Montigny faces rare primary challenge for state Senate

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For the first time since 2008, South Coast voters will get to choose who represents them in the state Senate. 

First-time candidate Molly Kivi is challenging incumbent Mark Montigny in the Sept. 3 Democratic primary for the 2nd Bristol and Plymouth state Senate seat. With no Republican candidate for the seat, the Democratic primary will decide the race.

Kivi, an accountant who until recently worked for the City of New Bedford, said she decided to run because she believes competition is good for democracy.

“It’s not about winning or losing,” she said. “It’s about having a conversation.”

Montigny has been challenged only twice since he was first elected to the seat in 1992; he has won 16 two-year terms. He beat an independent in the 2006 general election and another Democrat in the 2008 primary, both times with more than 80% of the votes.

As Kivi calls for new blood, Montigny is running on his 32-year record.

“I have, in my career, done more policy and more budget earmarks for the region than any rep or senator,” Montigny said.

The primary’s winner will run unopposed in the Nov. 5 general election. No Republican has filed to run in the Senate district, which covers New Bedford and its suburbs — Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Mattapoisett, and Acushnet. The district leans Democratic, with 56% of votes going to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

Supreme Court decisions motivate Molly Kivi to run

Kivi, 34, moved to New Bedford two years ago to take a position as a grant auditor for the city — but she left her position in May to campaign full-time. She said she’s been going door-to-door, but she declined to say how many doors she had knocked on, saying she didn’t want to reveal any of her campaign strategy.

A pivotal moment in her decision to run for office was the U.S. Supreme Court decision in March that rejected states’ attempts to remove former President Donald Trump from primary ballots under a 14th Amendment provision, she said. The states had argued that Trump was disqualified from federal office as an insurrectionist due to the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Something took hold, and I drove to the Secretary of State’s office to pick up [nomination] papers,” she said.

Two years earlier, the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade had changed her world, she said, and made her feel that it was important to get more women into office.

This is Kivi’s first time running for office, but it’s not her first political campaign. From 2020 to 2021, she led an effort to reform the state’s unemployment insurance system. She said she was first drawn to the issue during the pandemic, when her friends were laid off from their jobs in the hospitality industry and struggled to get benefits.

“The unemployment system was a mess,” she said.

The system is underfunded, unfair to low-income workers and small businesses, and doesn’t meet people’s needs, Kivi said. Her proposal would have increased benefits and changed how tax rates for businesses are calculated. It wasn’t adopted, but the Legislature in 2021 created a state commission to study the issue. (The commission couldn’t come to a consensus, but did make a few recommendations.)

If elected, Kivi said she plans to use her expertise as an accountant to analyze the state budget and find ways to increase its efficiency. She said she wanted to address administrative hurdles in health care and “fully fund” education. Her plan to improve public safety is to find ways to address the root causes of violence, such as trauma and abuse.

Kivi had few specific policy proposals, though she floated the idea to stop paving roads as a way to address climate change. It would require fewer fossil fuels to have dirt roads, she said, “but that doesn’t help stockholders.”

She had little to say on Montigny.

“I don’t have any thoughts on him; I don’t know him,” she said.

Her one critique of Montigny: That his financial disclosures show he holds stock in oil and gas companies.

“I don’t think it’s cool that somebody is making money off of our climate changing on us, while telling the public that they are for climate bills,” she said.

When asked about his holdings, Montigny said he supports an aggressive transition to clean energy, but there has to be “balance.”

“We’re not ready to just flip the switch the other way,” he said. “The entire American economy still relies on these [oil and gas] companies.”

Montigny provided a written statement after the interview with additional information. He said he has helped allocate state funding to offshore wind projects based in New Bedford. Many Americans with retirement accounts or investments in stock indexes hold some ownership in natural gas companies, he said. He stated that having “balance” during the energy transition is important to keep energy affordable for consumers.

Kivi said she has tried to get in touch with Montigny to meet him, but he has not responded. Montigny said he didn’t understand her request, since she’s campaigning against him. He went on to question her connection to New Bedford, pointing out that she only moved to the city recently and saying he doesn’t know anyone who knows her.

“It almost seems like New Bedford is a pit stop for her; I don’t know,” he said.

In contrast, he said he is a lifelong resident of New Bedford and spends almost every day in his district.

The incumbent’s case for another term

In asking voters for a 17th term on Beacon Hill, Montigny, 63, pointed to his policy work, earmarked funds he has brought to the district, and constituent services.

An amendment he attached to the latest state budget banned so-called “home equity theft,” a practice that allowed tax collectors to keep all the proceeds in foreclosure sales, no matter how little the homeowner owed. A 2023 New Bedford Light investigation found that dozens of New Bedford property owners have lost their houses — and all the remaining equity in them — over tax debts that were just a fraction of the property’s value.

“If there’s a core to my passions to serve the next term,” he said, “it’s a fight against injustice.”

The Legislature moved to reform its tax foreclosure law after a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision declared a similar law in Minnesota unconstitutional, but Montigny pointed out that he had been filing bills to change the law since 2018. He blamed the influence of “special interests” on the Legislature for the six-year delay.

Another success in the last session: The state Senate’s passage of his bill banning cat declawing. Another bill Montigny crafted to make dog kennels safer also passed the Senate. He said he would continue to work on these animal-oriented policies in the next term.

Montigny said state funding that he directed to the city’s arts and culture organizations is responsible for its downtown “renaissance.” 

“My work has been more significant than anyone,” he said.

He said he’s excited to see the State Pier slated for redevelopment, adding that he helped allocate money to fund the work. A state agency is now reviewing proposals that include a marine industrial hub, a public seafood auction, a restaurant, and a ferry docking area. Montigny and other state legislators previously criticized the proposal process for what they called a lack of transparency.

The senator said his office is also busy with constituent work. Recently, when residents were complaining on Facebook about a major pothole on a local exit ramp, he called the state highway division and got it to close the ramp within hours and fix the pothole overnight, he said.

The odds

The candidates stand far apart in fundraising. Kivi’s campaign is running on the $2,000 she deposited into her campaign account, public filings show. Montigny hasn’t formally fundraised in years, but he has more than $787,000 in his campaign war chest.

Does that intimidate Kivi?

“Oh my god, of course!” she said.

But asked if the odds are stacked against her, Kivi said there’s no public polling data, so she didn’t know. She said some people have tried to discourage her from running with the message: “You’re going to fail, so why try?”

That’s not what campaigns are about, Kivi said.

“It’s really about communities coming together, and sharing their values, and what they want for the future, and sharing what their vision is,” she said. “And I get to do that regardless of whether I win or not.”

Email Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org

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