Dear friends and neighbors around the state of Massachusetts,
Here are our
recommendations for the upcoming election, this time for the General Election
which will be held on Tuesday, November 6, with early
voting options also available.
To see who is on your ballot, follow
this link, and after you fill in your address information, click “my
state election ballot” in the box under “view my ballot.”
Both of us voted early
this year (you can still do that through Friday) and we both voted yes on all
three ballot questions and for Democrats up and down the ticket. We are giving you our list to keep it simple,
with detailed rationale and links below if you choose to read further. We elaborate in particular detail for some
races: 1) where we think we have something to offer for your consideration, 2) that
are more seriously contested, and/or 3) where the outcome seems to be in doubt
and really matters.
The candidates for
statewide office that we strongly recommend are:
Elizabeth Warren
for United States Senate
Jay
Gonzalez/Quentin Palfrey for Governor/Lieutenant Governor
Maura Healey for
Attorney General
Deborah Goldberg
for State Treasurer
We also strongly recommend a YES vote on all three ballot questions.
A quick summary of the questions is below, with our reasons later.
If you reside in the 2nd
Congressional District, you have the opportunity to vote to re-elect our good
friend, the amazing James P. (Jim)
McGovern for United States House of Representatives.
There are contested
elections in some local races; for some offices we have listed candidates in a
few different districts who we feel are worthy of your vote if you live in one
of those districts.
In the contested races (we
omitted those that are uncontested) we recommend the following:
In the Worcester area:
Paul DePalo for
Governor’s Council (listed as Councillor)
Joseph D. Early,
Jr. for District Attorney
Dennis P. McManus
for Clerk of Courts
Kathryn A. Toomey
for Register of Deeds
You
are allowed to take a list of recommendations or
your own voting plans with you when you go to vote, but you are not allowed to share it with anyone
else within the voting location.
In area State Senate districts that
are contested, we recommend:
Tom Merolli,
Worcester and Norfolk district
Anne Gobi,
Worcester, Hampden, Hampshire and Middlesex district
Susan Chalifoux Zephir,
Worcester and Middlesex district
In contested State Representative
races, we recommend:
David LeBoeuf, 17th
Worcester district
Jean Strauss, 5th
Worcester district
Tanya Neslusan, 1st
Hampden district
Ballot Question 1 would set minimum
legal requirements for safe nurse staffing levels by limiting the number of patients
who can be assigned to each registered nurse in MA hospitals and certain other healthcare
facilities.
Ballot Question 2 would create a commission
to advance an amendment to the US Constitution to limit the Influence of money
in elections and to establish that corporations do not have the same rights as human
beings.
Ballot Question 3 maintains the
existing law adopted by the legislature in 2016 that prohibits discrimination
on the basis of gender identity in places of public accommodation, including
hotels, restaurants, and hospitals.
If you want to
read further, here is why we are making these recommendations.
Our views and
priorities in state campaigns are of necessity colored by the current national
scene. We feel that it is no
exaggeration at all to say that we are in a state of emergency. It is more urgent than ever before that we address
economic injustice, racial disparities, and environmental degradation including
climate change.
The federal government
and our country are racing in precisely the wrong direction. Instead of using its power and resources to
find equitable solutions to these pressing problems, the Trump Administration ignores
or exacerbates these challenges. It has functioned
as a slush fund to enrich the president, his family, and other government officials. It threatens human rights, attacks the free
press, and foments hatred and scapegoating.
Simultaneously, Republicans have moved to enact policies that plunder
the earnings of people with low and moderate incomes in order to benefit the
wealthiest people on earth. They have stripped
workers of basic protections, endangered consumers and the environment, and suppressed
the institutions of basic democracy including the right to vote.
In this context, we
feel that it is crucial to use whatever power is available in state and local government
to address the problems we face and to hold a firm line on further
erosion. We need effective and
compassionate leadership that will resist the party of Trump.
Senator
Elizabeth Warren displays this kind of leadership. Because of her distinguished background in
bankruptcy law, she knows more than almost anyone else about why families are
struggling to make ends meet. Her
research on this led her to advocacy and then to running for office, and she is
driven by her passion for justice, never by personal ambition. She never fails to stand up for what she
believes in, challenging officials appointed by Democrats as well as
Republicans. We need to keep her voice
in the U.S. Senate. Senator Warren’s Republican
opponent was the 2016 chair of the Trump for President campaign in
Massachusetts.
We feel that the
administration of Charlie Baker and Karyn Polito has been characterized mostly
by timidity, mediocrity, and mean-spiritedness.
Baker has stood by while our transportation infrastructure crumbled,
failed to take bold steps to stem the opioid epidemic, tried to undermine
public education, taken only baby steps to slow climate change, favored
corporate interests over those of workers and consumers, and shrunk rather than
expanded access to health care coverage. As environmental activists, we are especially
disturbed by Baker’s undermining of the solar industry in Massachusetts and his
support for public funding of pipelines carrying fracked gas. All this is unacceptable and
unnecessary. Baker is depicted as tall, handsome,
affable, and moderate (or at least not Trump).
But he has repeatedly supported allies of Trump and proposed policies
pushed by ALEC, a major
right-wing think tank. This
article sums up how we can do better and expect more. If you want to know even more about how the
Baker/Polito administration has failed us, read about a whole range of issues here.
Jay
Gonzalez, by contrast,
has a comprehensive set of proposals to take on these and many other
issues. Jay was the Director of
Administration and Finance in the Patrick administration and had a lot of
private sector experience before that and since then. In running for Governor, he brings this
administrative experience as well as a passion for improving our quality of
life and we feel he can bring his vision to fruition. Jay believes, as we do, that it is time for
ambitious vision and goals, not timid management and handouts to big business. Take a look at Jay’s issues proposals here. We think you will be impressed, as we have
been when hearing Jay speak about his vision and plans for action. Jay’s running mate, the Lieutenant
Governor candidate, Quentin
Palfrey brings strength to the ticket with both passion and
a wealth of experience in finding innovative solutions to some of the pressing
problems outlined above. You can learn
more about Quentin here.
We love Attorney General Maura
Healey. She has been doing amazing
work as “the people’s lawyer” during her term in office. She has brought millions of dollars back to
Massachusetts residents by making polluters pay, challenging overcharges by
utility companies, and getting exorbitant student loans discharged. She has stood up against Trump Administration
policies including offshore oil drilling, immigrant travel bans, and restrictions
on family planning. She has cracked down
on sex trafficking, on firearms sellers exploiting loopholes in our commonsense
gun safety laws, and on predatory trade schools. She is fearless and tireless.
Deb Goldberg has been a
hands-on State Treasurer, delivering on promises to help families save for
college (at no cost to taxpayers), help residents develop financial literacy,
fight for greater diversity on corporate boards, and promoting sustainability
and accountability practices in corporations that do business with the
state. She continues to fight for wage
equality.
Many people don’t know much about
Governor’s Council and why it is important.
This body approves or rejects the Governor’s judicial nominees. Judges and their basic perspectives
matter. Paul DePalo, a former schoolteacher and an attorney with experience
representing children in juvenile court, is running to bring a community
perspective to this office. He will
fight for the selection of judges who will affirm gender equality, find help rather
than incarceration for troubled youth, and enforce worker rights and civil
rights. Learn more about Paul here.
Joe Early deserves to be
reelected as Worcester County District Attorney. His office has done an excellent job of
securing criminal convictions. His focus
is also on crime prevention and on helping nonviolent drug offenders,
especially youth, to find alternatives to incarceration, giving them a chance
to become productive members of society.
Dennis McManus deserves to be
reelected as Worcester County Clerk of Courts.
He has done a very good job in this role for several years and his
office has been highly rated.
Kathryn (Katie)
Toomey (not the Worcester City Councilor) is an experienced practicing
real estate attorney running for Registrar of Deeds. The person elected to this post manages the
county office that is responsible for keeping the legal documents to ensure
that the property that you own is legally recorded as yours. Her opponent has no experience in law or real
estate. You can find out more about
Katie and her campaign here.
David LeBoeuf is a first-time
candidate with a remarkable track record of community service and civic
engagement, running against a very right-wing Republican in a swing
district. Details about David here. If you live in the 17th Worcester
district, please be sure to vote for David!
We strongly support Ballot Question #1 because we believe in regulations that promote
safety.
The organization that represents
70% of bedside nurses in the state wrote this law in response to the large and
growing number of incidents that put both patients and nurses in jeopardy. The opponents of this ballot question
(hospitals and their very highly paid executives and administrators) have spent
tens of millions of dollars to confuse voters and to sow doubt. They have couched their arguments against
government mandated safe staffing levels by claiming that the requirement for
minimum staffing will endanger patient safety.
They have claimed that other staff will be cut, but in fact the proposed
law explicitly forbids this. It is clear
to us that a key part of their strategy is to pit lower paid and lower level
staff against one another. The state
already mandates minimum nurse staff levels in Intensive Care Units. There have been measurable reductions in
hospital-acquired infections since that was implemented. Please see this
article for an analysis of the issue and the misleading claims of the campaign
waged against it by the most powerful lobbying group in Massachusetts.
We think Ballot Question #2 is a no-brainer; it is the first – and very
measured – step toward developing a state position in favor of a constitutional
amendment to overturn the disastrous Supreme Court decision that allowed unlimited
money without disclosure of its source to flow into politics. See this
for a succinct explanation of the question.
We have been very active in support of
Ballot Question #3 because we feel
it is crucial to defend the civil rights of this very vulnerable
population. You can read all about this
issue here.
Thank you for allowing us to share our
opinions about elections with you. We
are honored that many of our friends actually ask us for them. We also appreciate that some people who like
us and who we like don’t share our views.
Whether you agree with us or not, please be sure to vote!
Sincerely,
Margot Barnet and David Coyne
