After lining the shelves of bookstores for years, classic novel Moby Dick has made its way into the sea of legislation in the Massachusetts State House.
Rep. Christopher Speranzo (D-Pittsfield) filed a proposal last month that would make the Herman Melville classic the honorary book of the commonwealth. Supporters of the proposal say the novel is an appropriate choice because Melville penned the book while living in Pittsfield.
Some legislators said the idea of choosing Moby Dick as the state book will probably not rock the boat in an era when states often recognize everything from state beverages to state cats.
Speranzo said he introduced the bill to help the 86 fifth-grade students at Egrement Elementary School in Pittsfield — who co-sponsored the bill with their teachers — to learn about state government, as they track the bill while it goes through the process of becoming a law.
“The point is so students can see how the entire bill process is done,” he said. “They can read it in a textbook, or they can actually see it for real.”
The students will go to the State House to testify before a committee that will consider the bill.
“They’ve seen how citizens can file bills,” he said. “The next step is the committee process.”
For those who are concerned debating such a seemingly trivial matter takes away from valuable time to consider important public policy issues, Speranzo said the committee meetings where testimony is heard are informal and constitutionally required each week.
“These bills take no time away from the other official business of the commonwealth,” he said.
If the bill is approved and signed into law, Moby Dick will join a long list of recognized, but little-known, commonwealth symbols, ranging from the culinary to the literary. The official donut of the commonwealth is the Boston crème, the official beverage is cranberry juice and the official author is Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss.
Massachusetts already has an official children’s book: Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McClosk. The book is commemorated in Boston Public Gardens, where bronze statues of ducklings in a row were installed in 1987.
“When you look at the official listing of what we have as symbols, it seems to make a lot of sense to have an official book,” Speranzo said.
Rep. Barbara L’Italien (D-Andover) recently filed a similar symbolic bill on behalf of students requesting the necktie be named the commonwealth’s official men’s accessory. Though L’Italien was unavailable for comment, her legislative aide Sarah Ferrara said most bills concerning relatively symbolic matters are not a waste of taxpayers’ money.
“I wouldn’t say most,” she said, “but some [of the bills] are for educational purposes.”
Anyone who objects to the bills can testify at committee hearings, which are open to the public, Ferrara said.
Atiya Dangleben, statewide director for taxpayer and voter advocacy group MassVote, declined to comment on the bills because she had not read them, but said members had not brought raised concerns over their legitimacy.