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There is just over one week to go until the 12th Middlesex State Representative election! Early voting is under way this week at Newton City Hall & Brookline Town Hall. Do you have a plan to vote by Tuesday September 3rd, the day after Labor Day?
Thank you to volunteers from Progressive Newton, the NTA, UFCW 1445, and more for joining me, Jesse Mermell, and Brenda Noel to knock another 500 doors this weekend!
10,000 doors vs 10,000 dollars
This week, my all-volunteer campaign team and I – backed by hundreds of grassroots donors – celebrated reaching our 10,000th resident door in the district during this campaign. I personally have knocked just shy of 8,000 of these myself, which is an invaluable opportunity to meet the voters directly and hear about the issues they care about most, so that I can do my best work representing my constituents.
In order, the top five issues most commonly cited this year as we go door-to-door have been environmental issues, housing, public transit, education/childcare, and reproductive rights. This face-to-face approach to meeting the voters where they are in an era of limited local news is how I got elected to the City Council in the first place, and I’m glad I have been able to bring this approach to my campaign for State Representative.
At the same time as we were reaching our 10,000th door, Dr. Schwartz’s campaign poured another $10,000 of his personal money into sending out a negative “informational” piece in the mail about me, bringing his self-funded total this year to at least $25,000 so far, presumably also covering an anonymous mailer sent against the other candidate earlier in the year. He followed this new postcard up with a similar email blast this evening.
As an experienced elected official with many campaigns under my belt, I am no stranger to receiving uncharitable attacks, and it’s easy enough to shrug off at this point because they’re painting a broad character, not capturing a nuanced likeness of who I am. My undefeated win record in my home ward speaks for itself among the people who actually know me (which going door-to-door helps reinforce).
But whenever I am out on the campaign trail, I hear from so many good-hearted, highly engaged citizens with incredible ideas for a better community – who tell me that they would never do what I’m doing because they can’t stand the thought of all the negative smear campaigning that would be directed at them and their families, even their children. That is what saddens me when I see a negative campaign attack. It might not bother me very much, but other people do read that stuff, and one by one they choose to avoid seeking public office. What a loss for all of us as a society.
I also know, as any political campaign consultant knows, that a negative ad is not intended to convert votes to the attacker but simply to depress the electorate’s interest in voting at all. That’s a real shame, too. We should all be trying to get more people to engage in the process of government, not fewer people.
Early in this campaign, my kitchen cabinet and I made a commitment that we would not run any negative advertising, because every dollar we spend should be about the issues and what we want to do to make Massachusetts better, not what we don’t like about our opponents. Dr. Schwartz courteously called me to let me know that he was going to run, and he agreed with me that it’s nice to have a three-way race where everyone understands that their best chance of winning is to stay positive and issue-oriented and not help a different candidate by making political attacks. I’m sorry to see him repeatedly take poor advice to go in another direction.
In all five of my previous campaigns, I have never sent a negative mailer, and that won’t change today. That being said, here are some facts I feel compelled to draw attention to at this point: Dr. Schwartz has just loaned $10,000 of his own money to try to attack me on the “significant differences” between us as a smokescreen to distract voters from the reality that he is now six months into a Democratic Primary campaign in Massachusetts and has refused to put into his campaign platform anything about reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, or gun violence prevention – not even on his healthcare page. (In case his campaign remembers to add these to his website in the final week of the race in response to this email, here is a static link from The Wayback Machine showing the absence of these issues as recently as this past Thursday.) I have seen his door-to-door card, and these issues are also glaringly missing from his bullet point list of important issues.
I am proud to be endorsed by Reproductive Equity Now and the Bay State Stonewall Democrats, and I’m one of the two candidates in the race who applied for and received recognition from Moms Demand Action as a “Gun Sense candidate.” These three topic areas have been day one issues for me in this campaign, but also issues I have championed for my entire adult life. They’re important enough to be in the platform and they are or have been important legislative agenda items this year.
Dr. Schwartz has also never had to explain to the voters why the Republican candidate in this race, Jean Senat Fleury, a Brookline Town Meeting Member and chair of Haitians for Trump, mysteriously dropped out of the race and endorsed Dr. Schwartz’s campaign, even being cited on his website endorsements page (Wayback Machine link).
I am proud to be a former member of the Newton Democratic City Committee’s Executive Committee, received more votes this March than anyone else running for the Newton Ward 5 Democratic Committee, and am supported by at least two current or past Ward 5 Democratic Chairs and the previous City Democratic Chair, with a clear track record of involvement in the local, state, and national Democratic Party. One of my unofficial roles as your next State Representative will be to continue the work of strengthening our Democratic Party, just as my predecessor has prioritized.
Every day in this campaign, I’m focused on the issues and specific policy proposals that matter to our voters and improving their lives, and I believe this year that is what people are looking for. I have sent out mail pieces that are specifically about education and childcare, climate and transit, our housing crisis, older adults and eldercare, reproductive rights and other issues facing women. I’m not interested in sending out context-free mail about all the reasons not to vote for my opponents. I wouldn’t be in the race if I didn’t think that there are differences between all of us. But we should be making our case on what we want to do in office, and we should be talking about substance. Our democracy is stronger and healthier when we approach our politics this way, instead of turning ordinary people off in disgust.
Investing in Public Arts & Culture
Unfortunately, a planned candidate forum with arts and culture professionals to talk about the public sector role in supporting the arts and other cultural activities in Massachusetts had to be canceled last week for scheduling reasons. But that’s no reason not to talk about the subject in a newsletter anyway! I have had an Arts, Culture, and Historic Preservation section on my campaign website since the day I got into the race! Additionally, I had attended a 2023 celebration of all the Mass Cultural Council grants awarded to artists residing in Newton from a wide array of artistic endeavors.
Arts, culture, and tourism are a $27 billion industry in Massachusetts, employing 130,000 people and often serving as the gateway introduction to Massachusetts for out-of-state skilled talent and business owners. Historic preservation is also a specialist, high-value jobs engine that maintains unique local character even as our state evolves.
I have been a lifelong supporter of public funding for arts and culture and a proponent of historic preservation. As a Newton City Councilor, I have served for over four and a half years on the Programs & Services Committee, which has the closest relationships with our Parks, Recreation, & Culture Commission and the Community Preservation Commission.
My late grandfather was a publicist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and my late grandmother was a Mass Art student and published a book of sketches of symphony members at work (as well as illustrating a children’s book).
Arts, culture, and recreational opportunities are often the things that give our lives meaning, purpose, aspiration, and ambition. They get some of us up in the morning. They give some of us something to look forward to at the end of each day or week. In some cases, the arts are our daily work, while in other cases cultural activities are a calling and passion that transcends labor and remuneration. Arts and culture fill our hearts and fortify our spirits. They should be by and for the people.
Our outgoing State Representative often worked closely with local officials and community members to address concerns at DCR-managed state parklands in our district, and I hope to continue that tradition. I am currently a board member of the Friends of Hemlock Gorge.
As a lifelong Newton resident and the son of a historian, I have a deep appreciation for local history and an understanding of the expenses required to preserve and maintain that history. As a Newton City Councilor, I supported reforms to the local landmarking ordinance and then successfully petitioned for local landmark status for the iconic Strong Block of Waban Square. I have supported zoning and regulatory reforms that make preservation more feasible from a cost standpoint to property owners by changing what they can do with their properties while protecting what already exists.
As your next State Representative, I’m excited to work on some of these less headline-grabbing but still very important policy issues like arts, culture, and history.
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.