Governor Maura Healey held a ceremonial signing celebration for the climate bill at JATC of Greater Boston in Dorchester.David L. Ryan/Globe StaffAs spring turned to summer and the Massachusetts Legislature geared up for its end-of-session sprint, a bill to crack down on so-called “competitive energy suppliers” seemedfinally poised to pass.Iterations had come and gone in past sessions, but the bill, which would ban third-party electricitysuppliers from signing up new residential customers in Massachusetts, finally had the backing of some of the state’s top elected officials: the governor, the attorney general, and the mayor of Boston, to name a few. The effort had momentum.But when a sweeping climate bill emerged after weeks of closed-door negotiations this past fall, language to ban third-party energy suppliers, which buy electricity from the wholesale market and then sell it to consumers at a different rate, was nowhere to be found.Nearly every branch of Massachusetts government supported taking on the industry, which had drawn scrutiny for what critics deemed predatory behavior toward mostly older adults and those in low-income and minority communities.Advocates and lawmakers were confounded.Whatfew knew at the time, was that a key lawmaker involved in the climate bill negotiations — stateRepresentativeJeff Roy, the Housechairperson of the Legislature’s joint energy committee — was engaged in a romantic relationship with one of Beacon Hill’s most high-powered lobbyists, Jennifer Crawford.And Crawford, a partner with Smith, Costello, & Crawford, represents one of the biggest third-party energy suppliers — a client with a vested interest in ensuring their business in Massachusetts wouldn’t be gutted by the new law.Roy and Crawford’s relationship was not publicly known until a Globe investigation uncovered it, along with a letter Roy quietly filed with the House clerk in July 2023 disclosing he was in a relationship with a lobbyist.Legally, Roy did nothing wrong. While state ethics law bars elected officials from acting in a way that would lead a reasonable person to believe an outside party could improperly influence them, there is no violation as long as the public employee files a disclosure. Roy and Crawford insist they’ve refrained from talking business with one another. And Roy insisted, through a spokesperson, that he assigned a House colleague to negotiate the third-party supplier issue.This entanglement involving a powerful chairperson, his lobbyist girlfriend, and the legislative process nonetheless exposes how Beacon Hill’s lax ethical norms and secretive culture can sap public confidence in the Legislature’s work.“I understand he apparently didn’t violate any rules, but that’s not the entire point at all,” said Larry Chretien, executive director of the Boston-based advocacy group Green Energy Consumers Alliance, of Roy’s relationship with Crawford. “Essentially, this was something we were up a
Ven. Gen 10th, 2025
