|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
If the Democratic primary for the open state Senate seat in the Third Bristol and Plymouth District turns on name recognition, it may not be much of a contest.
Taunton City Councilor Barry Sanders’ name is surely well known on his home ground, as he’s served on the council since 2008. But in the Democratic primary on Sept. 3, he’s facing Raynham Selectman Joe Pacheco, whose namesake, Sen. Marc Pacheco — to whom he is not a blood relation — has held the Senate seat since President Bill Clinton took office.
Nearly 32 years later, Sen. Pacheco remains, a Democrat in a purple district that stretches from the Rhode Island line to Wareham and Marion, not including New Bedford or towns bordering the city. In February, he announced that at 71 years of age, he wasn’t going to seek a 17th two-year term.
A race was on.
Joe Pacheco, 39, in public service since he was appointed to the Raynham Commission for Economic & Business Development at the age of 19, soon jumped in. So did Sanders, who at 59 just retired as a clinical social worker with the Massachusetts Department of Social Services.
Running unopposed in the primary are Taunton City Councilor Kelly Dooner, a Republican, and former Raynham Selectman James DuPont, an Independent.
Key 2024 election dates
The state’s primary election is just two weeks away — on Sept. 3, the Tuesday after Labor Day. The general election follows nine weeks later on Nov. 5.
Sept. 3 primary election
Key dates in the primary election for New Bedford voters:
Aug. 24: Last day to register for primary election voting.
Aug: 26: Last day to apply for voting by mail in the primary election.
Aug. 24-30: Early voting for the primary election, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the New Bedford Main Public Library, 613 Pleasant St.
Sept. 3: Primary election. Polling hours are 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Nov. 5 general election
The general election is Nov. 5, with a new set of deadlines.
Oct. 26: Last day to register for voting in the Nov. 5 election.
Oct. 28: Last day to apply for voting by mail in the Nov. 5 election.
Oct. 19 to Nov. 1: Early voting from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Main Public Library, 613 Pleasant St.
Nov. 5: General election. Polls open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
More voter info
Where do you vote? To find your specific polling location, enter your street address and postal zip code in this online form. Check the list of New Bedford’s polling locations here.
Get additional info on voter registration, eligibility, requirements, etc., at the Massachusetts Secretary of Commonwealth website.
Find a list of Massachusetts candidates in the Democratic and Republican primary races.
Learn more about voting in New Bedford and find applications for absentee ballots and applications for voting by mail at the New Bedford Election Commission website.
Find additional information about voting in Massachusetts at Vote 411, from the League of Women Voters Education Fund.
A generation apart, Democrats Sanders and Joe Pacheco bring to the pursuit their lives of service, and shared professional engagement with social service organizations.
Sanders worked 35 years as a social worker, 25 with the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, 10 with Social Services.
Pacheco, who was born into a public service family in Raynham, has worked for the past three years as director of the Barnstable County Department of Human Services. Before that he worked in the state Legislature, for an array of state agencies, and a Taunton-based nonprofit that provides housing counseling.
Focus on hospitals, housing
Their short Senate “to-do” lists overlap in some places and not others.
Both say they’re focused on the bankruptcy of Steward Health Care, the for-profit company that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May. The financial collapse jeopardized the survival of nine hospitals in Massachusetts, including Morton Hospital in Taunton.
Pacheco and Sanders aren’t blaming anyone in particular, but they say the Steward collapse exposes vulnerabilities that have to be addressed.
Sanders said the state should have more oversight over private hospitals, which could have helped spot the company’s financial trouble before it reached a crisis threatening essential services. Pacheco said the state should have a stronger hand in compelling private medical-care companies to report financial information.
Both stress their support for more affordable housing.
Pacheco, elected to the three-member Raynham Board of Selectmen when he was 21 — the youngest person ever to serve in that position — cites his contribution to building the town’s affordable housing inventory. Affordable housing is now 15% of the town’s housing stock, he said, topping the state goal of 10% for cities and towns.
Sanders said the state should make it easier for private developers to bankroll affordable housing. Why, he wonders, has it taken six years to remake a former Catholic middle school in Taunton as an apartment building of 50 units, including affordable housing?
Early this year, Sanders was the sole vote on the nine-member council against a $2.5 million tax break for an apartment complex near Taunton’s forthcoming MBTA South Coast Rail stop because the development did not include affordable housing.
One of three Democrats among the council’s five Republicans and one Independent, Sanders said he’s accustomed to being outvoted. He’s also accustomed to working with colleagues who hold different views, which he touts as a strength.
Pacheco emphasizes his knowledge of fiscal affairs gained in 17 years of local budget-making. He said he gained understanding of state government working for four years as a legislative aide to State Rep. David Flynn, and five years with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
“A rookie legislator can spend a term or more learning the legislative process,” Pacheco said, arguing that he’ll be prepared from the start to be an effective senator.
Sanders said his Senate campaign arose from his experience in social work, seeing the role that government can play in helping people manage life’s difficulties. He wants to expand access to treatment for substance use, emphasizing “cost-effective” efforts to discourage young people from drug use in the first place, and “harm reduction” to save lives of those who are not yet in treatment but could be eventually.
“People get knocked down for a lot of different reasons,” said Sanders. He figures he’s helped thousands of people individually as a social worker, is now serving a city of 60,000, and has a chance as a senator to expand to about 175,000 in the district.
In endorsements and cash, a lopsided contest
With six communities in Bristol County, four in Plymouth, the district cuts a purple political profile.
Former President Donald J. Trump, for instance, won the district over Democrat Hillary Clinton with an edge of less than 2% of the total vote in 2016. Trump lost to President Joe Biden by a margin of 5% of the vote in 2020. In the 2022 election for sheriff, all six Bristol County communities in the district went for former Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson, a conservative and outspoken Trump supporter, over his Democratic challenger, Paul Heroux.
Sanders, who said he leans to the left of his council colleagues, figures the race will be close, a “50 plus one” proposition, he said. He’s been knocking on doors across the district, but is counting on strong support in his home base of Taunton. About a third of the district’s Democratic and unenrolled voters are registered there.
Pacheco also has a strong card to play there, and elsewhere in the district: the endorsement of the incumbent, Sen. Marc Pacheco, who is from Taunton.
While they are not related, the two men’s families share a connection. Sen. Pacheco was a friend of Joe Pacheco’s grandfather, James, who founded Raynham’s Parks & Recreation Department. James was one of several family members in public service. Joe Pacheco’s great-grandfather was one of Raynham’s first full-time police officers. His father recently retired as a captain with the town Police Department, and a former police chief is a cousin.
Joe Pacheco is also supported in Taunton with endorsements from four former Taunton mayors: Tom Hoye, Ted Aleixo, Dick Johnson and Bob Nunes.
Sanders, a father of two who grew up in Raynham, has been endorsed by State Rep. Carol Doherty of Taunton, and also Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux.
As of early August, Pacheco had lined up 18 labor endorsements, three times as many as Sanders, including organizations representing Raynham and Massachusetts firefighters, and the State Police.
Pacheco’s edge in fundraising is more formidable. As of the last campaign finance reports filed in early August, Pacheco had spent $18,688 and had nearly $79,000 cash on hand. Sanders had spent $6,480 and had just over $11,000 on hand.
With the preliminary and, if he makes it, the general election campaign, Pacheco figures the race could cost $150,000.
Despite his edge in money, the Marc Pacheco endorsement and the name recognition, Joe Pacheco said he’s been knocking on thousands of doors, taking nothing for granted. He said he’s also aware that the very familiar name in that senate seat could work against him, if voters en masse are struck with “Pacheco fatigue.”
Sanders understands he’s running an “outsider campaign,” as he put it to one voter in Seekonk, during a door-knocking effort that he said has taken him to thousands of homes.
Sanders said the venture suits this time of his life, and his life’s work of trying to help people.
“If we are not” helping, he said, “then I don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing.”
Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.
