To many outside observers, Massachusetts is a progressive oasis and a paragon of forward thinking, cooperation, and open-mindedness. The coastal commonwealth boasts the highest Human Development Index of any state at 0.956, the most highly-educated population of any state with 52.4% of adults possessing an associate’s degree or higher, and the highest approval ratings in the nation simultaneously for its Democratic supermajority legislature and Republican governor.
Beneath the surface, however, Massachusetts is an alarming example of a government bent on separating itself from the people it serves. Massachusetts public and exam schools are still intensely segregated, and not only is Boston considered one of the least welcoming major cities to people of color in the U.S., but a now-infamous study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston also found that Boston’s white households had an average net worth of $247,500 to non-immigrant Black households’ $8.
With such glaring inequity, how does the state government, which has remained unresponsive on these (and many other) issues, enjoy such high support?
The most likely explanation is that constituents simply don’t know what’s going on. OpenStates determined the Massachusetts state legislature to be the least transparent in the country according to six different metrics. This disconnect breeds complacency among the “haves” and apathy among the “have-nots,” depressing voter turnout and setting the government further in its clandestine ways.
A new slate of progressives is rising to challenge this status quo, but the battle they will fight is uphill and marred with obstacles, oftentimes systematic and intentional. In order to rally their base behind a new vision, one that will challenge their deeply-held views about the impossible or unnecessary nature of reforming the political system, they will need to demonstrate their ability outside of the political sphere. In short, if they are to win, progressives will need to put politics second and community first.
The Waiting Game
In 2020, a large field of candidates vied for the Democratic nomination vacated by former Rep. Joe Kennedy III. Among almost a dozen self-proclaimed progressives, Jake Auchincloss stood out, proudly calling himself an “Obama-Baker” Democrat. Auchincloss would go on to win the race (albeit with less than a quarter of the vote), and his chosen moniker resonated with many in the Bay State, where Republican Gov. Charlie Baker enjoyed 90% support among Democrats for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in August 2020. The defeats of progressive causes, including ranked-choice voting in 2020, and candidates, including Juan Jaramillo in 2021, would tend to support the idea that moderation is the name of the game.
But Massachusetts’ trend towards the “sensible center” is not driven by the thoughtful, consensus-minded voting that moderates tend to claim. Baker’s first gubernatorial victory in 2014, for which Rep. Auchincloss controversially switched parties to support the Republican’s campaign, saw voter turnout below 51%. Only one in every six eligible voters voted in that year’s state primary.
Even the state legislature, one of the most lopsided in the nation in terms of partisan composition, sees low constituent engagement and treats it as an endorsement. When all 40 state senators in Massachusetts ran for reelection in 2020, only two were defeated, but only 10 even faced a challenge in the general election. Incumbency has become the defining characteristic of Massachusetts politics, with state elections becoming less and less competitive every cycle.
Christine Crean, a retired social worker and Democratic State Committee member from the Worcester & Norfolk state senate district, experienced this incumbency trench firsthand when she challenged Sen. Ryan Fattman in 2020. “The problem with incumbents,” said Crean in an interview with the HPR, “besides name recognition, is money. It buys advertisements, it buys materials, and it buys help.”
But the often prohibitively high costs of running a campaign aren’t the only roadblocks for challengers such as Crean. “Some politicians get into power and they can be almost bullying, intimidating.” She recalled approaching local figures for support and being turned away: “the fear is if [the incumbent] wins and I don’t, and he supports me … he didn’t want to be retaliated [against] or have a problem.”
And this fear of retaliation has woven itself not just into the fabric of state elections, but into the halls of Beacon Hill, where the Speaker of the House commands the supermajority essentially at their whim. In January 2019, 63 Democratic representatives voted in lockstep against a procedural measure when the Speaker accidentally voted against it, eventually switching their votes when the Speaker realized his error.
Fear of stepping out of line has turned the closed-door machinations of the state government into a veritable comedy of errors, with little being accomplished in the chamber. In the 190th General Court from 2017-2018, the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security killed all but one of their 275 bills before they could have a floor vote, while none of the 157 bills received by the Joint Committee on Housing made it to the floor. With no records of committee votes and untraceable voice votes increasingly taking the place of roll calls, the stranglehold of tradition and hierarchy continues to hold back meaningful progress in the state.
With most bills never seeing the light of day based on the discretion of a small circle of individuals, and a fear of speaking out ingrained both in legislators and their constituents, progressives’ fight to break the status quo and implement lasting change may seem in vain.
But progressives can’t give up hope. They just need to start small.
Everything is Relational
If the primary dysfunction of Massachusetts state government is its disconnect from the people it serves, then the primary solution should be to fuse the two by electing officials who serve their community both in and out of the halls of power.
Local organizing is already a backbone of the progressive agenda, but in the current political atmosphere, purely election-oriented institutions are losing their legitimacy. If reformists are to gain power and truly enact change, they will need to organize with electoral success as a secondary goal. Just as electoral success must be a means to pursuing progressive values, organizing must be a channel for values first and elections second.
This is part of the mission that Lauren Wilton, chair of the Milford Democratic Town Committee, outlined in an interview with the HPR. “We don’t want to just be the people that show up with signs outside the polling stations. We really want to engage in our community.”
Wilton’s engagement started with campaigning to rename Milford’s “Board of Selectmen” as the “Select Board,” but Wilton and the Milford DTC have continued being advocates for progressive values year-round, coordinating lawn signs for Pride Month, educating about the dangers of the Hopkinton Dam, and advocating for household composting.
According to Wilton, this, more than any campaign or election, is her party’s mission. “Democrats want to help the community… That’s really what we’re trying to accomplish.”
Crean seconded Wilton’s sentiment. “I think that’s the most important thing: the relationship building, the community infrastructure, and being committed to living our ideals, not just talking about them.”
“Action over talk” was a unifying theme of the 2020 election season, where progressive wins across the commonwealth breathed new life into the leftist cause. Community organizer Adam Gomez, the only successful primary challenger in the state senate election, unseated a five-term incumbent, and the election of Act on Mass co-founder Erika Uyterhoeven to the state house has reanimated the push for greater transparency on Beacon Hill. The successes of these candidates (especially Uyterhoeven, the prominent endorsee of the Boston Democratic Socialists of America) should represent the changing tides of state politics, and a greater desire for a more engaged fusion between representative and constituent.
In 2020, this fact was on full display in the Third Bristol District, where newly-elected Rep.Carol Doherty engaged her community organizing apparatus to win four consecutive elections in the span of ten months.
Doherty’s opponent in the two general elections she contested was Kelly Dooner, the Massachusetts State Committeewoman for the Young Republicans. Doherty was a member of the local school committee, but Doherty’s first career was as an educator, and she began developing her political presence through leadership of local teachers’ unions, including two terms as President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association.
But more than her opponent’s, Doherty’s campaign was a local one, explicitly tailored to the needs of the Third Bristol District. After winning the Democratic nomination in February 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Doherty to develop new ways of getting out her message, and Conversations with Carol and Friends was born.
“I created a Facebook Live,” said Doherty in an interview with the HPR, “that allowed me to focus on a particular topic, once a month, and invite people to listen, and those videos are still up on my Facebook page.” Doherty’s original “Conversations” were focused on the pandemic: “It was talking with the nurses and talking about PPE and talking about things that really focused on people’s concerns and interests.” Other early guests included teachers, local business leaders, students, and higher education professionals discussing the impacts of the pandemic.
Doherty continued producing the livestreamed conversations even after her election, discussing local issues such as charter reform and the proposal of a local sewage gasification plant, and welcoming guests such as former Gov. Michael Dukakis.
And Doherty’s “pivot” worked. She earned widespread support from organized labor, who consistently showed up to help her phonebank and drop campaign literature. But even as organizers from across the state rallied to Doherty’s cause to fill the formerly-Republican seat, her campaign still focused locally.
“It’s really important that people know that you are a part of the community. It’s not a resume, a piece of paper with ‘I graduated from, I participated in,’ but it is the way in which you speak about yourself and your beliefs and your value set.” And that value set, first sparked in her by watching John Cameron Swayze with her parents, remains her driving force in government. “Whatever it is that I happen to be advocating for in the legislature, it’s my responsibility to translate that into local language.”
Power to the People
In order to create a government that is truly accountable to the people, that government must be of the people, not just for it. The “old guard” must be removed, and new, energetic leaders with strong connections to their communities and the issues they face must be allowed to replace them. Progressive leadership must be built from the ground up. Community must come first.
On the outer reaches of “Greater Boston” sits the city of Taunton, a microcosm of Massachusetts at large. Taunton Democrats outnumber Republicans three to one, but a Republican executive controls the city. Deeply-entrenched incumbents of both parties control local elected boards. And despite a rapidly growing minority population, of the 33 elected officials in the city, executive and legislative, all are white, and only five are women.
Taunton, therefore, is a useful example for how local organizing can work statewide.
In 2020, following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a group of residents banded together to create the Taunton Diversity Network. Since then, the TDN has organized local events ranging from protests to community clean-ups to youth forums to cultural fairs, and at every event, the TDN has staffed a voter registration table.
And now, one of the group’s founders, CJ Daye, is running for City Council.
2020 was an eye-opening year for a lot of people, especially in Taunton, Daye told the HPR. “You really got to see things a lot clearer because you had nothing but time to look at it. Everyone’s eyes were a lot more open, and it gave a window for change.”
Now, Daye’s campaign, much like the TDN, is committing to increasing voter turnout and engaging new voters in the political process. “It starts by just understanding, ‘Hey, my vote matters here.’ That’s been my goal, to really invigorate a new base of people to go out and vote and understand that their vote matters … and that they can make a difference. If you don’t feel that you can make a difference, you’re not going to go out and vote. You’re not.”
“People have to understand … how much power there is in the people,” says Daye. “There’s so much power there, and if you get enough people organizing enough people…it’s contagious.”
But the cornerstone of Daye’s philosophy is that community-building should be an optimistic exercise. “If you put out positivity in the air, positivity is going to come back.” Enacting positive change can only happen through the belief that change is possible.
Across the Commonwealth, however, the foreshocks of change are beginning to be felt. Boston seems set to elect a female mayor, and the State Senate’s sole woman of color has announced her candidacy for governor. Activist groups are mobilizing behind transparency, climate protection, youth engagement, and the Fair Share Amendment. And in Taunton, new voters, long disillusioned by a distant government, are engaging with politics for the first time.
Massachusetts is moving forward. And progress, like Daye says, is contagious.
Image by Aubrey Odom is licensed under the Unsplash License.
