Katherine Clark embodies the best combination of progressivism, effectiveness, experience, and leadership among an extremely able group of challengers for the Democratic primary one week from today. I will vote for her and urge you to do so too. This will likely be an extremely tight election — a few hundred votes here and there may be the margin of victory — which makes it exciting and underlines the importance of activists. It also emphasizes the broad divisions of preference: I speak only for myself and not for my esteemed co-editors David and Charley, who have yet to decide who they support.
Clark reached out to BMG, set down with us, and made her case. She stressed, first, her record of legislative achievement as a member of the House from 2008 to 2011, and to the present in the Senate. Wikipedia’s neutral point of view backs her claims: her record demonstrates substantive accomplishments in the public interest, a focus on issues like education, children, and domestic safety too often neglected by government, a realistic understanding of the point at which ideals meet reality, and the ability to lead her legislative peers to constructive ends:
In 2011 she was co-chair of the Joint Committee on Public Service, where she was lead author of the Senate version of a bill to reform municipal pensions. For her work in 2011, she received legislator of the year awards from the Massachusetts Municipal Association and the Massachusetts Police Association. In 2012 she authored a law that takes steps to ensure that all Massachusetts students are reading at grade level by third grade. Also in 2012, her bill extending restraining orders in domestic violence cases to also cover victims’ pets, which are often used as pawns in abusive relationships, was signed as part of a larger law on animal shelters. In 2013 she co-sponsored a bill expanding the state’s wiretapping authority, which was strictly limited under existing law, in order to help police better investigate violent street crime. At the same time, she co-sponsored a bill to secure electronic privacy protections, requiring police to have probable cause before investigating the electronic records of individuals. She filed another bill tightening sex offender laws, imposing stricter penalties and making offender data more accessible to agencies and the public. The Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts honored Clark as their 2013 Legislator of the Year for her service on women’s issues.
Privacy advocates will be heartened by her co-sponsorship of “An Act updating privacy protections for personal electronic information” as co-chair of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary — legislation to which the ACLU gave “its strongest support.” Realists will accept the need for updates to the state’s wiretapping laws to reflect changes in technology exploited by violent criminals, con artists, and similar reprobates. Esteemed BMGer Marthews’ excellent analysis “Who’s Best on Surveillance Issues Among The MA-5 Democratic Candidates?” ranks Clark squarely on the progressive side of the slate, a bit behind Rep. Carl Sciortino and Martin Long, but more willing to rein in state authority than Sen. Karen Spilka, Sen. Will Brownsberger, and Sheriff Peter Koutoujian.
Second, Clark brings a balanced record of experience: Melrose school committee member, General Counsel for the Massachusetts Office of Child Care Services, and prosecutor and Chief of the Policy Division for the Massachusetts Attorney General. She is well equipped to learn quickly in Washington.
Finally, and perhaps most important in a race where many candidates are strong on the issues and have significant legislative and administrative experience, she is a passionate advocate and natural leader. The panoply of awards cited above and her ability to garner national attention are testimony to her charisma and ability to connect with both voters and fellow office-holders. Her ably managed campaign has arguably mounted the strongest district-wide effort — as opposed to dividing constituents into local strongholds — and has built an effective field operation: a critical achievement. As ably as we have been served by the existing political order, Massachusetts needs new voices who speak directly to the concerns of younger voters, women, and new members of the Commonwealth. Clark offers the most compelling balance of articulate leadership, progressive accomplishment, and realism. She is the best Democratic choice for Congress.
Is this strictly a Bob Neer endorsement or the editors? You used the first person plural on several occasions but posted under your own byline.
he is speaking only for himself.
But if there remains any doubt, David is correct. 🙂
Guess I missed the first paragraph in my first read, so my apologies there. Well written endorsement and I look forward to hearing from the other editors soon.
I have severe reservations about the wiretapping bill, but am impressed with the breadth of support she seems to have across the district, particularly all the elected officials and progressive activists who are backing her in Cambridge (School Committee member and council candidate Marc McGovern, activist and councilor Sam Seidel, school committee candidate Kathleen Kelley, Peace Comissioner Brian Corr and State Rep Marjorie Decker). My parents will be moving to Melrose soon and it seems she has done a lot for her community there. It still seems like a wide open race but I’d say she has a slight lead, and will proudly support her if she is the nominee.
the winner of this primary, whoever she or he is.
And I’m not always able to say that.
I’ve been clear about that from the beginning. I think all are good options. Clark’s wiretap bill and Brownsberger’s maverick stances are outliers, the entire field has solid progressive voting records at the State Legislature. I’ve been pretty honest that the reason I want Peter to lose the primary is so he stays on as sheriff where he has done an outstanding job (same reason Barney Frank wanted Kevin White to lose his races for higher office). Though one could make that argument about the other four as well-we might need them in the legislature more.
The low risk of entering the field led to a crowded and exciting field and a relatively civil campaign. I have a private opinion of who I would vote for if I lived in the district, but I think I will keep it private. Safe to say the winner of this race will get my full support.
Since the Clark campaign was kind enough to mention my analysis of the race from a surveillance voter’s point of view, I should note that the initial rankings were based on full responses from five candidates and incomplete responses from two (Spilka and Maisano). The Spilka campaign has now responded in full, and in consequence, she now ranks equally with Sciortino and Long. Clark is still ahead of Brownsberger, Koutoujian and Maisano, but if the Maisano campaign ever submits complete responses, he may or may not rank ahead of Clark.
It would still be fair to say that Clark’s effective endorsement of the Surveillance State Repeal Act and stated opposition to all government mass-wiretapping programs mean that she does rank ahead of Brownsberger or Koutoujian, whose responses on that legislation were noncommittal. But her sponsorship of the electronic wiretapping bill, which we strongly oppose, inevitably means that she will rank behind Sciortino, Long, and now Spilka.
The Equal Rights Amendment has been introduced into every Congress since it failed to achieve ratification 30 years ago. Equal rights for women will remain an unrealized ideal for American women if members of Congress do not make passage of the ERA a national priority. By electing more qualified women to Congress, American women will have a stronger voice in matters of gender equality. How long must women wait their turn?
I don’t think it’s a fair statement to imply that other candidates don’t or wouldn’t support the ERA and other legislative priorities that fall under the umbrella of “women’s issues.” In fact, I’d be surprised if any of the primary candidates would oppose it.
It seems like enacting legislation on things like equal pay and the like, which is easier than amending the Constitution, as well as applying the already existant equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, would be sufficient to accomplish the same ends.
BUT, there’s actually a significant amount of scholarly debate over whether the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause actually does prohibit laws that discriminate on the basis of gender/sex. Justice Scalia, for one, has said clearly that he doesn’t believe it does. Other conservative Justices – including Chief Justice Roberts – who argued against applying the 14th Amendment to the issue of same sex marriage have said they think the 14th Amendment is primarily about racial discrimination and *not* a broad protection for all citizens as the raw text might suggest. This means it would not prohibit gender/sex discrimination either.
Meanwhile, enacting legislation can be very helpful but it’s certainly easier than amending the Constitution. But any law can be repealed, amended, or remain unenforced.
I think it’s obvious that a Constitutionally protected right is far more powerful and enduring than a mere federal law?
The clear prohibition is to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law”. It doesn’t even use the word citizen and I am not aware of any argument that a woman was not considered a person. Yes, race was probably at the forefront of the minds of the amendment’s drafters, but the only male reference comes in another paragraph specifically to the franchise, which of course was later guaranteed to women via the 19th amendment.
I support it and think it would make
iron tight commitment to gender equality that shoul be ironclad in te Constitution. It would also strengthen marriage equality’s constitutionality and inevitability on a truly federal scale. I would want progressives to continue to fight for it.
But Christopher is right that there are more implementable policies we could back now. Our next Congressman will need to be able to fight for the right principles while being pragmatic about policy.
Justice Antonin Scalia, Scott Brown’s “ideal justice,” doesn’t think the 14th Amendment protects women from sex discrimination. Speaking at California’s Hasting College of the Law, Scalia said, “Nobody thought it (the 14th Amendment) was directed at sex discrimination.” Existing statutory remedies against gender-based discrimination would be strengthened if their authority were based on the Constitutional principle of equal rights. Right-wing shibboleths about women in combat, same-sex washrooms, scriptural dictates, and marital protections used to fight ratification of the ERA have gone by the boards. Those who roll their eyes at “women’s rights” as not a priority or as annoying political correctness should think hard and long. We can’t make progress if half of us are held back. It’s time to consider gender-based discrimination as great a moral evil as race-based discrimination.
And ERA should be used as a rallying goal for progressives across the country and should once again be a litmus test for Democrats in national (including Presidential) primaries. I definitely don’t want us to continue to drop the ball on it or pretend it was a 1970s-80s idea that doesn’t galvanize today.
That said, it is dead on arrival in this Congress. So what else can our Representative do in the meantime? I was heartened by Steve Grossman’s sick leave post yesterday and want Massachusetts to be a leader and feel we can push Family Leave and Paid Maternity and Paternity leave nationally. There are a lot of Christian groups (look at Moral Mondays in North Carolina) that can push this with us and maybe draw social conservatives. In my mind there are fewer issues as cut and dry as that one, and its a golden issue where we can look both more ‘pro-family’ and economically progressive than the right. I can think of few issues that are more pro-woman either.
Much like marriage equality was a family friendly way of framing gay marriage, perhaps we can come up with better language for the ERA or do more to let working women know why it’s relevant in their lives and not a mere Ivory Tower concern or cause. But all people should back it.
I am really unhappy with Clark’s loan of $250,000 to her campaign. She is following in Coakley’s footsteps. When Martha ran for the Senate, she finished the primary with a large campaign debt. So, instead of raising money to beat Scott Brown, she actually just raised money to pay her debts.
Katherine Clark has a similar history of irresponsible campaign finance tactics, and she is using many of the same fundraising people that advised Coakley.
Clark is running her Congressional campaign with a large debt. If she wins the primary, she will not be able to raise/spend money to defeat her Republican opponent. Instead, she will be raising money to pay off her loan to herself.
Those tactics are irresponsible. I dislike Katherine Clark. I sure hope that she will not be my next Congressperson.
Not to let the facts get in the way of your ridiculous analogy but nothing you say here is actually true. The facts are:
– Coakley raised over $4 million for the bruising Democratic primary.
– She had about half a million still in the bank after the primary.
– She raised and spent another $5 million in the six week general election against Brown.
– Though Brown raised millions in the final two weeks of the general, he outspent Coakley just $8.7 million to $5 million.
– That disadvantage – as always in a high profile race – was made up for by the fact that the Democratic party spent over $4 million for Coakley in the general while the GOP spent $0.
The Brown/Coakley race was lost on the ground, because of the relative strengths of the candidates, and because of national politics related to the debate over Obamacare. Coakley didn’t lend her campaign any money, didn’t have any primary campaign debt and didn’t lose to Brown because of money/fundraising.
All that said, even if you were at all correct about your facts, the idea that Clark (or whomever wins the primary) will have any difficulty at all against (probably) Tom Tierney is complete fantasy. This race is about the primary alone.
You’re free to support Koutoujian as passionately as you’d like but your tactics here are irresponsible and wildly inaccurate. I dislike them.
And just because they are both women and political allies with similar backgrounds does not mean they are running similar campaigns. I have strong reservations about Clark’s wiretap bill and am concerned she would have voted with Kennedy and against Amash-Conyers. That said, it’s hard to argue she isn’t running a brilliant campaign and is a strong frontrunner for precisely the reasons Coakley was a terrible candidate. She is personable, progressive while appearing more moderate and seasoned, and has a strong rapport with women. I think she is connecting in a way Coakley didn’t.
I’ve stated elsewhere I have no horse in this race, though I’ve long admired Brownsberger and Sciortino (sad to see them bash each other so frequently though). But can’t say Clark is a Coakley clone. It’s unfair to her.
For what it’s worth, Clark has pledged that she would vote for the Amash amendment, as have all the candidates except Brownsberger and Maisano.
For what it’s worth, Clark has pledged that she would vote for the Amash amendment, as have all the candidates except Brownsberger and Maisano.
That’s sort of incongruous with the bill she is sponsoring and she should’ve been questioned about that inconsistency. Saying you oppose broad survelliance powers at the federal level while not only supporting but leading the effort to enact them at the state level is quite odd and unsettling. I’d actually have more respect for her if she opposed Amash and defended her bill. That is intellectually consistent. This seems like posturing to me.
Especially since the point of the Amash Amendment was to just fire a shot across the bow of the NSA. It almost passed, with almost 50% of the vote. One vote more or less, it would not have made any difference. The ship was stopped, until more detailed legislation is being prepared – and that’s what matter.
In fact, I suspect some Congressmen changed their vote from Yes to No when the warning shot appeared destined to sink the ship of NSA.
For what it’s worth, I am and have been very critical of the NSA surveillance, and have blogged and posted in extenso at the grass roots on the Lexington lex-polrel mailing list, sparring and discussing the matter with friends and acquaintances.
My vote will go to Will Brownsberger, who is simply the most thoughtful in the race, on NSA surveillance and on most other topics as well.
Incidentally, he is the only one in the race who stated that he will seek to have the Administration go through Congress for approval for any future military adventure, be it the next Iraq invasion or the next Syria air force strike.
This is a fight about process, and not about who brags loudest – and to understand the process and the points of pressure you need a Congressman or woman with the background knowledge and with the stamina to follow on this and one thousand other policy issues big and small, each with its own quirks and details. Simple posturing does not do it for me.
I’ve been super busy volunteering for Katherine’s campaign in Malden, as well as working on signature gathering for RaiseUp MA — so I’ve gotten behind on my BMG reading — just stumbled on this very thoughtful and informative endorsement this morning. Thanks for posting, Bob!