Updated 9:55 a.m. Jan. 12
Democrat Danielle Allen took a public service leave from her job at Harvard’s ethics center and declared her candidacy for governor in June 2021. She tells GBH News that her vision for Massachusetts means looking at it as “one commonwealth”: finding the solutions across the state to cut down on inequities and bring communities together.
The governor’s seat in Massachusetts is up for grabs with Charlie Baker's decision not to seek reelection. All the major gubernatorial candidates are joining GBH’s All Things Considered to tell voters why they're the right choice for Massachusetts. Allen joined GBH’s Arun Rath Tuesday to talk about the experience she brings to the job, her plans for climate change and housing and building up public institutions in the throes of a pandemic.
Arun Rath: Professor Allen, thanks for joining.
Danielle Allen: Glad to be here. Thanks for having me, Arun.
Rath: So let's start off. You've called yourself a democracy advocate. Tell us a bit about what that means, and what that means that you would bring to the job of governor.
Allen: For sure. Well, at the end of the day, all of us are trying to build healthy lives for our families and healthy communities. But we also have this extraordinary opportunity in our country to do that as free and equal self-governing citizens. This is a constitutional democracy, that is a part of our great inheritance, and I've been working to secure a healthy democracy for all of us for my entire career. It's been about working on civic education. That's about leading democracy reform efforts, things like trying to move forward independent redistricting or work on achieving full access to voting rights for all.
And we all know our democracy is under strain right now. We just passed the commemoration of January 6th. There's a real sense, I think, of darkness and despair. We need to forge a path out. That's what I'm fundamentally working on. I'm handing in my day job trying to answer a call to service, believing that together we can build a path to where we deserve to get. That's a green and healthy next-generation democracy.
Rath: And speaking of your day job, you have a somewhat unusual background. You've been a classics professor — although I should say, you're not just in ivory tower studying Plato. You've been very engaged politically as well as part of your academic work. But could you talk a bit about — you would bring something very different to the job of governor and how, first off, not having a straight-up politics background could help, or the challenges it might have?
Allen: Yes. I'm a nonprofit leader. I've got 20 years of public service under my belt as a nonprofit leader — so leading a $60 million division at the University of Chicago, leading the $6 billion Mellon Foundation and here in Massachusetts, building from the start up a civic education provider that’s got curriculum in a dozen districts.
So I'm an implementer. That's the thing to really know about me. And I think we all can see what our pressing needs are. We've got to get cost of living down. We've got to get quality of life up. We've got to get a healthy climate, healthy communities and a healthy democracy. I think the policy agenda is pretty clear. The question is, can we get it done? And I bring that practical hands-on experience for the nonprofit sector, and, as I said, I'm an implementer, I'm a doer, I'm here to get it done.
Rath: You talked about this moment of darkness, where that way we find ourselves here, and one of the things that's heavy on a lot of people's minds has been climate change. People here in Massachusetts are being affected by it directly. We had Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz on the show last week talking about her Green New Deal proposal. Could you talk a bit about your thoughts about what you would do to protect the state from the impacts of climate change, and what might be distinctive about your plans?
Allen: Well, I'm committed to achieving a 100% renewable energy economy and deep decarbonization by 2040. And that means bringing all of our systems along together in this transition. So it's about the grid, it's also about housing, and transportation and really achieving a comprehensive weaning of ourselves off of fossil fuels.
Now, as we move this forward, we have to do this as well, always making sure that we are maintaining a healthy economy, building opportunity and security for all. We have an amazing opportunity right now where the costs of wind and solar have come down really dramatically, so we really can drive a transition that is ambitious, aggressive, achieving that deep decarbonization by 2040, while also attending to the health of our economy and ensuring that we're building an economy that is dynamic and inclusive, commonwealth-wide.
Rath: And could you talk a bit more about housing beyond the context of climate change? I know that that has been an area of passion for you as well.
Allen: Absolutely. So I started exploring this race a year ago, so I got started in this work in December of 2020. And the first thing I did was run a listening tour around the commonwealth. I really wanted to hear and understand. These have been such hard times, people are so exhausted. You know, I've got kids in elementary school and middle school, so boy, do I know how hard it's been. And I really wanted to understand, what were the top of mind challenges for people? And the most important takeaway for me, from that listening tour, was that all over the commonwealth, housing is the most intense and felt pain point. Affordability issues, cost of living issues and housing at the center of that.
It's tenants and rents and low-income residents, but it's also young families trying to get their foot into the housing market — that first-time homeowner. And it’s older people who are trying to avoid that hard choice between leaving a community you've been in for decades but having a place you can afford and that's of a scale you can maintain.
So we've got work to do, and it really is about two prongs. We've got to achieve an abundant supply of affordable housing. That's about putting the market to work on our behalf. That's about zoning reform and zoning overlays that we can use across the whole commonwealth. We also need to work on tenant protections with public sector tools. So delivering a right to counsel, for example, in cases of eviction. And I believe we should empower municipalities to introduce rent stabilization if they see fit.
Rath: And for poor people who are facing a crisis of homelessness right now. I mean, GBH News, we've been following closely the situation at Melnea Cass and Massachusetts Avenue here in Boston, and that's where these issues come together in a dreadful way for people. Do you have a sense of what a plan could be to provide immediate relief for people facing homelessness?
Allen: Absolutely. I mean, we have the great advantage of the federal resources that are flowing in, and we should be putting those directly into support of community centers, as well as stabilizing our rental arrearages program, which can help people with transitional housing and the like. So immediate work to be done through existing programs.
But the really important thing about the challenge of Mass. and Cass is, it's a one-commonwealth problem and one-commonwealth challenge, not just a Boston challenge. My overarching theme — if there are two words I want people to take away from this conversation, they are “one commonwealth.” That's what we can and should be in Massachusetts, where we knit our diverse communities together across the state to tackle our hardest problems. All our hardest problems we can tackle best if we do it together, focused on that one commonwealth goal.
And for the challenge at Mass. and Cass, we have to recognize that there have been people camped there who come from Essex County, who come from Western Massachusetts, who come from the Cape. Our opioid epidemic is across the whole commonwealth. We don't have enough access to mental health and behavioral health resources in Western Massachusetts, for example. Not enough beds for substance use disorder treatment in Western Massachusetts. And we don't have enough economic opportunity and access to security all over the commonwealth.
So there is near-term work we can do, thanks especially to relief funds that have flowed in to help us with housing and to also draw on our budget surplus to support near-term housing needs. But ultimately, we have a one-commonwealth challenge to make sure that health resources are there across the whole commonwealth, to make sure that housing and transportation are bringing opportunity and security to everybody across the whole commonwealth.
Rath: And looking at maybe the biggest, or least the most daunting, problem that the “one commonwealth” is facing right now: the situation with COVID, of course, which also draws together a lot of things that you've been talking about in terms of equality and equity. We've seen how it has disproportionately affected certain communities more than others. Could you talk a bit about what you might do in terms as governor that might be distinct from what we're seeing right now with Gov. Baker, but also in terms of taking on the question of equity at the same time?
Allen: For sure. I mean, there's a Chinese proverb that goes something along the lines of: if you want shade today, the best thing to do is to plant a tree 30 years ago and then the next best thing to do is to plant a tree today. So it is time for us to build a public health infrastructure that our commonwealth deserves. And again, that is another thing we should be investing our relief funds in.
It is also time for us to be ensuring that child care and early childhood education are working for everybody. And that does mean an investment of our resources, it also means deregulation to support some private providers in family, home and child care. But right now we have a child care crisis on our hands. That is dragging down people's ability to to hold jobs, to get to work, to keep jobs and to build healthy families and healthy communities.
So there's a lot to do, but for me, it all comes down to basic building blocks, the basic building blocks of healthy communities: housing and transportation, schools, including early education and child care, good jobs and justice and safety.
The other really important thing to say is, I'm a big believer in asking the communities who are closest to the experience and the impact to have a leading voice in decision making. So that's true from climate to COVID. We will be asking people in environmental justice communities to take roles on commissions. And I believe in putting community organizations, the voices of impacted people, at the center of policymaking.
Rath: Danielle Allen, it's been really good speaking with you. I know we're just scratching the surface, so we'll have to get you back again to talk some more. But until then, thank you.
Allen: Thank you, Arun. A real pleasure.
Rath: That's Danielle Allen. She's running for the Democratic nomination to be governor of Massachusetts. This is All Things Considered.
This post was updated to correct the type of leave Allen took from her job at Harvard's ethics center. She is on public service leave, not a sabbatical.
