Just after midnight on Aug. 1, as a key legislative deadline slipped away, state Sen. Marc Pacheco watched a colleague break the news in a Beacon Hill hallway: the House and Senate were still too far apart to pass a clean energy bill this year.
A Taunton Democrat who’s helped drive Massachusetts climate policy, Pacheco is retiring after more than three decades in the state Senate. But he paused to consider that his fellow lawmakers might face electoral consequences for leaving the bill on hold.
“I think a lot of activists will be tremendously frustrated,” Pacheco said. “And, of course, when you have frustrated constituents, they want to see action.”
Later that morning, frustrated climate advocates lined that same hall, greeting senators with signs that said “Failure of Leadership” as they adjourned after an almost 23-hour session marked by progress on only a few major bills.
But those and other climate voters will have few opportunities this year to act on any dissatisfaction and vote sitting state legislators out of office. The same is true for anyone unhappy with the work left undone when lawmakers wrapped up their scheduled formal sessions at the end of July, from soccer fans hoping a New England Revolution stadium can come to Everett to people with chronic conditions who want their prescription drug costs capped.
All 200 seats in the Massachusetts Legislature are up for election this year, as they are every two years. But millions of voters across the state effectively have no choice in who represents them in the state House and Senate, though they can opt to write in a candidate or vote for no one at all. Almost two-thirds of incumbent lawmakers — 65% — will face no official challengers on the ballot in either the Sept. 3 primary or Nov. 5 general election.
That includes the powerful Democrats who control the flow of bills through the Legislature: House Speaker Ron Mariano of Quincy, Senate President Karen Spilka of Ashland, and their Ways and Means Committee chairs, Rep. Aaron Michlewitz of Boston’s North End and Sen. Michael Rodrigues of Westport.
Current lawmakers typically describe the lack of competition, a well-established pattern, as a sign voters are happy with their performance.
“I believe it’s [an] endorsement of the work that the Senate is doing and the services that the senators are performing for their constituents and their responsiveness,” Spilka said last month. “And I believe that the senators work very, very hard for their districts and their constituents.”
Steve Kerrigan, chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, said that while there’s a lot of talk about what the Legislature didn’t finish, lawmakers “accomplished a great deal” this term, passing laws including gun reforms, a sweeping housing affordability package, and state budgets that amped up education investments and made school meals free for all students.
“We’re energized to continue that fantastic work,” Kerrigan said. He said he views the lack of competition as “a sign that the voters are happy with the representation that they get ... and the Legislature and the governor are taking steps to address their concerns and help them build a stronger future.”
Other observers and advocates, like Jonathan Cohn of the advocacy group Progressive Massachusetts, say the dynamic can fuel a sense of complacency on Beacon Hill. For one thing, Cohn said, most state legislators don’t need to worry about defending their record on the campaign trail.
“One of the problems is that for legislators, because of the fact that so few of them are ever really contested in elections, it flattens the sense of time so they can think, ‘Oh, well, we’ll just be back at it in January,’” he said. “Issues just lose a basic degree of urgency because it’s just one never-ending legislative session for them.”
“Issues just lose a basic degree of urgency because it’s just one never-ending legislative session for them.”Jonathan Cohn of the advocacy group Progressive Massachusetts
The districts where there are competitive races are often those where an incumbent is not seeking reelection — this cycle, 19 seats are being vacated. In Pacheco’s southeastern Massachusetts district, for instance, two Democrats, a Republican and an independent candidate are vying for his Senate seat.
But a lack of an incumbent doesn’t guarantee competition. Two House districts this year have a sitting representative who isn’t trying for another term, and only one candidate filed to run for each soon-to-be-vacant seat: Democrats Hadley Luddy in Orleans and Homar Gomez in Easthampton.
Only three current lawmakers — Republican Rep. Paul Frost of Auburn and Democrats Rep. Thomas Stanley of Waltham and Rep. Rady Mom of Lowell — are currently set to face a challenger in both the primary and general.
Democrats have supermajority control of both legislative branches on Beacon Hill, and Cohn said the red-versus-blue partisan framework through which many people view elections doesn’t really apply in deep-blue Massachusetts.
Twenty-six incumbent GOP lawmakers are seeking reelection, and Republican candidates are on the ballot in a total of 55 legislative districts across the state. Massachusetts Republican Party executive director John Milligan says they’re pursuing a targeted approach to this year’s elections.
“We never had the intention of running candidates in seats we felt were not winnable or having a blanket-the-state strategy,” he said. “Obviously, we’ve received some criticism for that, but I think the results in November are going to speak for themselves.”
Milligan said it’s part of a long-term strategy to gradually shift the balance of power at the State House by recruiting candidates and allocating resources for competitive seats, focusing this year on swing districts where Democrats are not seeking reelection. He said presidential election years are “historically very tough” for Republicans in Massachusetts running down the ticket.
In addition to the Republican candidates who have earned a spot on the ballot, the Mass. GOP also plans to back two write-in contenders seeking legislative seats.
“In general, our politics has become so polarized — even here in Massachusetts where people don’t always like to admit they’re a Republican,” Milligan said. “And so to put an ‘R’ next to your name and run for office is not an easy thing to do, especially when you are up against what a lot of people see as the Democratic machine. Democrats control every aspect of state government.”
Kerrigan, of Mass. Dems, says the fact that there are so few Republican challengers to sitting Democrats reflects that Bay State voters “see the party for what it is: a wholly owned subsidiary of Donald Trump.”
“When you run for office, you’ve got to believe you can win,” Kerrigan said.
For legislative hopefuls across the ideological spectrum, various factors may also make a bid for office unappealing. House and Senate candidates had to turn in their nomination papers by the end of April, so someone motivated to run over inaction on clean energy or prescription drug bills would have had to file their paperwork three months before knowing the fate of that legislation.
“I also think that the Legislature’s history of long, late-night sessions that end with nothing also make it seem like an unattractive job,” said Progressive Mass.’ Cohn. “If you see a place where you look at it and you think, ‘I don’t even know that I could accomplish anything by being here,’ it’s understandable why somebody might not want want to run for that office or think that their that their talents, skills, etc., would be better used elsewhere — even though those people could be the best people for the jobs.”
