Pages
Stay In Touch
More
© 2013 The Sandwich Democratic Town Committee
Linell Grundman sent an interesting piece from Roll Call to the Free Press. The article posits five critical factors that may be at work in Tuesday’s U.S. Senate Democratic Primary election. Written by Kyle Trygstad the post focuses on:
- How the bombing affected the race
- Polls show Markey’s lead varies
- Blue-collar towns are key for turnout operations
- The Democrats are political opposites in the Party
- Markey has not run in a competitive race in a long time.
Follow this link to read the whole post: Five Things to Know About Tuesdays’ Primary.
Via SDTC member and Sandwich Selectman, Linell Grundman, we have learned that the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance will be holding a public forum on May 6th in Hyannis. Interim Commissioner Stacey Monahan is conducting a “listening tour” around the State to gain input on how her department is doing and to hear ideas about services needed. According to the Department, its mission is: “to assist low-income individuals and families to meet their basic needs, increase their incomes, and improve their quality of life.”
The meeting will run from 7-9 PM and will take place at the Hyannis Youth and Community Center. Please click here – Dept of transitional assistance forum – for more details and additional information about the Department .
Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh has announced the hiring of a new state Executive Director, Chris Joyce. The previous director, Clare Kelly has resigned to pursue another opportunity after serving as our Executive Director for the last two years. Click on Proud of my Team to see the announcement from John, which includes a message from outgoing director Kelly.
With less than two hours to go before the U.S. Senate starts voting on amendments to the anti-gun violence bill now pending, the unimaginable seems likely. There are still not enough votes to gain passage of the legislation with near-universal background checks in place. Multiple sources are reporting that the votes are not there and this will go down in defeat, despite a level of support in every state in the country, including among Republican voters, and gun owners that rivals apple pie and motherhood. As of this moment there are 52 Senators in favor, 40 Republicans opposed, and 8 undecided. In other words, the bill’s supporters would have to win every single one of the undecided votes.
It appears that we have a whole lot of United States Senators who provide living, breathing, walking proof that you can indeed live without a spine. There they are, cowering in their proverbial closets because of what the 7% or so of Americans who do not favor universal background checks might do to them politically. Really!! And the 90%+ who do support this bill?? Despite having a pretty good facility with two languages, both of which have rich and extensive vocabularies, I quite honestly cannot think of the right words to express what I am feeling right now.
People concerned about or just plain interested in the subject of campaign financing and finance reform have an incredible resource at their disposal. The National Institute on Money in State Politics has dedicated its web site to recording, tracking, and analyzing the flow of money to state level candidates and ballot initiatives across the country. This is an incredible, rich resource (no pun intended!) for viewing the impact of money on state politics. People interested in SDTC Action Projects on Citizens United and Eyes on Hunt will find this to be a treasure trove of data on who gave how much to whom, and to influence what ballot measures with what outcomes over the last several years. A report on Massachusetts for the period 2006-2010 states in part:
Prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, Massachusetts’ law banned corporations from spending money to influence elections; after the ruling this law ultimately fell. Institute researchers identified top spenders, targeted races, and how much was spent in the 2006-2010 elections. The money spent independently over the study period was a fraction of the $201 million contributed directly to candidates.
Follow Us!