House of Representatives

Michael McGee, a South Boston lawyer and neighborhood activist, says he'll be taking on incumbent state Rep. Brian Wallace for the Democratic nomination next fall in the 4th Suffolk district, which covers South Boston, Uphams Corner and Harbor Point. In a press release, he says:

My local activism has taught me that much can be accomplished if you are willing to roll up your sleeves and go to work. That is what I have been doing for our neighborhood for years as a volunteer--organizing neighbors, pressuring elected officials, planting trees, raising money, mentoring kids--all to make our neighborhood better for all of us. As your State Representative, I'll work just as hard as the advocate for our community.

McGee's Twitter feed
Wallace's Facebook page

McGee's complete statement: Read more

Dan Dunn, who lives in Arlington, is not at all happy with his state rep, Jay Kaufman, because Kaufman didn't just vote to make Sal DiMasi house speaker, he did so with relish - and then defended him when the Globe first started asking questions about Cognos:

... End of questions about his integrity, Jay? Really? A grand jury still has some questions. So do I. And they're questions about you.

The South End News reports a newcomer has jumped into the 3rd Suffolk race. Ryan Higginson is in HR at Suffolk and has been involved in the city's Young Bostonian Advisory Council.

Susan Passoni, who made two tries for a seat on the city council, is running for state rep instead this year.

The South End resident today e-mailed potential supporters that she's in the hunt for the seat given up by former House Speaker Sal DiMasi (complete letter below). She filed papers with the state today to create a campaign committee for the May 19 special primary and June 16 special election in the 3rd Suffolk district.

Passoni joins DiMasi aide Aaron Michlewitz, who announced his candidacy in January. Last week, Lucy Rivera, a former aide to state Sen. Tom Birmingham and U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano, filed campaign papers with the state.

Passoni's letter: Read more

Blue Mass. Group runs down prospective candidates for the 3rd Suffolk seat just vacated by Sal DiMasi. So far, the only "official" candidate (new House Speaker Bob DeLeo has yet to set an election date) is Aaron Michlewitz of the North End (Facebook page), DiMasi's constitutent-services director, who filed organization papers with the state on Wednesday and who opened his campaign office today on Endicott Street in the North End.

Other possibilities: Lucy Rivera (former aide to Tom Birmingham and Michael Capuano), Susan Passoni (who ran against Jimmy Kelly for Boston City Council), both of the South End, and Stephen Passacantilli, of the North End, who is currently an aide to City Councilor Sal LaMattina.

Boston Daily reports state Rep. Byron Rushing has once again introduced a bill to strip the Mass. General Laws of a bunch of archaic sections, including ones that declare the Communist Party to be subversive, ban tattooing by anybody other than a physician and make fornication, lascivious acts and sex with an animal crimes (the latter punishable by up to 20 years in jail!).

The Roxbury/Fenway rep has been filing this sort of legislation annually since at least 2004 (read up on his 2008 and 2007 efforts), but apparently his fellow legislators are very concerned about unleashing an epidemic of Communists tattooing cows before performing lascivious acts on them.

Unless she wages a write-in campaign in November against Sonia Chang-Diaz - who unofficial results show is the winner in their rematch for the 2nd Suffolk state senate seat.

Click on the link for other Boston results in today's Democratic primaries, including: In the 5th Suffolk (Dorchester and Roxbury) state rep's race, Marie St. Fleur easily beat back longtime politico Roy Owens, while in the 6th Suffolk (Roxbury, JP and Roslindale), incumbent Willie Mae Allen showed Faustina Gabriel what's what. Over in the 10th Suffolk (West Roxbury and South Brookline), it was incumbent Mike Rush in a cakewalk over Pamela Julian.

Mike Ball reports from a pair of debates at Boston English High - the first between incumbent state Rep. Willie Mae Allen and challenger Kathy Gabriel and the second between incumbent state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson and challenger Sonia Chang-Diaz.

Elsewhere in Debateland:
John Kerry vs. Edward O'Reilly.

Seems like the only time you ever hear of this guy, the august state rep from Hyde Park (and my small sliver of Roslindale) is when he manages to grind the legislature to a halt over some issue that doesn't involve his district at all (anybody remember how he tied up the disposition of the old Boston State Hospital for years?). This time: A liquor license for some supermarket in Westwood.

Via Robert David Sullivan.

ParkwayBoston.com reports the West Roxbury incumbent will face off against Pamela Julian of Brookline in the Democratic primary. A second potential candidate, Matthew Benedetti of West Roxbury, failed to file enough signatures, the site reports.

State Rep. Carl Sciortino of Medford says a whole bunch of his nomination petitions have disappeared and he wants the police to investigate (speaking of Wilkerson, this time around, she filed 10 times the required number of signatures to make sure she's on the ballot).

The Outraged Liberal sums up that latest news on Richard Vitale, the strategist lobbyist pal of Sal DiMasi.

Death threats targeted DiMasi.

Sal DiMasi expresses his outrage at the calumnies of the Republican Party (Wait? We have one? Yes, seems we do) regarding his ethics, or alleged lack thereof, in a letter to fellow House members.

Jay Fitzgerald: I'm trying to figure out how Sal gets out of this mess.

Blue Mass. Group, of course, is all over the Sutton state rep announcing she'd been threatened on the floor of the House.

The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center takes a look at the House's proposed tax modifications (the ones that will give large companies a new loophole). Among other things:

... The amendment appears to take away from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue much of the standard authority that departments of revenue generally have to adopt regulations that implement the law. Reducing the regulatory authority of the department could strengthen the hand of companies with the capacity to design sophisticated tax avoidance strategies by weakening the capacity of the department of revenue to ensure that our tax laws are implemented in a fair, effective and efficient manner. ...

State Rep. Mike Rush could face opposition this fall because he never returned a constituent's phone call.

Pamela Julian of Brookline says she called Rush to try to enlist his support for a bill that would let high-school and college students register to vote right at their schools; she's director of Associated Students of Massachusetts, which is pushing the bill. Rush never called her back and she says she started getting upset and looking at Rush's voting record and so she was down in front of the Starbucks on Centre Street in West Roxbury on Saturday collecting signatures to get on the September Democratic primary ballot.

Julian says her main issue is that she'd pledge to be a full-time state rep; she says Rush has the second-worst record in the House for missing roll call votes. However, she would also be a more liberal rep than Rush. Rush opposes single-sex marriage; Julian supports it.

Although she lives in Brookline now, Julian says she's familiar with the West Roxbury end of the district - she used to live there (and even helped run David Finnegan's local effort in a mayoral run against Kevin White).

Rush has represented the 10th Suffolk district in the House of Representatives since 2003.

Who knew Sal DiMasi was so interested in enterprise software?

Jimbo reports from a forum for 1st Suffolk Democratic candidates today.

The House of Representatives figured it could save some money by cancelling a contract with WGBH and instead Webcasting its sessions. I'm trying to watch the same-sex-marriage vote and it's just not working. Honorable dudes - either give the contract back to WGBH or just give up the fiction you're providing public access to your proceedings.

3 p.m. update: With all these media outlets in Boston, how come everywhere you turn, you get only the same report by a single AP reporter? Thank goodness for Bay Windows (Blue Mass. Group got caught by the stupid Webcast problems).

4:10 p.m. update: And now Bay Windows is inacessible! It's like 1997 around here! Via eeka.