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Today’s newsletter includes notes of support from several engaged voters, a discussion of recent threats to emergency shelter and the rights of asylum-seekers, and endorsements from the biggest electricians’ union and the LGBTQ wing of the Massachusetts Democrats.
Why Bill?
The local online publication Fig City News has been publishing Letters to the Editor from supporters of each candidate. I wanted to share this letter from my good friend and neighbor Lois Levin, which might help answer for you as a voter the question “Why choose Bill”:
I’m proud to be supporting my City Councilor Bill Humphrey for State Representative in the 12th Middlesex District in Newton and Brookline. I believe he will be a superb legislator.
Bill is a good listener and a committed progressive who devotes most of his time to improving the political process. He will be a champion for environmental action, better housing policies, a more reliable transit system, expanded reproductive rights, and an inclusive society for people from all backgrounds. He appreciates the urgency of policy issues the State House will be grappling with in the next term.
Bill is very focused on constituent services. He is receptive to new ideas and highly principled. He talks and writes with great clarity about the issues most of us care about, drawing on years of work as a policy researcher and magazine editor before serving on the Newton City Council.
Bill is still young and has considerable energy to collaborate with other legislators. He will work to address the chronic legislative dysfunction we are all witnessing that has gotten so bad that a legislative session just ended with most issues unresolved.
As a retired clinical psychologist, I’m pleased to know that the Massachusetts chapter of the National Association of Social Workers has endorsed Bill. He has also been endorsed by Reproductive Equity Now, Mass Sierra Club, Progressive Mass, and more than half a dozen labor unions, whose support will be critical to getting legislative action to meet the many challenges we want our legislators to address.
Lois Levin
Waban
And I also wanted to share this note of support from another neighbor, Sue Dzikowski, the former City of Newton Comptroller, who is backing me for State Representative because of my progressive approach to public finances:
"As a member of the Finance Committee of the City Council, Bill Humphrey worked closely with me when I was the City of Newton Comptroller, and he showed a strong understanding of public finances and a curiosity to challenge assumptions. As a committee member, Bill thoughtfully analyzed and voted on the ramifications of every dollar spent in Newton including annual operating expenses, capital projects and debt service, as well as grants, community preservation and rainy day funds. Bill’s participation was also integral to the Finance Committee’s highly successful hiring of a new City Comptroller upon my retirement."
Nanci Ginty Butler, an active member of the National Association of Social Workers Massachusetts chapter, which also endorsed me this month, had this to say:
"As his neighbor for many years and as a social worker, I know Bill Humphrey is the real deal! He has my vote for Representative of the 12th Middlesex District because of his unwavering dedication to social justice, his extensive experience as a Newton City Councilor, and his strong platform prioritizing mental health care, reproductive justice, addressing our housing and climate crises, and other critical social issues."
Mary Beth Keiller, another Ward 5 resident, describes my approach to the office I hold now and how that relates to the one I am seeking:
“I want a representative who is thoughtful about issues that matter and communicates well with constituents. As our Ward 5 Newton City Councilor, Bill Humphrey has always been very responsive, answering inquiries from residents quickly, helpfully, and with clear explanations of a situation and possible next steps. He is also known for his regular, thorough newsletter updates by email and mail to keep us informed. Residents will benefit from his commitment to public service when he serves as our new State Representative.”
Right to Shelter, Rights of Asylum-Seekers Under Threat
Many voters have asked this year how we can best support residents and immigrants in Massachusetts who don’t have a home right now, given the headlines about the costs involved. Many private charitable and faith-based organizations are doing good work here, but ultimately this is the role of the public sector to handle at scale as a collective responsibility.
I support the Family Right to Shelter Law and am highly concerned about the recent changes to shelter policy limiting the time and how many people can be accommodated. We can reorganize the program for longer stays at a lower overall cost than the ad hoc short term approach currently used. Paying daily fees for hotel rooms and food delivery is more expensive than the state making amortized capital investments into providing safe and clean facilities with in-house kitchens, but switching to the latter approach requires committing to sheltering people for a longer period and not treating this phenomenon as a blip. And it is clearly not a blip: we already did not have enough emergency shelter capacity regardless of any border situation and would have needed to address this head on anyway.
We have the resources in this state to provide shelter until federal intervention arrives and until people find work (which they must be permitted to do), if we have the political will. I am not willing to compromise the international rights of refugees and asylum seekers or turn them away, especially given the role U.S. foreign policy has played in destabilizing so many countries from which people are now fleeing to our shores.
This challenge is only going to grow as the effects of climate change become worse, and if we as a society do not have an iron commitment to welcoming refugees, we will quickly find ourselves repeating the exact same moral compromises that led to travesties like the M.S. St. Louis when more than 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany were turned away from the United States just before World War II. This situation we face now is not going away, but we are now called as leaders to meet the challenge, not deflect it.
I also recently joined local elected officials from across the state in signing an open letter, led by Worcester City Councilors, against the extremely arbitrary “five day” family safety net overflow shelters policy that has immediately been putting families onto the streets in ever-greater numbers:
"Housing is a human right, and we cannot sit idly by when faced with a policy that may result in young children being forced to sleep on our city streets. As municipal leaders, we have seen our community work tirelessly to support unhoused families, regardless of immigration status. Massachusetts has long served as a beacon for immigrants by sheltering them and has reaped enormous benefits from the recent migration of large groups who have come here from places like Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti, and who have thrived in our state.We anticipate finding families sleeping in cars, vacant storefronts or emergency rooms. We are confident that the policy you have implemented will not achieve the intended goal of deterring people from coming to Massachusetts or alleviate the shelter crisis. Instead, it will further harm families, put them in dangerous situations, and leave municipalities to absorb the cost. We also know that this policy will increase the stigma, hate, and anti-migrant rhetoric against migrants, at a time when the national climate is already charged around immigrants and refugees.
While we understand the system is at capacity, we also know that the state has alternative resources to invest in reducing the flow of people entering shelters and creating opportunities to house families. We ask you to rescind your policy, preserve the integrity of the right-to-shelter system and find alternate ways to support migrant families and those experiencing homelessness. We urge you to work with advocates, organizers, and state and local leaders to develop thoughtful and humane policies that do not leave families with children trying to find the safest alleyway to sleep at night. We are committed to working with you to create real solutions that will benefit and better the livelihood of all our residents in Massachusetts.”
From Newton, the signatories were myself and Councilors Bixby, Downs, Leary, Greenberg, and Lobovits.
IBEW 103 Endorsement
I'm honored to have the electricians of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 103 behind my campaign. As one of the largest building trades unions in the state – and of course focused on electrification by profession – they have been pushing for a Green New Deal with good-paying, union jobs in renewable energy since before it was cool. Our climate future & economic future depends on unions like the 103!
Even if you don't know much about unions, if you've driven on the expressway past the huge wind turbine and big electronic billboard at the 103's headquarters in Boston, you know who they are. (I was excited to go see their experimental turbines and solar panels, too.)
In addition to their strong support for renewable energy, IBEW 103 has an extensive policy agenda around Medicare for All, strengthening public education (and opposing privatization), and creating the social programs and rights necessary to support working families who cannot count on a single breadwinner to be able to cover all the bills (or to help deal with what happens when a single working parent needs time off to deal with things at home or just get a break to recharge).
Organized labor is an important presence at the State House every day, and any effective legislator has strong ties with them regardless of the composition or location of their district. Collaborative and constructive policy work on a better Massachusetts for all of us begins with not having an adversarial or arms-length relationship to the hundreds of thousands of workers in our state who actually put into practice the changes being legislated by our elected officials. I’m proud to have the endorsements of nearly a dozen unions across a wide range of sectors.
Bay State Stonewall Democrats Endorsement
I’m also proud to be endorsed in this primary by the Bay State Stonewall Democrats, the LGBTQ wing of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. Many of you know I was a co-founder of the marriage equality campaign in Delaware as a student organizer and leader of the College Democrats of Delaware, nearly a decade and a half ago. I was a big believer in taking the Massachusetts example and spreading it to other states, and I continue to subscribe to this view!
The progressive LGBTQ policy agenda in Massachusetts right now includes, among other things, healthcare funding, youth services, elder services, housing stability, a ban on library censorship, and at long last instituting a comprehensive/inclusive/scientifically-accurate sex education curriculum (which would certainly benefit a lot of non-LGBTQ youth as well but unfortunately did not get through the state House of Representatives this year despite support from the Governor and passage by the State Senate).
It’s great to have the Bay State Stonewall Democrats in my corner as we close out this primary!
I hope to earn your vote by Tuesday September 3rd, the day after Labor Day, to be your Democratic nominee for our next State Representative.
Learn more at billhumphrey.org – and please volunteer or donate if you are able.