In the 25th Middlesex District race for state representative in Cambridge, we have a choice between a candidate well-prepared to take on the political establishment and one who is a part of it. Marjorie Decker is a seven-term incumbent who holds a major leadership position in the House. The challenger is Evan MacKay, a former union president. Our Revolution Cambridge and Our Revolution Massachusetts urge you to vote for MacKay.
In more than a decade of organizing in Cambridge, McKay provided leadership to many movements: as an organizer and former president of UAW local 5118 (Harvard Graduate Student Union), co-chair of its national president Shawn Fain’s New England campaign, member of the executive boards of the Greater Boston Labor Council, the Massachusetts Sierra Club and Mass Peace Action. They also serve on the Cambridge LGBTQ+ Commission and are an elected officer of the Cambridge Democratic City Committee.
Although Massachusetts is a blue state with Democratic legislative leadership, the Legislature is among the worst in the country by important criteria:
Performance. It is the least productive in the country. Last year 8,456 bills were introduced, and seven were passed.
Transparency. Most bills are not made public until 48 hours or less before a vote. Decker voted repeatedly against making committee votes public, even speaking out against it in debate, although she has more recently changed her position, perhaps in response to public pressure. Many important bills still die without a public vote. MacKay supports greater transparency strongly and is endorsed by state auditor Diana DiZoglio.
Dominance of leadership. In the House of Representatives last year, 92.4 percent of Democrats voted with speaker Ron Mariano 100 percent of the time, even if a particular policy might not be right for their district or supported by their constituents. Think about that remarkable record. Ask yourself why that might happen. Ask yourself how the leadership could encourage that result. And think about the fact that Decker is part of the leadership and defends the operation of the House.
One example of Decker’s acquiescence to the establishment comes from former city councillor Quinton Zondervan, who reminds us that in 2022, she refused to file a home rule petition passed unanimously in the council because, she said, committee chair Jeffrey Roy wouldn’t hold a vote on it. The petition was to require fossil-fuel-free new construction in Cambridge. The petition didn’t need to be voted on, just filed, so Cambridge could join a program of 10 communities to pilot fossil-fuel-free construction established by state senator Mike Barrett. Despite that clarification, Decker would not file the petition, perhaps to avoid jeopardizing her relationship with Roy. Luckily for Cambridge, state representative Mike Connolly was able to file instead.
Under the present system, the speaker of the house determines a large portion of the salaries of each member, makes committee assignments and determines office space and parking spots. It is reasonable to believe that leadership uses the stipend and awards system for committee and other assignments to effectively control the behavior of members: Go along and you get the rewards; disobey and you are excluded and starved of personal resources.
Asked if she supported the citizen-led ballot initiative to overhaul and heavily regulate the legislative stipend structure on a 2026 Progressive Massachusetts questionnaire, Decker answered “no.”
Where the leadership has taken the House
One of the biggest gains for working people in recent years came from the Fair Share Amendment, passed by voters by ballot initiative in 2022. It was expected to raise billions of dollars, earmarked for public education and transportation.
The Legislature, with the support of Mariano and Decker, radically undermined the gains from Fair Share the next year by voting for a $1 billion annual tax cut that disproportionately benefited the very rich by reducing estate taxes, the state capital gains tax and corporate taxes.
Decker defends her vote because the bill also provided tax relief to low-income residents through an increase in the child and dependent tax credit. But the large tax cuts for the rich essentially cut major funding for education and transportation that would have benefited working people throughout Massachusetts. (Evan opposed this vote.)
Dark money funds
The big spending in elections is often “dark money,” that is, money from opaque sources not subject to the same filing deadlines and transparency as candidates themselves. In their 2012 campaigns for the U.S. Senate, candidates Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown took the first People’s Pledge against dark money. That reduced the influence of money in politics. MacKay supports the People’s Pledge and has repeatedly urged Decker to take it. Decker has refused each time.
MacKay ran against Decker in 2024 and lost by 41 votes. MacKay is now well-positioned to take on entrenched interests in the State House because they have a clear-eyed view of the problems and can be the “person on the inside” for our many movements – drawing strength and support from the diverse constituencies they represent. MacKay will bring energy and ideas to the fight for the rights of working people, immigrants, the LGBTQI+ community, low-income residents, unions and all of us who are not billionaires. Please join the Our Revolution groups, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, Progressive Mass, Mass Peace Action, the UAW, Act on Mass and Sunrise Boston and vote for MacKay in the primary on Sept. 1.
Rena Leib, Nancy Wechsler, Kathy Watkins, Henry Wortis, Andrew King and Carolyn Magid for Our Revolution Cambridge
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