Somerville Elects a new State Rep tomorrow

[cos]

A few months ago, as many of you know, the Somerville State Representative Pat Jehlen was promoted to the state Senate in a special election. That left an open state house seat, and the electon to fill it is tomorrow - Tuesday, January 10th. Technically, this is the Democratic primary, with the general election on February 7th. However, the only two candidates who filed papers to be on the ballot are both Democrats. That means that whoever wins tomorrow's primary will be the only one on the ballot in February. So, practically speaking, the election is tomorrow.

The 27th Middlesex district covers roughly the middle half of Somerville, and includes all of Ward 6, which Davis Square is located in. To find out if you live in this district, check WhereDoIVoteMA.com. If it says your "Representative in General Court" is "VACANT", then you're in the district. Polls are open 7am-8pm.

The two candidates are,

• Somerville Alderman-at-Large and former Somerville City Attorney Denise Provost
  
• Somerville planning board member Elizabeth Moroney, also an aide to state Senator Pam Resor of Acton.

The two candidates match on far more issues than they differ. Both are very liberal on traditional economic and social issues. They're both strongly pro-gay marriage and pro-choice, oppose the death penalty, and oppose cutting the state income tax, which they both feel would put more pressure on cities to raise their property taxes.

I support Denise Provost and will be volunteering for her tomorrow.

In my view, the points where the candidates differ are:

1. Engagement with Somerville: Denise Provost has been everywhere in Somerville, talked to every group, worked on just about every city project, and everyone knows her. She is Somerville's most popular elected official, topping the ticket for Alderman-at-Large two years in a row. In 2003, when there was a contested mayoral election, she got more votes than the mayor (in 2005, mayor was uncontested). Elizabeth Moroney has been on the Planning Board for a while, but outside of city hall and the Democratic party committees, hardly anyone else in Somerville had ever heard her name until this campaign began. She's done some good work, but it's not even close.


2. Election Reform: I find this to be a good heuristic for picking out the real progressives from the liberals. Moroney's actually not bad: she supports clean elections, and nonpartisan redistricting, for example. But Provost takes it a step further - she volunteered to advocate for Instant Runoff Voting in her PDS questionnaire, when we didn't even bring it up.


3. Smart Development: When conflicts come up between the community and developers, Denise Provost consistently works to have the City actively engaged in planning development, while Moroney has a more laissez-faire history of favoring letting the developers do things their way.


4. Progressive engagement: Over the past several years, Denise Provost has been with us in the new progressive movement that came out of the Reich and Dean campaigns. She's worked with PDS and supported our candidates. Moroney had hardly been seen or heard from except when she opposed us. For example, Elizabeth Moroney supported Vinnie Ciampa against Carl Sciortino in the 2004 Democratic Primary. Vinnie was her friend and it's understandable, but he was also an awful state Rep, unresponsive to his constituents, extremely conservative, and bigoted, as became clear with his gay-baiting write-in campaign later on (to her credit, Moroney disavowed that). I trust Denise Provost to be with us on the issues and on the campaign trail, and to help build the progressive movement.


5. Building Bridges: Denise Provost is the most popular elected official in Somerville for good reason - she engages with many different communities that normally don't have much to do with each other, and builds bridges between them. We can see from the past few municipal elections that her base of support spans traditional boundaries. She has strong support among both old and young voters, and from both "old Somerville" (the people who were born here) and "new Somerville" (the ones who have moved in over the past couple of decades, who are actually the majority of Somerville's population, but fewer of them vote).

Progressive Democrats of Somerville, as part of our endorsement process, asked both candidates to fill out questionnaires, which I recommend reading: Denise Provost, Elizabeth Moroney.

• PDS overwhelmingly voted to endorse Denise Provost
  
• The Somerville Journal endorsed Denise Provost
  
• Even the cranky Somerville News endorsed Denise Provost
  
• The rest of Somerville's legislative delegation, Representative Carl Sciortino and Senator Pat Jehlen, both endorsed Denise Provost. Davis Square alderman and PDS founding chair Rebekah Gewirtz also endorsed Denise, as have another alderman and three school committee members. In contrast, as far as I can tell, not a single elected official in Somerville has endorsed Moroney.
  
• MassEquality is staying out of this one. Whoever wins will support gay marriage. However, the Bay State Stonewall Democrats did pick sides, and endorsed Denise.
  
• Planned Parenthood is staying out of this one. Whoever wins will be strongly pro-choice. However, Elizabeth Moroney is on the board of NARAL, and they have endorsed her (IMO, that's solely because she's on their board. Keep in mind that NARAL endorsed Mike Moran against Tim Schofield in Allston-Brighton last year, so I think their credibility on legislative endorsements is highly suspect.

Whichever candidate you choose to support needs your help tomorrow. If you live in the district, vote!. But even if you don't live in the district, please pick one of them and volunteer. Because this is a special election, an overwhelming majority of Somerville voters will not vote. Both campaigns need volunteers to help get out the vote - that is what will determine the outcome of the election. Yes, it is entirely possible for the candidate with significantly more supporters, to lose the election, because most of them don't vote.

Comments

Re: May the best woman win!

[cheapwinelover.livejournal.com]

PDS

Re: May the best woman win!

[lena-a-mermaid.livejournal.com]

You are mistaken. PDS NEVER endorsed Tony LaFuente. PDS has NEVER endorsed ANY Mayoral Candidate.

Re: May the best woman win!

[cheapwinelover.livejournal.com]

Actually I'm glad to here that. He didn't seem to work with the mix. In fact, I don't get him at all.

Denise, Mark, and Marty make sense together. And it seems to be a collaborative effort.

Re: May the best woman win!

[ron_newman]

By 'Mark' do you mean Mark Niedergang, or some other Mark?

Re: May the best woman win!

[ron_newman]

While Tony Lafuente got a majority of votes in an endorsement vote at a PDS meeting, the vote fell substantially short of the super-majority that PDS required for an endorsement. So it is incorrect to say that Tony received PDS's endorsement.

At last night's Provost victory party, Tony kept telling me that I should stop posting comments on the Somerville News blog, while at the same time saying that he didn't read the blog and therefore couldn't tell me which of my comments he disagreed with. So I'm not very favorably inclined towards him.