As a concerned citizen, you can expect to see these policy pages grow and adapt to your ideas, as the campaign is able to reach out and listen to more and more residents within the neighborhoods of the 3rd Suffolk district. I look forward to hearing from you in the coming weeks and months, and to opening my office door to you in the State House.
Three of the issues I am personally most focused on in this campaign and most excited to work on in the State House are:
- Election and Ethics Reform
- Sustainable Development
- Jobs and Economic development
Our communities face many challenges today. Some of these are acute setbacks tied to the economic crisis but many of them are chronic and systemic problems that we must address in a comprehensive fashion. We must seek out and cure the root of our illness, not merely treat the symptoms. To start that process, let us look to the examples set by history and return to the bedrock principals of our democracy and our Commonwealth. We have strayed too far from the founding principals of our representative and participatory democracy. Our government is not achieving its full potential and our elected leaders are not fulfilling their commitments to us unless our system is open, accountable and participatory. I believe that to fully address the challenges facing our district and cure what ails us, our government should be incorporating the following principals into the system again:
Access and Accountability
Today, as a resident of the 3rd Suffolk district, you are likely to hold your neighbors and friends to higher standards than you would your representatives in the state house. But, accountability is not just a catch phrase. It is at the core of our contract with elected leaders. Elected officials are tasked with working each day to maintain the trust and build the involvement of their constituents. We must institute new and sweeping reforms in government, so it can once again live up to its potential, and its promise to the people of our commonwealth. Among these reforms should be the application of stringent open meeting standards in the State House, so that constituents can see exactly what is being done by the leaders they elected to represent them.
Our government is an institution designed to be a truly democratic voice of the people, yet regular voters have not had enough access to their elected leaders or representation that seeks to listen and to engage them in the process. With the progress we have seen across our country and in our state, we must have higher standards and not settle for more of the same in our own district. More of the same closed door culture, more of the insider politics and more of the same back room deals made by the powerful few. We have a chance to change that now. I am no insider myself and I am running because I think that people like regular people like me deserve an equal voice in the process. If elected, I will always remain accessible to all the voters of this district, and I will put the power back in the hands of regular people.
The government must be opened up to include the public, and to be held to higher ethical standards – the standards of our community.
Community Involvement
I am a member of the Mayor’s Advisory Council and co-chair of ONEin3 Boston, in the South End Neighborhood, focused on promoting civic engagement among the one-third of Boston residents between the ages of 20 and 34 – an ever-growing and ever-increasingly vocal demographic of our society. I have spent my time working with these organizations because I firmly believe that civic engagement and community involvement are key to moving our Commonwealth forward and I will take this same approach with me to the State House.
I will work to empower our citizens and our communities again, and not because I simply believe in some abstract philosophy of leadership or because I think it sounds like a nice idea. I strive to this ideal because IT WORKS. We have seen time and again that great changes in our communities, great steps forward for our people...these actions happened from the bottom up. They happened because regular people got involved and stood together with their leaders for what was right.
Just a couple of years ago, I was overwhelmed with pride when we rose up, worked to defeat the opponents of equal marriage in the Constitutional Convention. We saw injustice looming, and we came together to strike it down. I knew that it had been my neighbors, my friends, my community who had risen to the challenge, gotten involved, and made the difference. It is that sense of ownership over our own society and confidence in what extraordinary things ordinary people are capable of that we must carry with us moving forward.
Our neighborhoods are our strength, here in Boston and throughout the commonwealth. Each has a unique set of charms and challenges, and we must seek to engage members of every neighborhood and every community – to ensure that we break away from the traditional power structures that have left us disenfranchised. I will bring communities and regular people into the process and together, we will make improvements in this district from the bottom up. I want members of the community to speak up, stand up, lead WITH me to create a brighter future for this district.