An Aug. 20 article referred to misleading claims about state representative Majorie Decker’s record and the gendered nature of some of the attacks against her. We were unable to respond to an inquiry before publication. Here are examples of the misogyny surfacing in this race and the misrepresentations of Decker’s record, and a request that the same scrutiny be applied to challenger Evan MacKay’s own claims.
Misogyny
“Aggressive” isn’t inherently a misogynistic word. But used to describe a woman in leadership, it can carry real bias. Decker has heard this trope before. Women in politics face a familiar bind: The qualities that get male leaders praised as tough or decisive get women labeled aggressive, abrasive or difficult. A man who fights for his constituents is called a fighter. A woman who does the same is increasingly called a bully, a word rarely reached for when a man raises his voice or defends his record. We’ve heard from constituents that this is what MacKay canvassers are saying at the door, and it’s the same message that comes through when people stop us on the street and say Decker should just smile more.
This shows up in subtler ways too. Women’s records get flattened or erased even when the documentation is public and extensive; decades of legislative wins reduced to a single vote taken out of context, while a male colleague’s comparable record is taken at face value. We’ve seen this in letters published in this outlet, from people outside the district who don’t hold their own legislators accountable for the same votes they take issue with in Decker. And women in leadership are blamed frequently for institutional failures they didn’t create and don’t have the power to fix on their own – a speaker’s decisions, a chamber’s dysfunction, an entire Legislature’s dynamics – as if proximity to power were the same as possessing it. Decker made her committee votes public before rules required it, then pushed the reforms that made that access permanent and posted them on the Legislature’s website. Her opponent continues to campaign against the Legislature’s failings on the very issue she worked to fix.
None of this means every criticism of a woman in politics is sexist. But when the pattern repeats – passion recast as aggression, self-defense recast as bullying, a record erased, blame assigned for someone else’s failures – it’s worth naming as a pattern, not dismissing case by case.
Misleading claims about the record
There is also a pattern in the MacKay campaign’s messaging: Isolate a single vote and present it as representative of Decker’s values.
LGBTQ+ rights. A vote on a social media and school cellphone ban has been used to suggest Decker harmed LGBTQ+ youth. That omits key information that she helped organize successful opposition to remove the most harmful provisions with her colleagues in the LGBTQ+ caucus. She also was the lead architect of the Affirming Care Trust Fund, a first-in-the-nation public health trust that is a national model for supporting LGBTQ+ youth as the Donald Trump administration attacks their rights and the Department of Justice targets hospitals providing that care. She is a champion for LGBTQ+ rights and youth, which is why she has been endorsed and prioritized by MassEquality and Bay State Stonewall Democrats.
Same-day voter registration. A single procedural amendment vote has been used to suggest Decker opposes same-day registration, referenced on MacKay’s website, despite her full support and involvement in that fight when it mattered.
Right to shelter. One vote on eligibility requirements is cited to suggest she only “claims” to support the right to shelter. In fact, she fought the governor publicly when his administration moved to restrict access, was on the front page of The Boston Globe criticizing that decision, pushed House leadership and worked to change the underlying regulatory framework – advocacy recognized by the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, Massachusetts Legal Services, Massachusetts Law Reform Institute and Greater Boston Legal Services.
Private-jet fuel. The MacKay campaign claimed in 2024 that Decker supported tax breaks for private-jet fuel – apparently because she hadn’t co-sponsored a particular bill. No constituent, including MacKay (her constituent), had asked her to. When challenged, the campaign later offered a different rationale: a campaign contribution from someone who owned a jet. Neither establishes the claimed position; Decker had to research the origin of the claim herself.
The Protect Act. It’s characterized as a collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That omits that it was shaped over nine months by the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus with immigrant communities, advocates and lawyers, and included legislation Decker filed to protect immigrants from enforcement at courthouses and to block the Registry of Motor Vehicles and courts from sharing information with Ice. The retained 287(g) provision was a separate, harder policy question, kept as a harm-reduction measure after concerns about what would happen to people released from state custody. Voters don’t have to agree with that call, but they deserve to know why it was made rather than getting the most alarming possible reading of what is considered the strongest immigration-protection bill in the country.
Transparency. She’s portrayed as insufficiently committed to it, despite disclosing her committee votes for years before this became a campaign issue and working to change legislative rules to make votes public and accessible. Committee votes are now required to be public and accessible.
Tax credits for working families. A 2023 vote on a far-ranging tax package is presented as supporting a tax cut for the wealthy, without the context that she fought for a compromise with the governor to mitigate the cuts to short-term capital gains and secured increases to the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child and Family Tax Credit – real wins for working families.
These aren’t ordinary policy disagreements – they’re a pattern of selective framing that leaves voters with a materially inaccurate picture of her record and her values.
Same scrutiny should apply to MacKay
MacKay has repeatedly described themselves in debates and materials as living in Porter Square and at Linnaean and Garden streets, and as a labor leader and educator – claims that haven’t received comparable scrutiny. Three years into this campaign, voters should know the relevant context about MacKay’s status as a graduate student, including housing and employment circumstances. The labor claim in particular deserves a closer look: The Greater Boston Labor Council, where MacKay sits on the board, unanimously moved Decker’s endorsement forward to the state AFL-CIO, and SEIU 32BJ, SEIU 509, SEIU 1199, the AFL-CIO, Boston Teachers Union, AFT and other unions have organized and canvassed for her – facts that complicate the narrative that MacKay is the labor candidate.
The same journalistic scrutiny should apply to both campaigns’ claims. Taking a campaign’s framing, repeating it, and calling the result neutral because the other side didn’t respond to a comment request isn’t the same as investigating it.
What we ask
Apply equal scrutiny going forward – if MacKay cites a vote, examine the full legislative context; if MacKay makes a claim about legislation, housing, employment or labor leadership, examine the basis for it just as Decker’s record has been examined.
We’re not asking you to take our characterization of the race at face value – we’re asking you to check the record: the legislation, the votes, the regulatory history and the organizations and advocates who’ve actually worked on these issues. For two years, coverage of this race has too often started from MacKay’s framing and put our campaign in the position of reacting to it.
Voters deserve the full record of both candidates – not a version of MacKay stripped to what’s politically convenient, and not a version of Decker reconstructed from isolated votes, omissions and insinuations.
Juliana O’Neil
The writer is the campaign manager for the Committee to Elect Marjorie Decker.
