Mike Rush

The State House News Service reports state Sen. Mike Rush of West Roxbury chased after a guy who'd just nabbed a woman's iPhone on Beacon Street near the State House last night. Although the perp managed to scale a wall at the Granary Burying Ground and escape some swift senatorial justice, he did drop the phone, which Rush then returned to a grateful victim.

Timothy Robertson at the Dedham Patch takes the stenography:

"A downside of Rush’s deployment: no vote will be cast for the district he represents..."

Downside indeed. Is it too much to ask the reporter to pose the obvious question: Might citizens reasonably expect to have a voting Senator represent their interests? After all, a revolution was fought for that right on the premise, no taxation without representation.

A leader would put the interest of his constituents ahead of his own.

Wicked Local West Roxbury reports Rush, newly elected Suffolk/Norfolk state senator and longtime Naval Reserve officer, is being shipped out to Iraq as an intelligence officer in March.

Would James Rush have gotten the promotion without the recommend from his son, state legislator Mike Rush? I wonder how the other applicants feel about whether they had an equal opportunity for the position.

Does it seem strange that as an employee of the probation department, his own son's recommendation might have had more weight than his own history of job performance in the probation department?

You're an editor for a metropolitan daily. Which story do you put on the front page: Jeff Perry and the strip search or Barney Frank lending his campaign some money? If you're the Herald, you go with the latter (don't forget to throw in some stuff about how Frank is "panic stricken") and ignore the former (save for a Margery Egan column declaring Perry is a cretin).

Chris Lovett of BNN, Gin Dumcius of the Dorchester Reporter and Steve Poftak of the Pioneer Institute analyze yesterday's legislative results in Boston and what could happen in November:

You can't tell the players without a program so here is your program. The candidates for State Senate in the Suffolk and Norfolk District are;

• Democrats Mike Rush, a state representative from West Roxbury,
• Westwood lawyer Michael F. Walsh,
• Wayne Wilson, a Roslindale Democratic activist.
• Brad Williams, chairman of West Roxbury’s Ward 20 Republican Committee

Avoiding debates is nothing new for Mike Rush nor is blaming his opponent for not having a debate.

Besides shaking Mayor Menino's hand, and inadvertently violating campaign finance law, it's not clear what is keeping Rush from spending time on a debate. According to his campaign facebook page, he has held exactly five (5) events since April 13, and nothing between May 25 and August 19.

3 vie to replace Walsh in Senate: Seat is open for 1st time in 18 years
By Robert Preer | July 22, 2010

A pair of outsiders and a Beacon Hill veteran are competing this year for the Suffolk and Norfolk state Senate seat, which Democrat Marian Walsh of West Roxbury has held for the past 18 years. (more).

The West Roxbury state rep and would-be Marian Walsh replacement issues a statement to Wicked Local West Roxbury that basically says he's innocent, but can't say more because "I was questioned concerning a civil lawsuit against the state involving my dad and the trial court."

The Globe reports on the muck. Also fills in the background on that story about state Rep. Mike Rush (D-West Roxbury) exacting some budgetary payback on a judge.

Massachusetts Election 2010 reports how Rush, a West Roxbury state rep who wants to replace state Sen. Marian Walsh, used the budget process to get back at a judge he feels slighted his father, a retired probation officer.

In addition to West Roxbury state Rep. Mike Rush, state Reps. Paul McMurtry of Dedham and John Rogers of Norwood are looking at possible runs, the Herald reports. Wicked Local West Roxbury, though, says McMurtry has already scratched himself from the race.

Republican Brad Williams is also running.

Won't take on Mike Rush for Marian Walsh's Suffolk and Norfolk state-senate seat, the Jamaica Plain Gazette reports.

David Ertischek at Wicked Local West Roxbury discovers that state Rep. Mike Rush already has a his state Senate campaign site up (you may recall he said he'd be running this year no matter what incumbent Marian Walsh does). Eagle-eyed Ertischek also notices the phone number on the site's contribution page is Rush's current State House office number, which may just violate the state law that prohibits the use of state property for campaigning.

Rush has been a state rep since 2002, so you'd think he'd know these things by now.

West Roxbury state Rep. Mike Rush plans to run for Marian Walsh's Senate seat next year even if she decides to seek re-election, State House News Service reports.

Why? Rush thinks she's running on fumes; pointing to her acceptance, then rejection of a good paying job with the Patrick administration earlier this year. There was also her rumored, then never-happened judicial appointment last year, which led to a secret meeting between handlers for Rush and sometimes Westie rival, City Councilor John Tobin, over who would run for her seat.

In recent years, Rush and Walsh have not exactly gotten along. He's represented the 10th Suffolk District since 2002.

Thursdays WickedLocal.com/WestRoxbury published an article on how local elected officials in state office voted to authorize Governor Patrick to appoint interim US Senator Paul Kirk Jr.

Mike Rush lone local legislator to vote against appointing temporary senator
by Bob Katzen

FINAL APPROVAL FOR VACANCY BILL (H 4246)
House 95-59 and Senate 24-16, gave final approval and sent to Gov. Patrick the bill that would give the governor the power to appoint a temporary short-term replacement for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. (A “Yes” vote is for giving the governor the power. A “No” vote is against giving him the power.

Rep. Willie Mae Allen Yes
Rep. Michael Rush No
Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez Yes
Rep. Angelo Scaccia Yes
Sen. Marian Walsh Yes

Read the whole thing. For more information, go here www.RepMikeRush.com

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.

It takes two parties to hold a debate. Rush’s spokesman Matt Fitzgerald’s explanation for why there was no debate is an excuse that blames the opposition.

The Transcript reports that state Sen. Marian Walsh managed to deep-six a measure by state Rep. Mike Rush to spend $1.5 million to do something with Havey Beach, that inviting looking area off the VFW Parkway that hasn't actually been useful to anybody except kids having drunken campfires for the past 50 years or so. Walsh claims it's a great idea, but says there needs to be more public input before anything's done.

Only known
photo of Julian?

David Ertischek at the Transcript reports on the strange saga of Pamela Julian, who told a certain blogger she was running against incumbent state Rep. Mike Rush because he wouldn't return her call on a particular issue but who now is apparently avoiding Ertischek:

Can you think of a politician who doesn't want press about their candidacy? I have politicians calling me when they want to have a hearing. They drop story ideas in my lap, send me press releases, and have their staff call me about attending senior citizen events, a baseball game, greeting an injured child at the hospital or singing the national anthem.

Politicians want press, and most like to use the press to their advantage. I know I would do the same if I were a politician. Pamela Julian is not politically savvy in this way. ...

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.

First Brookline activist Pamela Julian started collecting signatures. Now state Rep. Mike Rush, D-Mainly West Roxbury, faces opposition from Matt Benedetti, a West Roxbury Air National Guardsman, the Transcript reports:

Benedetti said he understands Rush is "a nice guy," but he said "there are a lot of issues facing the district, and we need someone who is more responsive and better ways to come up with solutions to problems."

Benedetti tells the paper he originally planned to run for the 10th Suffolk seat when it looked like state Sen. Marian Walsh would become a judge and Rush would run for her seat. That didn't happen and Benedetti, like Rush a Catholic Memorial grad, decided to stay in the race.

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.

On myDedham, Brian dishes that consiglieri for Boston city Councilor John Tobin and West Roxbury state Rep. Mike Rush had a little breakfast chat in Dedham Square on Saturday. Purpose: To discuss their guys' possible senate runs should incumbent Marian Walsh get named a judge (the district includes both West Roxbury and Dedham, along with some other neighborhoods and towns). The two have run against each other before - for the city-council seat Tobin now holds. No word if they came to any meeting of the minds or how they took their eggs.

Brian also handicaps other possible candidates for a seat the incumbent herself has yet to actually say she's vacating.

And if so, does that mean Mike Rush of West Roxbury and Angelo Scaccia are half-wits when apart? If nothing else, they should realize that sending press releases with the same exact quote to the newspaper that covers parts of both their districts might get a reporter to blogging.