Progressive Democrats of Cambridge - DFA - Elections - State House

Forum for State Senate Special Election

Sat, 05 May 2007 09:44:01 -0700

There's a forum coming up for the Democratic candidates in the special election to replace Sen. Travaligni. The forum's May 8; the primary is May 29. Details below.

DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FORUM

Special Election for Robert Travaglini's Senate Seat
The First Suffolk and Middlesex Senate District

Ask Questions of the Democratic Candidates Running
in the May 29, 2007 Primary Election

The Candidates are:

State Representative Anthony Petruccelli (East Boston)
http://www.anthonypetruccelli.com

City Councilor Daniel Rizzo (Revere)
http://www.danrizzo.org

Where: LBJ Apartments, 150 Erie Street, Cambridge

When: Tuesday, May 8, 2007, 7:00 – 8:30 P.M.

Last Day to Register to Vote: Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Sponsored by Cambridge Democratic City Committee

Two great events tonight: Dianne Wilkerson and Spike Lee

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 08:49:40 -0700

Cambridge, we've got some great events lined up for you tonight:

Drinking Liberally Boston hosts Dianne Wilkerson and Sonia Chang-Diaz as they explain to Second Suffolk voters why they should be the Democratic nominee for the Senate seat there. Our group has not endorsed anyone in the race. DL Boston will also show the Democratic gubernatorial debate on the big screen.

Drinking Liberally Boston
Every Wednesday, 6 pm onward
Globe Bar and Cafe, 565 Boylston, Copley Square, Boston
Wilkerson speaks at 6:30
Debate at 7
Chang-Diaz speaks at 8:30

When the Levees Broke, Spike Lee's documentary on Hurricane Katrina, will be showing at the Democracy Center tonight:

WHAT: When the Levees Broke" Parts 1 & 2 Viewing Party
WHEN: Wed / Sept 13 / 6PM
WHERE: The Democracy Center / 45 Mt. Auburn Street / Cambridge

"When the Levee's Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts" is a documentary by director Spike Lee. The film tells the story of Katrina's landfall, the aftermath, and the continued struggles survivors face --- all through the voices of survivors, government officials, and others who were involved.

Lee's film makes it clear that the real catastrophe of Katrina was not created by Mother Nature, it was created by people --- through neglect, politics and incompetence. We can see clearly how our government is failing the people of New Orleans and the Gulf coast. We all need to see this film for its comprehensive view of the human cost* of this tragedy that never needed to happen.

From now through September, "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts," will air on HBO. Lots of folks who want to see it don't have HBO, so MoveOn.org Civic Action and ColorofChange.org partnered to set up screenings throughout the country so everyone has a chance to see this important film.

Come to The Democracy Center on Wednesday, September 13th at 6PM to see the film and talk about it with others.

RSVP here.

* The film includes interviews and graphic images that may elicit emotional responses.

And don't forget: our monthly meeting is tomorrow night!

Dianne Wilkerson is out of touch and doesn't care about her constituents

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 11:01:38 -0700

In light of recent reports posted at Blue Mass Group, it appears I was wrong all along: Dianne Wilkerson is in fact out of touch, and just doesn't care about her constituents:

For four and a half hours Wilkerson spoke passionately about the people she represents and how they are dying from the environmental pollution in their communities. It was a remarkable speech, where she appealed to her colleagues to represent those people who can't afford lobbyists and have no one to speak for them on the Hill. She said: "we're supposed to be their lobbyist, that's what we're here for."

Speaking out against a sinister and often invisible problem that affects disempowered people disproportionately: check.

Four and a half hours filled with stories about her constituents: check.

A deep belief in fighting for her constituents, motivating a passionate speech delivered into the wee hours of Friday night: check.

Yep, sounds like someone who's deeply out of touch and needs to be unseated right away! A purely lazy and uncaring official! Go get her!

For a while now I've been pointing people who recite the standard "legal and ethical problems" line at this very long piece in Boston magazine which examines each of these problems in turn. Read that piece, and tell me that it's not a bit plausible that she is being subjected to a simple witch hunt.

I'm not saying that we have a clear case of conspiracy here; there's no evidence of that. On the other hand, something short of outright conspiracy can still have devestating impacts. Around Wilkerson, investigator smell blood, and when investigators smell blood, they attack. When someone is in a position of power and has poor personal finances, as Wilkerson does, there's blood in the water. (The whole string of issues appears to have begun in 1991, when Wilkerson did not have enough money to pay her income taxes.) Progressive leaders stretching back to Martin Luther King, Jr. and beyond have experienced just this problem in the past. While I don't necessarily think that anyone is out to "get" her, I do think the cumulative impact of all these investigations is simple: if you lack a lot of personal wealth, and get into power anyway, you're liable to get burned.

MassEquality joins Sen. Wilkerson's Re-Election Kickoff

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 10:46:34 -0700

Sen. Dianne Wilkerson is one of the best advocates for progressive values in the state house. She has been a stalwart supporter of marriage equality, an outspoken opponent of predatory lending, and a liberal radio talk show host.

Mass Equality is joining the Wilkerson campaign for its kick-off party, in order to thank her for her leadership on the issue of marriage equality. The event is this Thursday:

Re-election Kick-off Party for Dianne Wilkerson
Thursday, July 20
6 - 8 PM
Wilkerson Committee Headquarters
951 Tremont Street (between Massachusetts Avenue and Ruggles Station)
Boston, MA

I hope you can make it!

Recommend Sonia Chang-Diaz for DFA Endorsement

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:53:52 -0700

Sonia Chang-Diaz is running for State Senate in the Second Suffolk District (Boston/Brookline). Sonia is a strong progressive and a talented young woman who can bring a lot to the Massachusetts political community. She's trying to build support for a DFA Endorsement, so if you have a second, give her site on DFA your recommendation:

http://dfalink.com/campaign.php?id=1631 (click on "voice your support"; must be logged in)

If you don't know much about Sonia, a couple places to start are:

Sonia's website: http://www.soniachangdiaz.com/
Recent blog about Sonia and her opponent at the State Convention, on dfaboston.org: http://www.dfaboston.org/Mass/2006/06/week-in-politics-i-democratic-state.html

Please consider recommending Sonia for a DFA Endorsement. You don't have to be in Sonia's district for this, you can support her as a member of the DFA community.

Mass Scorecard Updated

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 06:23:56 -0700

Jesse Gordon, who's been recently named the Chief Troublemaker of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, today brings us great news: the Mass Scorecard has been updated to reflect the last two years' worth of votes in the state legislature.

If you don't know what the Scorecard is, you better find out! It's a systematic effort to "grade" our Democratic state legislators according to the policy positions set out in the Mass. Democratic party platform. Apparently, they are using the pre-2005 version of the platform. (In 2005, a strong anti-reformer movement led by the Mass. Dems. party leaders led a successful effort to cut many key provisions out of the party platform. Fortunately, a few renegade reformers were able to "copy" and "paste" the old platform to their computers before party insiders whisked it away.)

At any rate, the Scorecard is a wonderful resource for anyone who wants to hold their Democratic representative's feet to the fire. It's also a good way to put challengers on the record - by finding out how they would vote on the key votes listed in the scorecard.

For the record, here's how our Cambridge senators stacked up. The number in parentheses represent (number of pro-Platform votes / total number of votes):

Sen. Travaglini: A (9/9 votes)
Sen. Barrios: A (21/22 votes)
Sen. Tolman: A (21/22 votes)

Not bad, not bad at all.

Some perspective on the Wilkerson flap

Fri, 12 May 2006 08:12:34 -0700

Recently, the Boston Election Department declared that Dianne Wilkerson had fallen short of the 300 signatures needed to earn a spot on the Democratic primary for State Senate. Her Republican opponent, Samiyah Diaz, will run a sticker campaign to try and win the Democratic nomination as well as the Republican nomination.

Wilkerson is challenging the election department's refusal to certify some of her signatures. The departmen declared about 230 of the 491 signatures Wilkerson turned in; she is only 37 signatures short of qualifying for the ballot.

The Bay State Banner provides a good bit of perspective on this whole flap:

"The community will support her," [political activist Louis Elisa] said. "She's done a good job for them. She's very effective. There's no black person who's going to represent that district better than her."

That's essentially what I've suspected - this episode is a bit embarrassing for Wilkerson, but she'll win the sticker campaign and the general without any trouble. The Banner also discusses some of the pressures on Wilkerson's staff, which may have contributed to the signature problem:

Wilkerson's office, which has lost five staff members in the last year, is notorious for its high turnover.

"It's a challenging job," said one former staff member. "The hours are long. The needs of the district are great. The staff is driven to work longer and harder than most. Add to that the fact that the Senator is a hard worker and a perfectionist, and the problem is compounded."

A decent excuse, although really, I'm not sure why the job is delegated to staff. A team of five signature gatherers, with an hour or so of training from a staff member, can grab 300 signatures in a good afternoon. A sunny weekend is enough to get double that, in order to guard against invalidated signatures.

By the way, check out the Banner's "Roving Camera" feature this week: the question is "What is your opinion of the Bush administration?"; the responses range from "I think they’re doing a bad job" all the way over to "Bush is an idiot". Only two more years, folks. We can get through this!

Galluccio vs. Barrios in a world without time

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 08:57:30 -0700

There's been a little bit of a fracas lately over the Middlesex, Suffolk and Essex State Senate race lately.

Let's take it blow by blow, shall we?

A few days ago, our friend Jesse of View from the 'Bridge sent out an email to the Progressive Dems of Cambridge Yahoo group citing some self-described gossip in the Somerville News:

We heard some interesting items this week about the Anthony Galluccio -- Jarrett Barrios state Senate race. A source inside Congressman Mike Capuano's camp said Capuano is going to support Galluccio. We also heard ultra-liberal (and exptected Barrios supporters) state Rep. Carl Sciortino and state Rep. Alice Wolf are staying neutral. In February, Dan Cohen, progressive pollster for Sciortino and Senator Pat Jehlen campaigns, spoke on Galluccio's behalf at a Progressive Democrats of Cambridge meeting (By the way, does Cambridge really need more whacko liberals? Just a thought). Could the progressives be losing interest in Barrios? Could Galluccio actually have a chance at beating his old nemesis? NewsTalk has been told the local progressive posse has become disillusioned with Barrios and wouldn't mind seeing him struggle against Galluccio. Tune in to the statwide elections in November for the exciting conclusion.

There was a little back and forth on the email list about that. Then the Alewife chimed in, essentially copying Jesse's email word for word. Finally, this morning Jesse gave a bit more context to the whole debate.

Here's my take: the Somerville News is causing trouble, knowingly. Dan Cohen spoke at the PDC meeting when there was no one else in the State Senate race besides Anthony Galluccio. His view, or for that matter anyone's view, from late February doesn't have much relevance in the context of today's state Senate race, because the facts on the ground have changed. I don't presume to speak for Dan or anyone else, but you can't ignore changing circumstances. For similar reasons, I'd like to know more about when the Somerville News learned that Wolf and Sciortino decided to stay neutral - were they staying neutral when it the race was still a one-person race? Or did they decide to stay neutral more recently? Or is the Somerville News just making that tidbit up?

If you had asked me in late February, I would have said the Cambridge progressive community is warming up to Galluccio's candidacy. But that was before Barrios re-entered the race, and before the drunk driving story took on a mind of its own. Now, it's much more difficult to say. Barrios spoke at the DFA Cambridge meeting in March and received a very warm reception, so I'd hardly say that Cambridge progressives have turned on him. Of course, he was running for Middlesex DA back then. Barrios will speak at next week's PDC meeting about his state senate race, so that should give us a much better idea of what Cambridge progressives think of the race now that things have settled down a bit.

There is certainly some truth to what Jesse mentioned on his blog today: that some progressives are not too happy with Barrios's apparent pandering on the gang bill. But how many progressives, and how unhappy are they with it? Who knows? We progressives are a complicated bunch, and we like to look at the whole picture before making a decision.

Most likely, we'll see some DFA or PDC endorsement votes coming down the pike in a month or two, which should bring a lot more clarity to this whole discussion. Until then, keep your frickin' pants on!

Barrios leaves DA race; State Sen race gets CRAZY

Sun, 09 Apr 2006 04:48:29 -0700

It looks like our election season has gone from mildly interesting to downright crazy over the last couple of weeks.

Probably spurred by the allegations of drunk driving against Anthony Galluccio, three new contenders entered the State Senate race to replace Jarrett Barrios - Stephen Winslow, an attorney from Malden, Brian Smith of Charlestown, and David Cleveland. Cleveland is running as an independent. Later, Dennis Sullivan, an alderman from Somerville, entered the fray.

Last week, Jarrett Barrios dropped out of the Middlesex District Attorney race, after his opponent, Gerry Leone, was endorsed by both current Middlesex DA Martha Coakley and soemtime DA-contender and state rep. Mike Festa.

On the same day, he re-entered the state senate race, making it a four-person race. Sullivan then dropped out and endorsed Barrios.

Got all that? We've now got a three-person race (Barrios, Galluccio, Smith and Winslow) for the Democratic nomination in the Middlesex, Suffolk, and Essex State Senate race; and a fourth person (Cleveland) running as an independent.

There are rumors swirling that Winslow may drop his short-lived bid for the seat, but that remains uncertain.

Meanwhile, the dust has settled on the Middlesex DA race, and it appears that Leone will win the Democratic nomination, and probably the general election as well.

Competition for Galluccio

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:45:29 -0800

It looks like Anthony Galluccio will get a challenger or two in his State Senate bid to replace Jarrett Barrios:

Malden attorney Stephen Winslow and Brian Smith of Charlestown have each taken out nomination papers as Democrats to challenge Galluccio, while David Cleveland is running as an independent, Secretary of State William Galvin confirmed last night.

There's some discussion on the PDC list regarding Stephen Winslow, who appears to be a progressive cycling advocate. Is he a better candidate than Galluccio? We'll see.

To make matters worse for Galluccio, the Boston Police are considering charging him for drunk driving in light of the incident last December.

What happened in December - via Blue Mass Group

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 13:29:14 -0800

Blue Mass Group has had some really super posts and conversation lately about the Anthony Galluccio drunk driving story.

My take: I have none, really. I haven't seen the video, and I obviously wasn't at the scene. Galluccio sounded sincere the other day when he talked about the incident, but I haven't heard the other side's story (and there appear to be several other sides), so it's not entirely fair yet. Most interestingly, the Boston police officer at the scene appears to not be talking, and in some ways that may be the most useful info we can get.

One thing I should emphasize is that, if his remarks the other night are any indication, Galluccio is not stepping out of the race. He remains dedicated to running for the State Senate race (as of Thursday night).

Given all of this, we should at least be forward-thinking about what we as liberals want out of this race. Here are some basic questions to ask:

What he said the other night notwithstanding, will Galluccio really stay in the race?
Will a challenger emerge from the left, e.g. Marjorie Decker or Alice Wolf?
Will a challenger emerge form the right?
Will there be a conclusive finding to what happened in December? What will it show?

For example, suppose a conclusive investigation finds that Galluccio was driving drunk in December, and further that a challenger emerges from the right (which I've been hearing rumors about for a little while now.) What then? Do we get behind Galluccio or stay neutral? Suppose Galluccio steps out and a right wing challenger emerges? And so on. It's time to think three or four months into the future.

Anyway, here's a run down, in reverse chronological order, of the various Blue Mass Group posts on this issue. You may want to check out the comments also; in some cases there are actual eyewitness accounts. Pretty cool.

Herald: Galluccio was busted for drunk driving in 1984, later pardoned

Driver of car hit by Galluccio says that Galluccio was drunk, tried to leave scene of accident

DFA Cambridge Questions Galluccio

Galluccio Attended Drunk Driving Panel

Would-be Senator Anthony Galluccio faces reopened drunk driving inquiry

What happened in December, Anthony?

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 07:55:27 -0800

That was the question Sam Seidel asked Anthony Galluccio at yesterday's Progressive Democrats of Cambridge meeting, regarding an allegation that he was driving drunk at the time of an auto accident last December.

Galluccio's response: it was a minor incident, he made sure that no one was injured and that everyone was compensated (and that sort of thing), and that he wasn't drunk but stunned by the airbag. (I'm paraphrasing from a rather vague set of statements, here.) He claims the Boston policeman on the scene wasn't aware he was a Cambridge city councillor, or at any rate didn't treat him gently because of it. "I hate to say it, but when I walk the streets in Boston, they're not throwing rose petals at my feet," he said. He thinks the folks making noise about this incident now were motivated either monetarily or politically.

On the issues, Galluccio came out swinging on health care (for a single-payer system, and in lieu of that, one which requires more of the business community than Trav's proposal); gay marriage (for gay marriage, will vote against the anti-gay marriage initiative); municipal electricity (for it, will encourage Bob Healey to pursue it, and will vote to remove restrictions the state places on cities owning public electric utilities); immigrant voting (for it), and for that matter all manner of increasing the access to the vote. He also says that he now supports rent control. Dan Cohen, the consultant/pollster/wonderboy for Carl Sciortino, Pat Jehlen, Tim Schofield, and who knows how many other progressives, also spoke on Galluccio's behalf.

Galluccio also said that if elected, he would not seek re-election to council in 2007.

I was impressed by Galluccio's passion and his positions last night. It seems that nearly everyone else in the room was as well. However, I'm reserving (my personal) judgement for a later date.