It’s hard to run a Senate campaign from your laptop.
In today’s Congressional Corner, WAMC’s Alan Chartock wraps up his conversation with Representative Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts’ fourth district.
This conversation was recorded on May 27.
Alan Chartock: Hi, this is Alan Chartock in the Congressional Corner with Congressman Joe Kennedy who was running for the United States Senate in a primary against Ed Markey. So, Congressman, it does, it does appear that it's a very close race. Polling has shown a virtual dead heat. How do you how do you expect to win this?
Representative Joe Kennedy: By going out making a case to voters, the way that you win every race. And yeah, that's been obviously harder to do when you're locked up in your attic for weeks on end. But now, hopefully, with the virus, the spread of the virus coming down, and folks starting to slowly and cautiously reopen, provides an opportunity for, for us to get out there and make the case. And again, I think the moment that we're in, the crisis that we're in, and if I believed that six months ago that there was a failure of leadership in Washington and we needed a new leadership in the Senate, I am more convinced of that now than ever. And if we are going to build a stronger, more resilient nation, if we are going to take this moment and actually say there are massive failures that that have made this crisis worse, but we can build from this and actually build a country that is stronger. I think that is a long road ahead. I think that's the work of a generation. And I don't think you're gonna get it done with the same folks that have brought us the old normal. So I’ll go out there and make the case every day we can from now to September and then on to on to November.
So I live here in Great Barrington from which I am talking to you right now. And so I want to ask a Western Massachusetts question. Our many radio stations reach pretty effectively from Worcester all the way West. Sometimes people here in this part of the state feel like they're stepchildren. I wonder is there something special you think ought to be done for Western Massachusetts?
A lot. So one, presence, like officials have to show up there, right. And you've seen the impact of this on particularly again, in the discussion of this virus. So much of the discussion has come up with what's happening in Boston. And on the one hand, that's understandable. It's a big city, you got great hospitals, you got a lot of smart people and experts. But, you know, there's other parts to the state outside of 128. I currently represent communities like Fall River, communities like Taunton, that have so often, far too often been promised things year after year, things like South Coast rail, things like infrastructure investments, things like the promise of renewable energy and offshore wind. And yet, when it comes time for the state to make decisions, or for that investment, say, oh, well, you know, we can get more bang for our buck in Boston, or there's louder voices here advocating. And so what do you have to do? You got to show up, you got to be there. You got to understand what the conditions are on the ground and use the platform that you have as a national elected official to help raise those voices. And make sure that you are taking those concerns and channeling them, which are down when you fight for those priorities in Washington, DC. And then it's making sure that you're going to prioritize projects like an East West rail, right, from Boston to Western to Springfield, to Pittsfield. It's making sure that you're going to address health inequities on reimbursement. Because as long as there are structural disparities between Boston and Western Massachusetts, you're going to see different structural outcomes between Boston and western Massachusetts when it comes to access to and provision of health care. And so these are all the things that our statewide elected officials need to be focused on now. And, you know, you can't wait till there's a crisis to say, oh, yeah, we meant to fix that.
The one thing that I hear a good deal about here is that not everybody has equal access to the internet. Have you been hearing that when you've been appearing in western Massachusetts?
Absolutely. And it's not just hearing it, it's knowing the fact that there are still today in 2020, in Massachusetts, in the United States of America, there are 18 communities that still do not have access to broadband, period. And, you know, Massachusetts likes to tout itself as a tech hub, as a state known for its edge, an edge as a state known for pioneering technology. The fact that in our state, that we don't have that, that we still have communities that in this day and age do not have access to the internet, and that obviously needs to change. And we know that not just because it'd be great to be able to look at videos and surf the web. We know that because when we have challenges like access to mental health care, the way you're going to address it and the way this things can be in part addressed is through telehealth. Well, if you don't have access to the internet, you don't have telehealth. If you don't have telehealth, you don't have some of the earlier interventions that you can have with doctors when there's a potential COVID diagnosis. So this isn't just a question of technology. This is a question of as society transforms, are we leaving segments of our community behind? And the answer that is yes. Which is why we need to change.
If you were in the Senate, what would you be doing about the coronavirus deaths at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home?
One, recognizing it never should have gotten that far. And this is something that look, I was out at the Soldiers’ Home a couple days ago. About a week ago with Congressman Neal, Chairman Neal. We dropped off several thousand sets of masks for the folks there to increase their supplies of PPE. The idea that you have nearly 100 heroes that have lost their lives because of this virus is tragic and heartbreaking. And it calls for far more robust federal oversight. Reporting, I think with the Veterans Affairs administration, with the VA, a call for a comprehensive investigation into what happened. And I think it calls into question the existing model that puts these homes almost, you know, exclusively under state control, where there was clearly a failure here, a massive system failure. And I think that entire model needs to be rethought to ensure that this does not happen again.
Let me ask you about something I've been very interested in for a long time. And that's the concept of term limits. People stay in Congress for a long, long time. Of course, the Senate is six year terms, not two year terms. What do you think philosophically about term limits my saying, as a political scientist, my colleagues hate it. I've always sort of thought, because of the way the system is structured. It's not a bad idea. What do you think?
I think as somebody that runs for office every two years at the moment, that term limits aren't necessarily the solution. I will tell you though, that having jumped into a primary challenge, getting a firsthand look at the ways in which our current democratic system is tilted towards incumbents, it has opened my eyes and shown that we need to overhaul the system. Again, I'm not sure term limits are the right solution there because if you have somebody that is doing well, that has earned the support of his or her constituents, arbitrarily saying you're done, I don't think makes sense. But what it does mean is we should ensure a system and fight for a system where more people can run, where more people are going to be able to put together a campaign and have access to folks across Massachusetts where you allow for that competition, not just of ideas, but of candidates and of campaigns too. So you don't have the barrier so high, that it artificially keeps people out. The powers of incumbency have become enormous on both sides of the aisle. And that has been on very stark relief over the course of the past several months for me as I got in this race, and I'll just say Alan, if there's been the efforts that have been put in place around incumbency protection when I got into this race and that's coming from somebody whose family's been involved in democratic politics for a long time in the state, as somebody who's raising millions of dollars for Democratic candidates all over the country, as somebody that has pretty deep relationships with people in this state. If they're able to try to do that to me, they can certainly do it to anybody. And I think that's also why my candidacy is making some folks nervous because we have a system that protects incumbents.
We certainly do. Let me ask a real fast question, because I got about a minute left. And that is Charlie Baker's the republican governor of Massachusetts, of blue state, Massachusetts. How does that happen?
That happens, because our as you know, our state actually has a recent history, a pretty long one, of actually electing Republican governors. And I think what democrats need to do…
How come?
You know, that's a great question. And I think in part, you know, folks like some, you got nearly 60% of the electorate, Massachusetts is actually unenrolled. They certainly tilt democrat at a federal level, because I think our values align up more with the Democratic Party at the federal level, particularly than today's Republican Party. But I think you also have folks that want some balance in their state legislature. But look, I think, you know, I've got a pretty strong working relationship with the governor. And I think our federal offices need to be in order to be effective at this job, you have to have coordination between federal, state, local, so the mayors in the communities and city councils in the communities that I work with that I represent, and the governor's office to try to make sure that when you have a challenge, like COVID, you're in sync and in lockstep as to how we try to respond.
It's great to talk to Congressman Joe Kennedy, from the fourth district and running for the United States Senate against Ed Markey. Good luck, Joe, and thanks for being with us. We very much appreciate it.
Thanks so much, my friend.
