LGBT Political Strides in New England

Stewart stuns in Brockton mayoral bid

What a difference two years can make. Back in 2005, Jass Stewart placed a distant second to James Harrington in a four-way preliminary election to replace retiring Brockton Mayor John Yunits. Harrington, then a 16-year city councilor, pulled in 57.7 percent of the vote to Stewart's 28.6 percent. Harrington then bested Stewart, a newcomer to city politics, in the general election with 56 percent of the vote.

In 2007, however, Stewart has incumbent Mayor Harrington on the ropes: The man who aims to become Brockton's first African American and first openly gay mayor came within 108 votes of topping the ticket in the three-way Sept. 18 preliminary, taking 43 percent of the vote to Harrington's 44 percent. In a post-preliminary interview at Jeano's Restaurant, where the candidate gathered for a low-key victory celebration, Stewart called his close second-place showing a good antidote to complacency among his supporters. Coming in "a little bit below," the candidate pointed out, "means people are fired up and energized" heading into the Nov. 6 general election. "As I will say tonight - let's celebrate tonight and let's get up bright and early tomorrow morning and get to work."

Judging from the crowd that bellied up to the Caribbean-American buffet at Jeano's, it's not hard to see how the candidate pulled off his strong preliminary showing. The candidate has assembled a diverse army of supporters from members of the city's growing Cape Verdean community, to elderly African American women to white working class natives and small business owners. Then there's Dottie Greenblatt, a white-haired long time political activist who sidles up to Stewart's spouse, Denzil Paul, for a hug. Greenblatt, Paul explains, is their neighbor and showers them with baked goods - brownies most recently. She got herself to the polls and turned up to celebrate, despite recently being released from a week-long hospital stay. With her was her husband Arnold, a bespectacled gentleman in a coat and tie, who ran in the 2005 mayoral race but is now a Stewart stalwart. Is diversity the key to Stewart's success? Indirectly, Stewart thinks. "I think that what happens is, when you really do run a campaign that's about people, you're going to find those common concerns and those common hopes [and] you get a room like this automatically because you're not pandering to a particular group or one issue. You're looking at the whole person and the whole community," he explains. "It's not orchestrated."

And speaking of gay mayors, Mayor Kevin Dumas of Attleboro garnered a stunning 68 percent of the vote in a four-way preliminary mayoral election on Sept. 18. Dumas, a two-term mayor with a husband, beat his chief rival, City Councilor John Davis, so badly that Davis dropped out of the race upon hearing that he had only garnered 28 percent of the vote - even though his second place finish gave him a chance to go head to head with Dumas, who has a quasi-official policy of not talking publicly about gay issues, in November. Instead, Dumas will cruise to a third term unchallenged. Talk about the Big Mo' - or is it Big 'Mo?

HRC gives seal of approval to Tsongas

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has endorsed Niki Tsongas in her bid to succeed Marty Meehan in the Oct. 16 Fifth Congressional District special election, a nod that came with a $5000 campaign contribution from the organization's PAC. It's not surprising, given that Tsongas staked out a strong pro-equality position early in her campaign, echoing the pioneering support of her late husband, U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas. She also courted and won the support of many longtime LGBT activists early on and was among two Democratic candidates endorsed by Bay State Stonewall Democrats in the Sept. 5 primary contest. In her HRC questionnaire, which was provided to Bay Windows by her campaign, Tsongas expressed whole hearted support for all of HRC's agenda items, from supporting marriage equality, to funding the Ryan White CARE act to working to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the latter of which was championed by Meehan, who is now chancellor at UMASS Lowell. "She is a longtime supporter of the GLBT community and has been an outspoken advocate for equal rights," HRC spokesman Brad Luna said of Tsongas in an email. "The Human Rights Campaign is excited to back her candidacy and we look forward to working with her in the US Congress to continue her long record of standing up for equality and fairness for all Americans - including GLBT Americans."

In contrast, in keeping with his apparent code of silence on LGBT issues, Tsongas's Republican opponent, Dracut farmer Jim Ogonowski, did not fill out HRC's questionnaire, hasn't gone on record with any substantive positions on LGBT issues that we're aware of and his campaign hasn't responded to our interview requests.

ro-equality candidate to challenge Paul Casey

For all of their bluster about ousting legislators who helped kill the anti-gay marriage amendment at the June 14 constitutional convention (ConCon) with their eleventh-hour vote changes, an anti-equality candidate has yet to materialize on the 2008 election horizon. Meanwhile, organizations like MassEquality aren't even looking for them right now, but pro-equality candidates are already stepping up to challenge anti-equality incumbents in next year's legislative elections. Most recently, Jason Lewis, a Winchester Democrat who works in the software industry, announced a bid to unseat state Rep. Paul Casey, a conservative Democrat and stalwart opponent of marriage equality, in the 31st Middlesex District that covers Winchester and Stoneham. You may recall that Casey's 2005 special election campaign to replace the late Sen. Charlie Shannon was what prompted MassEquality's involvement in the race; the group backed Pat Jehlen, who won Shannon's seat handily. Lewis, on the other hand, is explicit in his support for marriage equality on the issues page of his campaign website, electjasonlewis.com. The candidate, who has a wife and two daughters, also notes in his press materials that he's raised more than $10,000 for the race already, which buys him instant credibility. Of course, he'll have an uphill climb unseating Casey, who's held the seat since 1989. A good way to gauge his chances might be to count how many MassEquality members from the district turn out for Lewis's official campaign kickoff in Winchester on Oct. 26.

If the interest in Lewis from pro-equality activists is anything like what Patrick McCabe got at his campaign kickoff in June, Lewis could have a good shot. McCabe, a Medford Democrat and marriage equality supporter, launched his bid to unseat Democratic state Rep. Paul Donato not long after the lawmaker voted against marriage equality at the last ConCon. His campaign kickoff - at the home of a Medford gay couple - attracted a horde of marriage equality supporters who eagerly lined up to write checks and volunteer for the campaign. Such interest calls to mind the observation of one Garry Miller, a Newton marriage equality activist who back in 2004 summed up the meaning of Carl Sciortino's shocking defeat of anti-equality incumbent state Rep. Vinnie Ciampa thusly: "Don't piss off the gays."