General Court House of Representatives In 1977, Keating was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives from the 19th Norfolk district, where he served for a year. He was then elected from the 8th Norfolk district, serving from 1979 to 1984. He supported George Keverian's successful 1985 effort to overthrow Thomas W. McGee as Speaker of the House. By the end of his House tenure, Keating became vice chairman of the House Criminal Justice Committee. Senate In 1984, State Senator Joseph F. Timilty resigned his Norfolk and Suffolk seat to pursue a career in private law, and Keating became the only major Democratic contender for the office. In the general election he faced Republican Marion Boch, who promoted a plan for dramatic cuts to legislators' pay and hours, invoking the energy of the Ronald Reagan campaign. Keating focused his campaign on expanding resources for crime prevention and education, tailoring his message to the Boston constituency he would pick up as a senator. He was elected with about 64% of the vote. In his first year, Keating was named Senate chairman of the joint Public Safety Committee, where he led the legislative action for a statewide seat belt law pushed by Governor Michael Dukakis. He authored a drug sentencing reform package signed into law in 1988, lowering thresholds for possession charges and establishing new minimum sentences, including a one-year minimum sentence for first-time possession of cocaine or PCP "with intent to distribute". The latter provision was widely derided by criminal justice authorities as excessively strict and vaguely worded. Redistricting eventually placed Keating in the Norfolk and Bristol seat (1989–1994). As a vice chairman of the joint Criminal Justice Committee, he was a lead author of a 1991 sentencing reform bill, signed into law by Governor William Weld, that made it easier to try juveniles as adults and pass harsher sentences in the case of major crimes, especially murder. "What is occurring is a shift away from the rehabilitative stance to a focus on the seriousness of the crime committed by the juvenile", Keating said. In 1992, as co-chairman of the Taxation Committee, he successfully pushed a proposal to phase out the Massachusetts estate tax. In 1994, Keating led a group of liberals in a failed coup to remove state Senate President William Bulger from his position. A staunch liberal compared to the more socially conservative Bulger, Keating sought to reform the