Political Family

Shuana and Meghan Murphy’s deaths are a tragedy to be sure. A Southborough family lost two teenage daughters in a car crash in October 2005.

The reverberations of which are being felt throughout the Commonwealth today, because a candidate for governor attempted to do the politically expedient thing.


There appears to have been a fundraiser in Southborough for gubenatorial candidate and Attorney General Tom Reilly, back in June of 2005. A lot of people who are or want to be well connected, contributed up to $500 to meet the AG. Southborough and its neighboring town Northborough, where the accident occurred, are suburbs along Route 495, where the well heeled who work in the city, live and raise their kids.

Although their business is in Boston, their politics are in Worcester County. This is a city that the AG needs to win to be nominated and elected Governor.

He would like to have the Mayor of the Worcester supporting him, which maybe he did. Tim Murray contributed to him last year, before he himself jumped in the race for Lt. Governor. Being a former DA, Reilly has leaned on the DAs across the state for their support, some of whom he knows well, like the Worcester DA, John Conte.

Back to the point. At these fundraisers, candidates meet with potential supporters, ostensibly friends of donors. There is a hierarchy of political giving, at the top of which are the guys who raise money for the candidate by inviting their friends to contribute. And Southborough is typical. On the very same street, there are several major contributors to Tom Reilly.

Reilly has admitted to doing one of them, Chris Murphy, a favor, by calling the DA in Worcester to withhold the release of information in the drunk driving deaths of his daughters.

But the likelihood is that Reilly, sensing the loss to not just one family, but "his political family", took the call from either Bob Davis, or Joe Shay both next door neighbors of Murphy, both major contributors and both scions of the Boston business establishment, and followed up by making a political call on their behalf to the DA.

How did a simple plea to spare the Murphy family further pain turn into a political favor? This son of Springfield needs to win an election, and this is how it works.

On a purely political level, the AG should not have made the call himself. That’s what campaign staff is for. Or better yet, no one should have made the call at all.

Despite his protests of good intentions, his actions reveal the most base of instincts in the AG. He was attempting to serve and protect his political family by using his position as the Commonwealth’s Chief Law Enforcement Officer. Can he differentiate between responding to a request from a friend and a political favor for a donor? The question goes not only to Tom Reilly’s political, but his professional judgment.