Very timely, considering U.S. Rep. Barney Frank’s announcement that the recent redistricting inspired him not to run again, MA Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz joined us on Left Ahead. Click the player below for her 33-minute show.
She dealt in three primary areas — redistricting (she was vice-chair of the special joint committee), the transgender-rights bill (she led in the Senate), and preventing school dropouts (she chairs the joint education committee). The short is that:
- She says they punished or protected no pol in reducing US House districts from 10 to 9
- The transgender law was eight years in the making, long before she won her first term, and she’s very thankful for it even without public-accommodation wording
- Her dropout bill (S.185) is part of a diverse effort to reverse the pattern of 8,000 MA high-school student each year leaving school forever
Listen in as she describes the redistricting process. She makes a convincing argument that politics played virtually no part in it. She talks about the high bar they had to reach in balancing the districts down to identical voter counts and keeping communities of interest together. She admitted that the committee members had a pretty good idea looking at the map what the implications would be, but that neither politics nor incumbents factored into the results. She did note that they were proud in the end to increase minority majority communities by 50% (2 to 3) in the Senate and 100% (10 to 20) in the House.
For the transgender law, she heaped praise on the many advocates who worked before her time and the legislators who joined them in the recent effort. She believes the public-accommodations portion will come, but can’t predict how quickly.
A true, continuing passion for this former public-school teacher is education and specifically dropouts. She spoke of one-on-one coaching, abetting parental involvement, early warning signs for intervention, and the role and limits of discipline methods in this effort. She does not look for a magic bullet, but adds that the solutions are known and possible.
“Playlist error!”
Maybe a momentarily bad connection to BTR? I can load it in FF, Chrome and IE. Try a reload or go to Left Ahead for our player.
She’s worth a listen.
n/t
To paraphrase —
“She’s really good at getting people together, like Barack Obama said he was going to do.”
No disrespect to Senator Chang-Diaz, but I suspect Obama would have an easier time getting people together with an overwhelming Democratic majority.
if he showed more support for widely popular core Democratic programs, e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, SS, and public education. He could foster enthusiasm for the Democratic party by holding accountable the megabanks who tanked our economy. Hmm, why doesn’t this happen? There’s a two-word answer: campaign contributions.
This comment is NOT a cheap shot. It has context.
I say the problem is deeper, and it begins with the whole “It’s the economy” philosophy. Campaign contributions to Obama are too numerous to be the answer.
Obama serves the interests of his big donors much more than he serves the interests of his on-the-ground campaign volunteers or the general public. This does not appear to be a coincidence.
Yes, there are ways in addition to campaign contributions that K Street asserts itself. I will grant that “influence by the rich and powerful few” would be more accurate than “campaign contributions”, which are a big part of the former.
It was interesting to hear the Senator at length.
There is Sonia’s hype and then there is the reality. Those following the redistricting work at the State House understand that decisions were made by the co-chairs of the Redistricting Committee, Stan Rosenberg and Mike Moran. Sonia may have been Vice Chair on the Senate side but her role was titular only. On the trans bill, Ben Downing did the work in the Senate with Reps. Byron Rushing and Carl Sciortino doing extraordinary work in the House. Sonia’s name was on the bill but she’s taking credit for work by others. There’s a history of her using that strategy; she may be perceived on the outside as a player but thats hype that those who follow the State House know isn’t real.
1. She never suggested she was the driving force behind redistricting. I think she made it pretty clear she only played a role in it. Redistricting was the central topic because that’s what Mike and I wanted to talk about.
2. She went out of her way to praise her collegues in the house and senate, leadership & the glbt community re: passage of the transgender rights bill.
You may or may not be right that she “takes credit” for the work of others, but you certainly haven’t proved it here. In fact, your examples are absurd as she goes out of her way to praise the very people you mention and make the point that these were big efforts that took a lot of effort by many people to get through. Perhaps instead of being dismissive you should consider every big bill that takes years of effort is always going to be a team effort and that all those “team members” deserve a little praise when they get it right, and at least not the straw man treatment.