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Last month, I turned in my State Representative nomination signature papers and officially qualified for the 2024 state ballot. There will be a Democratic Primary on September 3rd, the day after Labor Day (so think about requesting a mail-in ballot if you have not done so yet!), and we’re waiting to see whether the declared Republican candidate has obtained enough signatures for the November ballot.
Photo of volunteers holding Humphrey campaign signs at Newton South. If you are interested in supporting my candidacy for State Representative, please consider volunteering, contributing, or spreading the word to friends and family. Together can we do great things.
Yesterday, I was delighted to join the Brookline Housing Authority Open House event, which was a wonderful community party and fair where residents inside and outside the housing developments could meet one another and share some great food. Last night, I also attended a candidate forum on housing policy, which I know is top of mind for many voters as I knock doors around the 12th Middlesex District in Newton and Brookline.
Mass Nurses Association endorsement and a look at our healthcare system
I've been honored to receive the endorsement of the Massachusetts Nurses Association in my campaign for State Representative! (They join the Roofers and Waterproofers Union Local 33, which has endorsed me as well. With the climate changing, good waterproof roofing we can count on is more important each day – and we need all our roofers to be safe up there while they're working to shelter us. Roofing is incredibly dangerous work, according to the statistics.)
A few days ago, I stopped by the Brighton community forum event (organized by MNA, 1199SEIU, and others) across from St Elizabeth's hospital, part of the collapsing privately-owned Steward Health Care network, which has literally sold the land out from under its hospitals. Many of you have probably been following this disaster in the Boston Globe, including the fatality at St. Elizabeth’s linked to repossession of a key medical device due to unpaid corporate invoices. Due to that ill-conceived land deal, a public takeover of these community hospitals is likely now the only credible path forward to prevent devastating hospital closures, which would put even more pressure on remaining hospitals in the state.
It was also my honor to spend May Day yesterday with the Brigham & Women’s Hospital MNA members and SEIU residents and interns at their informational picket about ongoing challenges the members there (including my mom) are facing in negotiating a safe and fair contract. The right to assemble and protest are foundational to American life, and I have been a consistent face at many picket lines over the years. The MNA always underscores how the work of their member nurses fits within a broader struggle for a different, better healthcare system that is better for patients and less geared toward astronomical executive compensation.
In general, the cost of healthcare services and health insurance are one of the biggest sources of the cost-of-living crisis for many Massachusetts residents. In the current system, health insurance also represents an unsustainable cost driver for many businesses and municipal governments. Health care – including mental health, dental, and vision services, as well as reproductive services such as abortion, full-spectrum pregnancy care, and gender-affirming care – is a fundamental human right that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts must secure for every resident.
We also need healthcare to be free at the point of service and people should not be on the phone arguing with their insurance company from the hospital. (Doctors also shouldn’t be having to spend all their time fighting an insurance company for prior authorization of necessary treatments.) I support a greater state or federal role in rationalizing the healthcare system and the health insurance system to provide better service, more widely, at a lower cost to patients. A progressive taxation system is a better basis for funding in the long run than the current health insurance premiums model. (This is often referred to as “Medicare For All” or “single payer.”)
The private systems for delivering care itself are also broken for most patients (and for many healthcare professionals), and a public system would make more sense there too. In the meantime, we can always make meaningful improvements to the systems we have now to give people a better experience. Eventually, we will need to orchestrate a much bigger transition.
I also support prescription drug pricing reform for patients. No one should ever have to risk financial insolvency for the medications they need.
To meet additional demand for healthcare services by people gaining better access, the Commonwealth should invest in educating more nurses and doctors and making this an affordable educational path.
The Commonwealth also needs to do more to support rural healthcare, to improve outcomes for nearby residents and reduce the growing pressure on the major urban hospitals. The private sector is failing to provide stable, reliable, accessible rural and community healthcare in Massachusetts and all over the United States, and this affects all of us downstream in one way or another.
No complacency on social progress in Massachusetts
Last month, I attended the MassEquality celebration of the 20th anniversary of securing and preserving marriage equality in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (Some of you know that I was one of the first people working on the marriage equality campaign in Delaware, where I attended college, an effort which eventually became a successful, combined campaign for trans rights.) A key theme of the night was that we cannot be complacent about social progress even in our state.
We still haven't passed long overdue LGBTQ parental law reforms or adopted comprehensive inclusive sex education. One responsibility of state legislators is to ensure every corner of the state has secured human rights for all – even if their own districts are doing fine generally speaking. There are still municipalities trying to prohibit public Pride events, and attempted book bans are rampant in Massachusetts. One point mentioned at the event is that efforts to censor public and school library content are the fourth-highest in the nation right here in Massachusetts (more info), and there is a bill in the legislature to protect libraries from these attempted content bans.
In 1939, amid the rise of fascism globally, the American Library Association began developing a "Library Bill of Rights." Over the following decades they have expanded it further, covering and clarifying a range of issues relating to government censorship, government surveillance of patron activity, and accessibility of spaces and resources. Public libraries remain a bedrock of American civic life, freedom, and the American Dream. Massachusetts has experienced a wave of attempted censorship of its libraries, and we have a responsibility to defend our libraries when they uphold the Library Bill of Rights.
Residents of all ages and backgrounds deserve to be able to go to the public library and learn about themselves, learn about others, and even be confronted by new perspectives they might not otherwise have been exposed to.
Mara Dolan for Governor’s Council event
I am also supporting Mara Dolan for Governor’s Council, District 3 (which includes all of Newton & Brookline), and will be co-hosting a Virtual Meet & Greet on Wednesday, May 22, 2024, from 5pm – 6pm. This is a chance to meet Mara, virtually, and ask her questions. (To RSVP for the event, email Mara@MaraDolan.com.)
We need to get the word out about Mara because very few people know what the Governor’s Council of Massachusetts does even though its responsibilities are extremely important. The eight member Governor’s Council approves the Governor’s nominees for all State Court Judges and members of the Parole Board as well as approving the Governor’s recommendations for commutations and pardons. (For example, recently the Governor made the great decision to recommend blanket pardons for marijuana possession convictions.)
Mara is running against a very conservative 25-year incumbent in the Democratic primary on September 3, 2024. Mara Dolan is uniquely qualified for the position because she has been a Public Defender (representing indigent defendants in criminal and juvenile cases) for more than 17 years. To learn more about Mara, please check out her website. This event will be a great chance to hear directly from Mara and ask her questions. I hope you will be able to attend.