The candidates vying for state senator Pat Jehlen’s seat in the 2nd Middlesex District agreed at a Tuesday forum that big reforms are needed in the state Legislature – and that there are better practices in place on the Cambridge and Somerville city councils and even in Nebraska than what’s seen now on Beacon Hill.
Dominating discussion at the forum was the end of “bill bundling” into giant, make-or-break omnibus bills, and the State House’s leadership pay structure. The forum near Harvard Square was organized by the Cambridge Committee for Transparency and Accountability, Act on Mass and the Coalition to Reform Our Legislature.
“If people aren’t willing to work, then we need to change the system entirely,” candidate Matt McLaughlin said.
Replacing Jehlen in November, when she retires after more than two decades, has drawn six candidates, twice the number of the next biggest local races in the 34th Middlesex District and Suffolk and Middlesex District; neighboring districts in the 24th, 25thm 26th and 27th Middlesex are head-to-head matchups.
The Democratic candidates are Cambridge vice mayor Burhan Azeem, 34th Middlesex District representative Christine Barber, Winchester School Committee member Tom Hopcroft, Somerville city councilor McLaughlin and 27th Middlesex District representative Erika Uyterhoeven. A sixth candidate, Cantabrigian Neheet Trivedi, left the race June 2 with an endorsement of Azeem.
Primary voting is Sept. 1. With no Republican or independent candidate identified for the general election, the winner of this primary is likely to take the seat.
The secrecy of committee voting remained an issue Tuesday, as it has during past forums in this series. Omnibus bills have been defended by incumbents during the campaign season as a way to move rapidly through mountains of legislation, but criticized by challengers because the practice lets committees bury hundreds of pieces of proposed legislation without the accountability of public votes.
An idea out of Nebraska
Candidates in the forum favored requiring separate, recorded votes, and were asked to pledge public votes in any committee they chaired.
Azeem went further, suggesting the current State House structure was built from the ground up to concentrate power by asking the audience to imagine a system designed to be “the least transparent legislature that existed.” He called bundling the final step in preventing lawmakers from debating the merits of individual issues.
Uyterhoeven thought the Legislature could take a lesson from Nebraska. Historically, the Midwestern state has offered a better model, she said.
That state’s legislature must take a clean vote each session on bills chosen as priorities by lawmakers; each gets one. Introducing a similar rule in Massachusetts, Uyterhoeven argued, would force high-stakes issues such as Medicare for All or climate justice to the floor, bypassing the clutter of a system in which 7,000 bills are filed in a single week. Accountability could be ensured through a robust amendment process, she said.
Reforms and transparency
The candidates seeking to move up from city and town bodies also had reforms – or at least promises of transparency – to offer the state Legislature.
“There’s a lot of good work that needs to be done in the State House. Cambridge and Somerville have really been leading in a lot of ways, and I think the House missed out on that energy and could really use a strong, progressive voice,” Azeem said.
The Somerville council is more transparent than the Legislature, McLaughlin said, and as council president he’s vigorously enforced open meeting law; as a candidate he was eager to sign The People’s Pledge, an effort to reduce “dark money” campaign expenditures. “I often tell people, when you judge a politician, don’t judge them based on what they say they’re going to do; judge them based on what they have done,” McLaughlin said.
Hopcroft said he got into the race because of issues he encountered as a parent that the state was failing at. “In schools, in health care, in mental health and in insurance, things just weren’t working for me. There were areas I was concerned about that we’re not addressing,” he said.
Legislative pay structure
Debate also turned to the State House’s leadership pay structure. Candidates were asked whether they approve of the system of base pay and leadership stipends in which dozens of committee chairs get cash bonuses, including 12 chairs whose committees hold no public hearings.
As the only candidate holding a nonpaid political role, Hopcroft agreed the system operates on a flawed, “pay-to-play” model and voiced support for normalizing legislative salaries, but noted the massive workload of public service and stopped short of calling for a ban on stipends. He agreed with criticism of handing out bonuses to chairs of committees that never hold public hearings.
In McLaughlin’s view, legislative pay could run more like in Somerville: equalized by eliminating leadership stipends, with staff serving committees independently to build objective expertise and reduce centralized power.
Barber defended certain stipends while calling for an end to political favoritism. As a chair of the Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, Barber argued that committees handling high volumes of legislation require intense research and hours of hearings that justify additional compensation.
She agreed that reform is needed urgently to eliminate payouts for inactive committees and advocated for an overhaul of how leadership hands out committee assignments.
About the race districts
The 2nd Middlesex (a state Senate seat held by Pat Jehlen, in the office since 2005 but is retiring) includes the cities of Somerville and Medford; and parts of Cambridge and Winchester. Sought by: Burhan Azeem, Christine Barber, Tom Hopcroft, Matt McLaughlin, Erika Uyterhoeven
The 24th Middlesex (a state House seat held by Dave Rogers, in the office since 2013) includes parts of North Cambridge and Arlington and all of Belmont. Sought by: Nomita Ganguly
The 25th Middlesex (a state House seat held by Marjorie Decker, in the office since 2013) includes the central slice of Cambridge, following Massachusetts Avenue from Central Square through Harvard Square and just past Porter Square. Sought by: Evan MacKay
The 26th Middlesex (a state House seat held by Mike Connolly, in the office since 2017) includes East Cambridge and East Somerville. Sought by: Neil Miller
The 27th Middlesex (a state House seat held by Erika Uyterhoeven, in the office since 2021 but running for Jehlen’s state Senate seat) includes much of Somerville. Sought by: Ben Ewen-Campen, Olivia Gilligan-Corsetti
The 34th Middlesex (a state House seat held by Christine Barber, in the office since 2015 but running for Jehlen’s state Senate seat) includes parts of Somerville and Medford. Sought by: Will Mbah, Christopher Oates, Paul Ruseau
The Suffolk and Middlesex (a state Senate seat held by Will Brownsberger, in office since 2009 and running for reelection) includes the cities of Watertown and Belmont and parts of Cambridge and Boston. Sought by: Daniel Lander, Brandon Wood
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