Raymond Flynn served as the Mayor of Boston from January 1984 to July 1993. He was elected mayor in 1983 and took office in January 1984. He was re-elected in 1987 and 1991. Polls showed Flynn to enjoy strong approval from Bostonians during his mayoralty. As mayor, Flynn balanced the city's budget, eliminating a large budget deficit. To address the deficit, Flynn lobbied heavily for the passage of a revenue package for the city in the Massachusetts Legislature to provide additional state aid to the city and the authorization for the city to raise new local taxes. In 1985, a revenue package was passed and signed into law by Governor Dukakis. In response to discriminatory practices studies found banks to be practicing in Boston, Flynn took actions which persuaded banks to reach a $400 million community reinvestment agreement with the city. Flynn succeeded in getting legislation passed to replace the city's publicly elected school board with the new Boston School Committee, members of which are appointed by the city's mayor. Flynn would quickly come to express his regret about this change. In 1990, Flynn saw strong criticism from Black leaders over the Boston Police Department's handling of the investigation into the murder of Carol Stuart. As mayor, Flynn advanced plans to desegregate the city's public housing, and made efforts to heal the city's racial divides. Flynn's mayoral administration granted neighborhood groups more of a voice in the use of the city's development and planning authorities in their neighborhoods. This included innovative move of granting the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative powers of eminent domain. Flynn successfully fought to enact rent control laws and strong tenants' rights laws. Flynn also served as president of the United States Conference of Mayors from 1991 to 1992.
Flynn resigned as mayor in 1993 in order to accept an appointment by President Bill Clinton as United States Ambassador to the Holy See.
Elections 1983
In April 1983, Flynn announced his candidacy for mayor of Boston. In the October nonpartisan primary election, Flynn and State Representative Mel King placed atop the results, advancing to the general election. King was the first African American to be a candidate in a Boston mayoral general election. Both Flynn and King had originally been viewed as underdogs in the primary election. Flynn defeated King in the general election. Flynn and King had known each other since childhood, meeting through both playing basketball, and had both served as state representatives at the same time and worked together there on legislation. They would ultimately have a lifelong friendship, despite having run against each other for mayor.
Flynn's campaign received no significant financial support from major sectors of the city's business community. Flynn outright refused to accept campaign donations from developers with projects pending before city agencies, or lawyers of such developers. Both the Flynn and King campaigns had low expenditures compared to the nearly $2 million campaign that outgoing mayor Kevin White and the political machine supporting him had spent on his candidacies in the 1975 and 1979 mayoral elections. Flynn's campaign spent roughly $400,000, while King's spent less than $350,000.
Dudley Clendinen wrote that Flynn had worked to establish himself as a champion of the poor and elderly and to appeal across ethnic lines to ethnic minority voters. While Flynn had earlier in his political career opposed gay rights issues, by the time of his mayoral campaign he was making an active effort to court the gay vote. At the time, gay communities across the United States were becoming more politically organized.
Primary election Flynn first announced his candidacy in front of a public housing project, pledging that he would be a "people's mayor". He was viewed as an underdog at the start of his campaign, due to a lack of funding, a political organization, or connections to the business or media establishments.
Flynn and King had both shaped the narrative of the debate during the hotly-contested primary, successfully creating a "downtown versus the neighborhoods" narrative, with Flynn and King taking the side of being in support of the city's neighborhoods. A major item of debate was linkage, a fee that would be placed on downtown developers to raise funds for affordable housing. Flynn and King placed in the primary above candidates who were perceived as more representative of "downtown" interests. Coinciding with the primary, voters also strongly approved non-binding referendums in favor of a linkage policy and the creation of neighborhood councils. Both referendums had been supported by the group Massachusetts Fair Share. Flynn and King were the only two candidates who supported imposing linkage fees.
During the primary, the city's progressive activists were largely sharply divided between Flynn and King's candidacies. Flynn benefited from grassroots support.
General election
In the general election, Flynn received the political endorsement of The Boston Globe'''s editorial board. Among the groups endorsing Flynn were low-income tenant organizations, elderly organizations, and a number of labor unions.
In the election, both Flynn and King worked to build progressive coalitions, and both pledged to dedicate themselves to working across ethnic divides in the city. In the five weeks leading up to the general election, the two candidates held more than fifty local neighborhood debates.
The campaign was peaceful, and only a handful of isolated racial violence incidents occurred during it.
After his election, his mayoral transition effort was headed by John F. Bok.
Re-elections in 1987 and 1991
Flynn was reelected mayor in 1987 and 1991, winning more than two-thirds of the vote each time. In his reelections, he won a higher vote share in Black and Hispanic areas of the city than he did in White areas. In 1987, Flynn carried every ward of the city except for in his native South Boston. His failure to carry South Boston was perhaps due to his promise weeks before the election to desegregate all-white Boston Housing Authority developments in South Boston. Flynn's 1991 campaign for a third term came despite a 1981 campaign promise to only serve two terms. In his 1991 campaign, he ran a low-profile campaign that he touted as being "grassroots", and ran no television or radio advertisements. He centered his candidacy on ties to the city's neighborhoods and his successes in balancing the city's budget.
Reputation and political ideology
Flynn served as mayor from his inauguration on January 2, 1984 until his resignation on July 12, 1993. During his tenure, Flynn was regarded to be a popular mayor, which was reflected in high approval ratings. In 1992, Fox Butterfield of The New York Times called Flynn "one of the most popular mayors in [Boston]'s history". As mayor, Flynn maintained a prominent public profile. In 1984, journalist Colman McCarthy described Flynn as having a "blazonry of political zeal that makes him one of the nation's most attractive Democrats."
At the time of his first re-election in 1987, Flynn had attained an image of being un-corrupt, with political consultant Michael Goldman remarking at the time, "The most important thing Flynn has done is to have been someone who could govern without corruption. Even those who are not satisfied with Flynn feel he has been honest." Goldman also noted that Flynn had also maintained an image of being a populist well-connected to the city's blue-collar workers. In 1998, Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover of The Baltimore Sun wrote that, as mayor, Flynn had, "built a national reputation as an advocate for the homeless and a local reputation as a hands-on politician who showed up at every fire or police emergency."
At the time that Flynn was preparing to leave office, in an article published in The Christian Science Monitor, George B. Merry described Flynn as a mayor whose "hands-on" approach had made him, "one of the most visible mayors in Boston history." He considered Flynn's leadership to have delivered mixed results. Merry described Flynn's leadership-style as being heavily focused on neighborhood-level quality of life issues, writing,
Flynn was regarded to be an "economic liberal" and "cultural conservative". Elected mayor on a populist platform, Flynn supported wealth redistribution. Flynn opposed abortion. Despite having opposed gun control policies in his early political career as mayor Flynn supported them. While he opposed gay rights issues in his early political career, by the time of his first mayoral campaign made an active effort to ingratiate himself to the gay community. He, however, opposed same-sex marriage, Flynn opposed decreases initiated during the Reagan presidency to federal revenue sharing with cities.
Economic matters The state of the city's economy is regarded to have greatly rebounded over the course of Flynn's mayoralty. Additionally, Flynn is regarded to have significantly improved the fiscal health of the city government.
Community reinvestment agreement with banks In 1989, two studies, including one by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, found the city's major banks to be discriminating in practices regarding mortgage lending, personnel hiring, and where they located their branches. In collaboration with community activists, Flynn raised a more than year-long campaign to pressure banks to change their practices. He also announced a plan to issue a regular city-sponsored "report card" on bank practices. He also adopted a "linked deposit" policy to have the city then withdraw funds from banks that received poor track records on these "report cards" to expand its deposits in banks which worked to meet the needs of the city's neighborhoods. As a consequence, the banks reached a $400 million community reinvestment agreement with the city, in which the banks promised to open new branches, change lending and hiring practices, and to collaborate more closely with community development corporations and community groups.
Fiscal matters When Flynn took office, the city had a $40 million deficit. Flynn was able to balance the city's budget each year he was in office and improved the fiscal controls of the city. Flynn was able to improve the city's bond rating each year he was in office. When he left office, the city had its highest bond rating in its history.
In his first term as mayor, Flynn dealt with a drastic cut in federal funds allocated to Boston. During the presidencies of Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, Flynn often blamed shortcomings of the city government on their administrations for what he claimed were insufficient federal funds coming into the city's coffers. Additionally, during the Massachusetts governorship of Republican Bill Weld, Flynn often faulted shortcomings of the city government on what he claimed was insufficient state funding, blaming Governor Weld but avoiding blaming the Democratic majorities in both chambers of the Massachusetts State Legislature.
During his mayoralty, Boston divested from corporations that invested in Northern Ireland and Apartheid South Africa.
Revenue package