by @BarryRafkind in Politics
Posted on July 10, 2008 at 5:21 pm
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July 8 Press Release
The Progressive Democrats of Somerville (PDS) has endorsed Rep. Carl Sciortino for re-election in the 34th Middlesex District (Somerville/Medford) House race. PDS members were impressed by Rep. Sciortino’s hard work on behalf of the district on a variety of issues including working for increased local aid for education, advocating for the extension of the Green Line and his continued efforts on behalf of all the residents of the district.
Ward 7 Resident and PDS Endorsement Chair, Barry Rafkind, is one of those constituents who enthusiastically supports returning Carl to the state house. “From closing corporate tax loopholes to supporting mass transit to helping to increase local aid, Rep. Sciortino has proven himself to be a hard working representative and has accomplished a great deal in his time in office. It is clear to me that our district needs his leadership on Beacon Hill.”
PDS, which voted unanimously to endorse Sciortino at its June General Meeting, invited both candidates in this race to submit a written response detailing their positions on a variety of issues. Candidates were asked to respond to important issues facing this district including thoughts on the Green Line extension, ways to increase support for public education and ideas for more accountability in government. Join PDS in supporting Rep. Sciortino’s campaign by emailing endorsements(at)pdsomerville.org or check out more information about the candidate at www.electcarl.org
Contact: Marty Martinez, Chairperson of Progressive Dems of Somerville
617-256-5641www.PDSomerville.org
Barry Rafkind
PDS Endorsements Chair
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Carl hasn’t done a thing for anyone in the 34th. He ignores anyone not in his special clique of friends. I reached out to him on multiple occasions and only got a “Come see me at Soliel”. What a jerk this guy is – I’m glad his dog at the signatures and he won’t be on the ballot. We need someone who cares about the WHOLE district; someone like Bob Trane.
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I’ve met Carl and I think he’s a really friendly, competent, and passionate public servant. Why were you offended when he invited you to meet him at Soliel Cafe, the place where he regularly holds office hours? It sounds like he was genuinely interested in sitting down with you and listening to your concerns.
Carl has been a champion for the district in the state house and I hope he gets re-elected. According to this article in the Somerville Journal, Gov. Patrick will be present at his July 22nd fund-raiser.
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It’s hard to know where to begin in replying to Imux’s comment.
Perhaps he doesn’t know/care that Carl has twiced played a lead role in securing budget earmarks to more adequately fund SCM Transportation so that they can continue to take elders to their medical appointments. Or that Carl sponsored and passed legislation to get construction going on the West Somerville VNA Assisted Living facility, and helped protect the elderly residents of Capon Court from displacement during the re-development of their housing.
Perhaps Imux doesn’t know/care that Carl played a lead role in ensuring inclusion of funding for the Green Line extension in the Transportation Bond, or that Carl has taken an active role in making sure that residents have their say in the decision about where to locate stations.
Perhaps he doesn’t care about Carl’s four years of active advocacy for closing corporate tax loopholes … which finally became law this summer, yielding $150 million in additional revenues to the state, and putting an end to evasion of Mass. income taxes by companies’ “transfering” their profits to states that don’t tax corporate income.
Perhaps Imux doesn’t care about Carl’s advocacy to prevent construction of yet another expensive prison (in East Somerville, likely as not), when corrections and sentencing reform could more cost-effectively reduce prison over-crowding AND reduce costly recidivism.
Perhaps he doesn’t care about Carl’s advocacy for adequate funding of health care reform, and advocacy for a premium structure that the working poor can afford.
Perhaps Imux doesn’t care about educational reform and reform of the MCAS testing process.
Perhaps he doesn’t care that Carl was one of the leading advocates for the legislation that increased the Mass. minimum wage from $6.75/hour to $8.00/hour. Perhaps he doesn’t know or care that Carl has been a leading advocate for legislation that would ensure that all workers have 7 paid sick days a year, so that they don’t have to choose between a job and taking care of themselves or their children.
Perhaps Imux believes that parents and seniors and working men and women aren’t important constituencies in Somerville and Medford. Or, perhaps he mistakenly believes that Somerville and Medford residents long for a return to the days when gays and lesbians had to hide in the closet, and women were afraid to openly access family planning services.
Or, more likely, perhaps Imux doesn’t really care about the needs of the district — or care about the truth — and was simply making an unsubstantiated partisan statement.
In any case, voters who DO care about the facts can find plenty of reasons for re-electing Rep. Sciortino at his website: http://www.electcarl.org/index.html
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I never heard anything about a prison planned for East Somerville. There was talk of replacing the dilapidated and overcrowded East Cambridge Jail with a combination Jail/Police facility in East Somerville. While I agree with much of fberman’s post, I think “advocacy to prevent construction” is overstating things a bit, given there was never even so much as an official proposal on this (as far as I know).
A jail is a pre-trial holding facility. The jail in East Cambridge is overcrowded because, according the sheriff, they now hold many domestic assault suspects (wife/girlfriend beaters) that would have previously been free on bail so that they could return home to intimidate, beat and generally prevent their victims from testifying against them. This has very little to do with recidivism and (lack of) constructive rehabilitation programs in the prison system, which I agree is a problem.
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Fast Freddy, what I do care about — as a resident and business owner in the 34th — is that Carl never took a minute to hear what issue that affect people like me are. His attitude was completely one of too busy to care. Shame on Carl.
And on those issues:
1. raising min wage is dumb. Stops people from hirng teens and forces more jobs underground.
2. I really don’t care what gays/lesbians do — I’d prefer they don’t prance around and ask for all the special favors that they do, but we live in a liberal, free society so more power to ‘em if they continue to get away with it.
3. MCAS reform? MCAS measures progress of schools. Teachers should be merit paid… not UNION paid. The better a teacher is… the more pay. MCAS would be one measure of effectiveness.
4. Close tax loopholes!?!?! Let me give you a quick Intelligence TEST: Let’s pretend you are in the business of selling fishing boats to average Progressives for a living. And your state government arbitrarily decides that you are making too much profit on your boats one day, walks into your office and places a $500 per boat “additional tax” on each boat you sell.
Do you…
a) Close your business as all your competitors are now cheaper
b) Lay off only a few employees to offset your higher cost of delivery
c) Absorb it by agreeing to make less per boat
d) Pass the $500 surcharge on to the consumer via higher retail prices
In case you have never had to figure out how to turn a profit in business before, let me tell you, the cost of fishing boats just increased by at least $500 per unit at the consumer level. You can bet your last dollar that (c) won’t be the answer.
Now, apply the same question to corporate “increasing taxes” on corporations. Do you get it now!
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I don’t believe that for a second because it doesn’t gel with anything I’ve heard from his constituents going door to door. All I’ve heard is about how responsive and hard-working he is, and how his constituents are very happy with their representation.
Fortunately, the race here is in the Democratic primary where Carl’s stances play well. Your out-of-the-mainstream conservative views don’t change the fact that he’s fighting for the issues his voters care about.
I don’t see why we would “pretend” a scenario that isn’t analogous at all to the legislation regarding corporate tax loopholes. For starters, the loophole closings weren’t “arbitrary”. More to the point, the loopholes allowed out-of-state corporations to avoid paying state income taxes. This placed smaller in-state businesses at a direct disadvantage.
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Greg, you can believe what you wish to believe about Carl not caring enough to meet with me – a business owner (that employs > 12 people) and resident (with multiple tenants) of the 34th. I have no reason to lie about Carl not being responsive at ALL to my requests for a meeting. I came away with the impression that he didn’t have time or care to meet. That’s fine. I was trying to be as open minded as possible in MY REQUESTING for the meeting. His having better thngs to do just tells me that he caters only to his special friends.
“Closing loopholes” = raising taxes. If you raise taxes on business then guess what? They raise prices to consumers, or move elsewhere. Who wins? The consumer or state certainly does not. Let me state this is plainly as I can… if you tax they won’t come. Trust me.
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