultancy with now Gov. Deval Patrick's Chief of Staff Doug Rubin, approached Fitzgerald to work on a campaign and he eagerly signed on. Fitzgerald handled the voter identification organization for Democrat Peggy David Mullen's 1996 Boston City Council race while he was still working at the athletic club.

That job, however, led to an important role in Dorothy Kelly Gay's 1998 run for lieutenant governor. Fitzgerald was the statewide field and finance director for Gay's campaign against then state Sen. Warren Tolman in the Democratic primary. Gay, Fitzgerald said, was underfunded and not well known compared to Tolman, but they were still able to penetrate statewide and, two or three weeks before the primary, some polls said the race was tied.

Because he had more money, Fitzgerald said, Tolman was able to air a television ad while the Gay camp could only afford a radio spot.

"If we had had more money and been able to go on TV, it is quite possible we could have beaten Warren Tolman and been on the ticket with [Attorney General] Scott Harshbarger," he said, acknowledging that predicting what would have happened is purely speculation conjecture.

Nevertheless, that campaign launched him back into the political world when then Somerville Mayor Michael Capuano won the primary for Congress the same day Gay lost to Tolman. Gay immediately became the favorite in the special election for Somerville mayor and when she won, Fitzgerald followed her to City Hall as her communications director and senior staff aide.

State Sen. Charlie Shannon (D-Winchester) hired Fitzgerald to be his chief of staff after his work for Gay and Fitzgerald worked for Shannon right up until he passed away in 2005. He then made a quick return in Connecticut politics, working on Democratic Ned Lamont's insurgent challenge to U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was then a Democrat.

Fitzgerald said he found enjoyed that race, even though Lamont went on to lose in the general to the newly-Independent Lieberman after beating him in the primary.

"It was so inspiring to really have activists that felt like they were being ignored to be plugged back into the system," he said. "It was certainly unfortunate that we ended up losing in the general. If anything, it sent a message to Joe Lieberman not to forget where he came from."

He then landed in Kaufman's office in 2007 and immediately found his boss and his committee under fire for the recent abuses of the state's pension system. The committee, which he described as "one of the least glamorous" in the Statehouse, has taken steps to solve those problems and one of his major tasks has been communicating those measures.

"[Kaufman] is taking a hard look to solve the long term systemic problems of pension abuse," he said. "We're trying to address many of the abuses and tie up the loopholes that involve compensation of public employees and their pensions after they leave."

The recent problems, he said, are a result of problems that began years ago. Before 1988, he said, state employees didn't contribute to their own pensions, the state just doled out the checks. Now employees fully fund their own pensions while they are working.

"The notion that is on the taxpayers' dime is not accurate," he said. By 2023, he added, the system will be fully funded.

In general, though, Fitzgerald said the pension system works and the newspapers only report when things go wrong.

"You only see the stories in the papers of the abuses," he said. "You don't see the stories of the 98 percent of state employees that go above and beyond the call of duty and make the state and its services operate at the level they do."

When asked how he got into pension policy, hardly an easily accessible topic, after years as field operative, Fitzgerald touched upon why he was attracted to politics in the first place.

"Every legislator, regardless of what chairmanship he holds or what committees he's on, has to represent his constituents back home," he said. "I did that on a daily basis [when working for Gay in Somerville], even though I was communications director, I was dealing with people calling the mayor's office that their street light is out, they didn't come pick up the garbage, that there's a problem. The nuts and bolts activities that make people's lives easier. That's what government is here for."