7 hours ago
The Mass. GOP wants to flip this Taunton state House seat
Good Monday morning, everyone.
It's a few days before the polls open in Taunton. And Lisa Field is very busy indeed. She was between stops when MassLive reached her for a quick phone interview.
Field is the Democratic nominee in Tuesday's special election to fill the vacant 3rd Bristol District seat in the state House of Representatives. It includes parts of Taunton and neighboring Easton.
And Field said she's hearing one thing from voters: 'People are sick of partisanship — let's get to what matters. Health care. Food on the table. A roof over their heads,' she said.
Field, who's been ubiquitous on Beacon Hill thanks to her top perch at the influential Massachusetts Nurses Association, laughed when she was asked why she'd want to give up all that clout for the relative obscurity of the state House's backbenches.
'My mother keeps asking me, 'Why?'' she quipped.
The short answer is that the South Shore contest pitting Field against Republican Larry Quintal, a Taunton City Councilor and local funeral home owner, is kind of a big deal.
The two are vying to fill a seat left open by the death of former Democratic Rep. Carol Doherty, who lost a battle with pancreatic cancer in February, at age 82.
Doherty won a special election for the seat in 2020, replacing Republican Shauna O'Connell, who now serves as Taunton's mayor.
Republicans, encouraged by President Donald Trump's strong showing in Bristol County in 2024 — and the fact that GOP state Sen. Kelly Dooner flipped a seat held by Democrat Mark Pacheco — want the seat back.
Republican strategist Holly Robichaud, who's working with Quintal, downplayed a suggestion that the race is proof-of-concept for an ongoing red shift in the southern part of the state — though that is something that is undoubtedly happening.
The race is 'more about Larry Quintal,' and his qualifications to serve, Robichaud told MassLive in a brief phone interview last week.
'He's a proven leader,' Robichaud said, adding that concerns about affordability and taxes, not the '20,000-foot view,' will be what brings voters to the polls on Tuesday.
Field's tenure as a Beacon Hill activist has opened up a line of attack for Quintal, one that he's seized on in campaign advertisements.
'I'm not a lobbyist or obligated to any special interest groups addicted to our tax dollars, like my opponent,' he said in one such spot posted to his campaign's official Facebook page. 'As your next state representative, I will work for you.'
Democrats have pushed back, calling those attacks 'a lame attempt by the MassGOP to disparage a woman who has stood up for some of the hardest-working people anywhere, our nurses,' WPRI-TV reported.
'The MassGOP should worry more about what Donald Trump's disastrous economic policies will do to the average Massachusetts family instead of attacking Lisa Field, someone who goes to work every day fighting for working people,' state Democratic Party Chairperson Steve Kerrigan told the station.
Field, meanwhile, told MassLive that she's running to honor Doherty's legacy and to continue it.
'She was a compassionate representative and wanted to make sure that continued,' Field said.
The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday.
Days into Pride Month, and amid nationwide rollbacks of DEI efforts, Boston's City Council unanimously codified Mayor Michelle Wu's Office of vote Advancement into law last week.
The 11-0 vote came after dozens of community groups rallied outside City Hall on behalf of the proposal — and to celebrate the start of Pride Month, The Boston Globe reported.
Wu, a Democrat running for reelection this fall, created the office through an executive order. The vote makes it permanent, the newspaper reported.
'In order for us to be a sanctuary city, we need protections in place,' City Councilor Henry Santana told the Globe. 'Codifying the LGBTQIA2S+ office ensures it stays here — no matter who the mayor is.'
Santana was referring to a March council vote that declared Boston a sanctuary city for transgender and LGBTQIA2s+ residents.
If you're unfamiliar with the acronym, it stands for 'Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (or questioning), Intersex, Asexual, and Two-Spirit.' The plus sign, meanwhile, is meant to include all other sexual identities or expressions.
Kimberly Rhoten, the director of policy and strategic initiatives in the Mayor's LGBTQIA2S+ office, told the Globe that last week's vote is far more than symbolic.
'Right now, our office exists only by executive order. Codifying it into law makes it one step harder to remove us,' Rhoten said, according to the Globe. 'Most other offices in our cabinet are already codified. We're one of the last.'
In case you missed it, state lawmakers paused last week to honor National Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) Awareness Week.
And the top Republican in the state Senate is backing legislation that would make CPR training a graduation requirement for Massachusetts high school students.
'CPR is a basic skill that can come into play at any moment to save a life, and we should not miss an opportunity to equip graduating students with that skill,' Senate Minority Leader Bruce E. Tarr, R-1st Essex/Middlesex, who's sponsoring the legislation, said in a statement. 'A modest investment of time for training can translate literally into a life saved.'
The bipartisan bill also would 'ensure that instruction in these practices adheres to the most current national guidelines, and incorporates hands-on training into students' education,' Tarr's office said.
The Bay State's college and university students are all graduated and safely home for the summer, but here's a bit of news to follow them into that break: They saved some big money thanks to a statewide expansion of financial aid, according to the Healey administration.
Here's how that breaks down:
$110 million: That's the total savings on college attendance in the 2023-2024 academic year.
34,000: The number of students (give or take) who benefited from that savings.
$3,856: The average savings for each of those students.
The savings, the administration argued in a statement, underlined the effectiveness of the 2023 expansion of the state's MASSGrant Plus financial aid program.
The initiative, underwritten by 'Millionaire's Tax' revenue, benefits students enrolled in the state's public institutions, including its 15 community colleges, nine state universities, and its four University of Massachusetts undergraduate campuses.
But efforts on Capitol Hill to slash federal Pell Grants would boost costs by $57 million a year statewide, the administration noted.
'This is bad for our students and bad for our economy, as it would hold back our next generation of workers from being able to afford to go to school‚' Gov. Maura Healey said.
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'A lot of those papers, I would have to look back at them and be like, 'You're being deported. They're taking you out of the country.' And I would have to watch people cry.'
— Marcelo Gomes da Silva, the Milford High School student athlete arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reflected on his time in custody. He was released last week.
The Berkshire County branch of the NAACP will hold its annual Juneteenth celebration from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, June 15. The observance will include a broad array of events, the civil rights group said.
The day gets rolling with a flag-raising at Pittsfield City Hall, where Mayor Peter Marchetti and a 'special guest' from the Massachusetts 54th Regiment Reenactment Unit are expected to read proclamations.
That's followed by a Freedom Walk to Durant Park on the city's historically Black West Side, where a community worship service will open the festival, organizers said.
Other events on the day include the unveiling of the design for a new Massachusetts 54th Regiment mural, which will be installed at Durant Park later this year.
Formed after the Emancipation Proclamation, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment was one of the first Black regiments to serve in the U.S. Civil War, according to the National Parks Service.
During the Pittsfield observance, children can participate in hands-on learning with a coloring book about the Massachusetts 54th Regiment and Berkshire soldiers, whose ranks included the Rev. Samuel Harrison, a Black abolitionist and chaplain from New England, organizers said.
Get those blinding lights ready: The Weeknd brings his 2025 tour to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough on Tuesday (tickets and info here). Playboi Carti and Mike Dean open the show. The artist, born Abel Tesfaye, released his most recent long-player, 'Hurry Up Tomorrow,' in January. And it's expected to be the last one he releases under his nom de stage. From that record, here's 'Reflections Laughing,' featuring Travis Scott and Florence + The Machine.
The nonprofit Freedom from Religion Foundation, which ardently advocates for the separation of church and state, says it's experiencing its second 'Trump Bump.'
The organization, which also advocates for 'nontheism,' has seen its national membership grow by 2,024 members since last October, reaching a total of 42,450 by March 2025, according to Religion News Service.
Here's the germane bit:
'Over the last few years, the group has hovered around 40,000 members but had been losing a couple hundred members a month before the bump, said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of FFRF.'
'The group also saw a 56% increase in membership from 2016 to 2017, when Donald Trump won his first presidential term, growing by 10,000 net new members.'
'Other American secular civil liberties and freethought groups have seen similar increases in membership, and in contributions, since Trump was elected last year.'
'The American Humanist Association, a nonprofit that promotes secular humanism, reported a 68% rise in donations since Trump won the 2024 election — and a 77% increase since he took office, said Executive Director Fish Stark."
''Not only are people joining — or re-joining — the movement, but existing members are digging deeper and putting their trust in the humanist movement to defend our rights at a time when lots of institutions have failed us,' Stark said. 'We're using the increase in donations we've received to provide significantly more support to local groups and increase staffing in our legal center to defend nontheist civil rights.''
That's it for today. As always, tips, comments and questions can be sent to jmicek@ Have a good week, friends.
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