Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson’s “Oath” Isn’t the Only Thing Being Deferred in Boston as Accountability for the Incident Remains Elusive
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This report is being provided as a supplement to our initial coverage available here.
On January 3, 2024, BAN released a now-viral video showing what appears to be Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson failing to verbally take her oath of office during the Council’s inauguration ceremony.
Immediately following this release, BAN contacted Councilor Anderson with several clarifying questions, the most important being why she did not say her oath of office. We also contacted the Secretary of State as well as various individuals and agencies within the City of Boston.
To date, none have provided BAN with information conducive to maintaining accountability or fostering transparency. The only response received was from the Secretary of State’s office indicating they were deferring this matter back to the City of Boston.
This tendency of all involved to skirt accountability has since been corroborated by The Boston Herald’s Gayla Cawley whose coverage exposes another layer of public agencies attempting to defer “Oathgate” to someone else.
For example, Cawley describes how the City Clerk deferred to the city’s Law Department. The Law Department then deferred to the Mayor’s Office. Declining to comment, Mayor Michelle Wu deferred to Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune. (The Herald’s article can be found here.)
Ultimately, uncorroborated reports state that Anderson was told to report to the City Clerk to take her oath of office by Councilor Louijeune. It is unclear at this time if Anderson has complied.
More important, however, is whether or not Anderson is legally allowed to “re-take” her oath.
According to The Boston City Charter, every Boston City Councilor “shall…take AND subscribe in a book to be kept by the city clerk for the purpose, the oath of allegiance and oath of office prescribed in the constitution of this commonwealth and an oath to support the constitution of the United States.”
Many interpret this statement to mean that Anderson must both say (i.e. – “take”) and sign her oath – not one or the other.
The fact Council President Louijeune, a Harvard-trained lawyer, has supposedly ordered Anderson to report to the City Clerk to “take” her oath suggests Louijeune shares this interpretation. But is Louijeune’s remedy a legally sound one?
According to Massachusetts General Law, councilors-elect are to be sworn in at 10:00 am on the first Monday in January following a regular municipal election. MGL then goes on to state: “At any regular council meeting thereafter, the oath may be administered…to any councilor absent from the meeting on the first Monday in January.”
Last evening Anderson took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to post this statement in response to “Oathgate”:
This is a developing story – any updates will be provided when/if they become available. Be sure to subscribe to our mailing list and follow us on social media to stay up-to-date on breaking events
*Update: January 5, 2024 at 2:32pm
BAN has received confirmation from the Boston City Clerk that Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson did take her oath “yesterday late afternoon.” According to the City Clerk, he “administered the oath of office which she [Anderson] repeated” while the Assistant City Clerk stood witness.
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