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The Labor Day weekend will have just ended, the summer will be mostly a memory, and some local primary voters on Sept. 3 will face a strange prospect: choice.

On Election Day, depending on your legislative district, you could be snapping out of long-weekend mode to decide between two candidates. In legislative preliminaries, such options rarely appear.

The main events surround three legislative seats held by lawmakers who were first elected in 1992. Two seats are open, as 10th Bristol District Democratic Rep. Bill Straus of Mattapoisett and 3rd Bristol & Plymouth Democratic Sen. Marc Pacheco of Taunton are not running. 

Sen. Mark Montigny of New Bedford is seeking a 17th consecutive term in the 2nd Bristol & Plymouth District, facing a Democratic primary against a newcomer to electoral politics. 

Two Republicans seeking the Straus seat

In the 10th Bristol District, primary action is on the Republican side.

Two contenders, Bob McConnell, the chairman of Fairhaven’s Republican Town Committee, and Joe Pires, an Old Rochester Regional School Committee member, seek the chance to run in November. The Democrat in the race, Fairhaven Town Moderator Mark Sylvia, is running unopposed in the district that includes Marion, Mattapoisett, Rochester, Fairhaven, and parts of Acushnet and New Bedford.

Pires and McConnell stake out a range from a more moderate position to a more hard-edge conservative one, respectively. 

Pires touts close personal associations with Democrats and independents.  McConnell cites former President Donald Trump as his main political inspiration. After attending the July launch of Trump’s Massachusetts campaign, McConnell posted on Facebook that he was “more MAGA now than ever.”

McConnell said he wants to bring more people into the political process, even as he touts his itch to disrupt certain aspects of it.

“If there’s little I can do to cancel certain bills, I will,” McConnell said, pointing to a favorite quote from a 19th-century lawyer/politician calling a legislature a danger to life, liberty and property.

Pires brings his own conservative credentials. 

He voted on the ORR School Committee to remove books and other materials that school librarians had approved. This spring, Pires and other Rochester-area activists formed Tri-Town for Protecting Children, which says schools are spreading “sexually-explicit literature and social influencing.”

The ORR committee has spent a fair amount of time on books policy, but in his legislative campaign Pires presses other matters. He said he wants to cut taxes and regulations. He’s worried about the future of the fishing industry, and not buying many of the claims of green energy advocates.

Both candidates back strong actions against illegal immigration. They back Trump’s pledge to step up deportations. 

Read more about this race →

3rd Bristol and Plymouth Democrats tout service credentials

In the 3rd Bristol & Plymouth District, two Democrats — Raynham Selectman Joe Pacheco and Taunton City Councilor Barry Sanders — are offering their experience of service. A Republican, Taunton City Councilor Kelly Dooner and an Independent, James DuPont are also in the race. 

Joe Pacheco — no relation to the sitting senator — is 39, and has been active in local affairs since his late teens. First he was named to the Raynham Commission for Economic & Business Development. Two years later, at 21, he became the youngest person ever elected to the Board of Selectmen. 

Pacheco 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. 

He sees the Senate seat as a chance to build on and apply his knowledge of budget-making and state government. 

Sanders just retired after 35 years as a social worker, 25 with the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, 10 with Social Services. That experience propels the Senate campaign, he said. 

He’s seen the role 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.  

As the Steward Health Care bankruptcy unfolds, at one time threatening the survival of Morton Hospital in Taunton, both call for more oversight over private medical companies.

Sanders said the state should have been able to spot Steward’s 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 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. He also calls for limits on rent increases in mobile-home parks.

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A newcomer takes on Montigny

Sen. Montigny won a three-way primary in 1992 with 42% of the vote, then crushed one Democratic contender in September, 2008 with nearly double that share of the ballots. So much for the recent history of primary challenges in this Senate district. 

Now comes Molly Kivi, an accountant who led an effort a few years ago to reform the state unemployment insurance system, but has never run for office. A native of Carver, she moved to New Bedford two years ago and until recently worked for the City of New Bedford as a grant auditor. 

Competition, she figures, is good for democracy.

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

As a senator, she said she’d apply her accounting chops to the state budget, seeking ways to make it more efficient. She wants to clear administrative jams in medical care, and tackle violent crime at its roots in trauma and abuse.

Montigny cites his record of more than 30 years of legislation, money brought to the district, and constituent service.

Most recently, he got the state budget amended to ban so-called “home equity theft.” The practice allows tax collectors to keep all the proceeds in foreclosure sales, no matter how little the homeowner owed. Dozens of New Bedford property owners have lost their houses, and the equity,  for tax debts that were 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 said the influence of “special interests”  caused the six-year delay.

Also in the last session, the Senate passed his bill banning cat declawing, and a measure to make dog kennels safer. He said he would continue to work on animal welfare in the next term.

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

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

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Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.

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