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Today’s newsletter covers economic policy for the rest of us, updates on the Steward Health Care Crisis, and two new interviews about this campaign! But first, a couple of upcoming volunteer opportunities – including with Jesse Mermell on Sunday – and a new endorsement by the Framingham-Newton Building Trades Council…
Jesse Mermell door-knocking kickoff on Sunday at noon
Please join me and former Brookline Select Board member (and past 4th District Congressional candidate) Jesse Mermell at noon this Sunday at Picadilly Square in Newton Centre to get fired up to go knock some doors and talk to voters about making Massachusetts a Commonwealth for everyone. If you’ve never knocked doors before, we will train you on everything you need to know and then send you on your way. (Plan for about 2-3 hours including the remarks and training.)
If you’re not available that day, you can sign up for one of the other door-knocking dates at that form. If you prefer other ways of volunteering, check out this form.
(We encourage you to fill out the forms if you plan to join us, so that we can send you any location or time change alerts or weather alerts.)
I’ve personally knocked more than 7,800 doors in this campaign this year, and I’ve also been fortunate enough to have dedicated volunteers knock more than 2,150 more. Our campaign has not hired a single person to knock on doors because we’ve been so blessed with enthusiastic supporters giving generously of their time to talk to their neighbors and other community members about our shared vision for a Massachusetts that works for all of us and sets a positive example for the rest of the country.
Framingham-Newton Building Trades Council Endorsement
I’m proud to be endorsed by the Framingham-Newton Building Trades Council, representing a wide range of the region’s labor unions in the construction industry. Among other priorities, they share my advocacy for building a much larger supply of quality housing in Massachusetts, and they want to make sure it’s done right for the communities it will house.
Sometimes I am asked what the benefits are for everyone else from the work of these unions and my relationships with them. The wider public benefits from strong labor standards in the building trades are especially enormous: Setting consistent rules and expectations about workplace safety and compensation on major projects are critical to weeding out disreputable or unscrupulous bidders who save money on their bids by cutting corners on their projects in ways that endanger workers and future occupants of the buildings. We need more homes, and they need to be safe and durable. We also don’t want the workers building our affordable housing to be impoverished by unfair employment practices and exploitation.
The building trades workers have some of the highest-risk, most important jobs in our society, and I’m truly honored to be shoulder-to-shoulder with them on issues like Project Labor Agreements, Prevailing Wage standards, and wage theft prevention.
VP Harris on economic policies for ordinary people
I also wanted to highlight this superb quote from Vice President Harris this week (video) when asked by a reporter “how are you going to pay for” the anti-poverty programs she is proposing:
“Return on investment! I think it’s a mistake for any person who talks about public policy to not critically evaluate how you measure the return on investment. When you are strengthening neighborhoods, strengthening communities, and in particular strengthening the economy of those communities and investing in a broad-based economy, everybody benefits, and it pays for itself in that way.”
This is exactly the point I have made all year on the campaign trail whenever anyone tries to suggest that the common sense proposals I am supporting at the state level on healthcare, childcare, housing, and more might “cost too much” or be “too expensive.” It costs a great deal more to clean up problems we ignore than to invest in our own population and communities up front, which always results in more jobs to provide the services, greater consumer economic activity in the region, and strengthened long-term tax base. Cutting back the public sector through budgetary austerity is a disinvestment that ends up shrinking revenues and creating future liabilities.
Cost of food and groceries has also been a major concern for many voters this year, and it’s something Harris has been trying to tackle in her policies. If you’re interested in reading my candidate questionnaire from the Massachusetts Food Systems Collaborative, they examine this and other interesting issues from a state perspective.
Steward Health Care crisis updates
Last week, Governor Healey announced that the state will be taking by eminent domain at least one of the community hospitals owned by the bankrupt Steward Health Care (owned by private equity, which sold off the land under the hospitals previously). Although there is still some negotiating to do on the exact price, this action will speed up and hopefully smooth out the sale of, in this case, St. Elizabeth’s in Brighton. Eminent domain for this situation is also something I called for in the June League of Women Voters candidate debate and said was the best course of action to untangle the bankruptcy – and probably even a necessary step. (I serve on the two City Council committees that deal with eminent domain takings/compensation and have at this point become quite familiar with eminent domain powers.) As an elected official, I cannot in good conscience put real estate trust profits above basic healthcare needs for the people.
One area I (and various state and federal elected officials) disagree with the Governor’s Administration is their unwillingness so far to consider eminent domain and public purchase of the two community hospitals, including one in Dorchester, that Steward claims they cannot find private buyers for. To suggest that “the market has spoken” – and therefore these hospitals must close – seems to me to be fundamentally at odds with the provision of public health services in lower-income neighborhood settings (not really a market to begin with) and overlooks the knock-on effects for other area hospitals of closing some when everyone is already stretched very thin.
There was also a new op-ed by four doctors this week in Stat News about the damage of private equity’s intervention into the healthcare sector and what can be done about it. We hear a lot about the problems, but it’s not helpful unless we hear some specific suggested policy corrections to prevent repeat incidents and reverse course. I recommend the piece to hear some ideas. They also emphasized the similar problem with private equity in the nursing home sector, which is a sector my campaign has focused attention on and called for a greater public role in. That concern was also covered in a recent candidate questionnaire by the Dignity Alliance Massachusetts, an elder rights advocacy organization, which has not yet been published.
News interviews
Yesterday I dropped by NewTV podcaster Brian Ives’s YouTube show for an interview diving deeper into the issues facing the Massachusetts legislature in the coming term. Brian will be interviewing all the candidates. He also happens to have been an elementary school classmate of mine! Watch it here.
Finally – don’t miss this article in the Brookline News about the 12th Middlesex race. All three of us were interviewed for it.
I hope to earn your vote by Tuesday September 3rd, the day after Labor Day, to be your Democratic nominee for our next State Representative.
Learn more at billhumphrey.org – and please volunteer or donate if you are able. We have only 9 lawn signs remaining but there's still time!