State Rep. Bill Straus reflects on 32 years on Beacon Hill

It was as if New Bedford had declared war on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Bill Straus recalls.

Within days of becoming a state representative in 1993, Straus started filing legislation to pave the way for New Bedford to rejoin the governing board of the Steamship Authority, which runs ferries to the islands. At the time, the city hadn’t had ferry service in decades.

But it would be an ugly fight, Straus said. Eric Turkington, representative for the islands and Falmouth at the time, cornered Straus at his cubicle. “Who made you do this? Who asked you to file this?” Turkington asked.

“No one,” Straus replied. It was his own idea — he thought bringing the ferry to New Bedford was a matter of fairness and equity.

“You could see this was not going to go anywhere,” Straus said this summer. “But I kept filing it.”

The Steamship Authority bought a private ferry service between the city and Martha’s Vineyard in 2001, and New Bedford finally got its seat on the Steamship Authority board in 2002, nearly a decade after Straus started filing the legislation. He sees it as his first big victory as a lawmaker. 

This year, after 16 two-year terms representing the suburbs east of New Bedford in the 10th Bristol District, Straus, 68, decided not to run for reelection. It means he will also step down from his role co-chairing the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation, which he has held since 2011. 

Straus said he wanted to leave the job while he still loves doing it.

“I’ve seen people in public office — no one that I would ever name specifically — who seem to no longer relish the great responsibility that the voters have given them, and I never want to be at that point,” he said.

One recent morning at his law office in New Bedford’s historical district, Straus got talking about the Fairhaven-Mattapoisett bike path with a “bike nut” who works in his building. Straus, who helped secure the funding for the path, pulled out a pad of sticky notes and drew a diagram of the route.

That path is now nearly complete. And South Coast Rail, the other major project Straus has worked on, is now in the home stretch of safety testing. That’s another reason why he says it’s the right time to leave office, so his successor can pursue the next round of projects.

South Coast Rail: “Things are happening!” says Straus

To be the transportation committee chair, Straus said, means advocating for controversial ideas. Last year, with the MBTA under scrutiny for a series of safety failures, Straus filed legislation that would put the agency’s commuter rail network under MassDOT’s control. 

“A chair pushes people to think differently about the subject,” he said.

There’s one controversial idea that Straus has been promoting for years: that South Coast Rail is actually going to happen.

I’ll believe it when I see it, constituents say. Politicians have been promising the South Coast a commuter rail connection to Boston since before Straus even took office. The project has missed two of its targets in the past year, and is now slated for May 2025.

The project may be late, but Straus insists that it’s coming. “SOUTH COAST RAIL: THINGS ARE HAPPENING!” he wrote in a Facebook post earlier this summer. The new train tracks and stations have all been built. Now, the MBTA is going through a rigorous safety testing phase.

Even as he touts the project’s progress, Straus said the public still hasn’t gotten all the answers they deserve on the reasons for the repeated delays.

It’s clear to him that the project was delayed because of problems with its leadership team. MBTA General Manager Phil Eng replaced the previous project manager, Jennifer Tabakin, earlier this year — something Straus said should have been done sooner.

“She didn’t leave voluntarily, as far as I know, and that was because decisions were made that did not advance the project,” he said.

Straus said he’s not sure why MBTA leadership hasn’t been clear about the reasons for Tabakin’s replacement. After the project is up and running, he said the administration should do an internal review of the project’s management.

Straus credited former Gov. Charlie Baker for his leadership on South Coast Rail. For years, officials had been weighing and studying two routes: a more direct path connecting to the Stoughton line that cut through the environmentally-protected Hockomock Swamp, or a slower and cheaper path that connected to the Middleborough line.

In 2017, Baker greenlit the Middleborough route as “Phase I” of the project — the route now scheduled to open next year. The MBTA’s plan includes construction of the Stoughton route as “Phase II” in the 2030s, which could cut New Bedford-to-Boston travel times from Phase I’s 90 minutes to about 79 minutes.

But Straus called Phase II a “fantasy.” That’s because the environmental permits it will need to cut through the Hockomock Swamp require the state to consider alternatives. An existing route via Middleborough would check that box, Straus said, making it unlikely the state will be able to obtain the permits.

The job of a legislator

Straus believes legislators are elected not only for their position on issues, but for their judgment. 

“I can’t just hold my finger up in the wind and say, ‘Where are people?’” he said. “You just have to come down, make a judgment, and tell people you’ve thought it through.”

He doesn’t think his constituents expected votes on the death penalty, gay marriage, or reproductive rights would later take place when he was first elected in 1992, he said, but he believes his constituents trusted him to make the right call when those votes came up.

In 1997, Straus voted against a measure that would have reinstated the death penalty in Massachusetts — it was defeated by a single vote.

In the last three general elections, Straus has won with between 56% and 65% of votes. 

“But every third person you walk past on the street thinks you ought to be fired,” he said. “So that keeps me, I hope, humble.”

Straus, like other state lawmakers, has not always gotten along with New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell. In 2022, he accused the mayor of working with MassDevelopment “in the shadows” to redevelop the State Pier. He also questioned the legal viability of Mitchell’s threat to sue the MBTA over land takings related to South Coast Rail last year.

Another important trait for a legislator is the ability to convince others, Straus said. Islanders fought back hard against his push to put New Bedford on the Steamship Authority’s governing board. But in the end, lawmakers reached a compromise that gave the city a seat while allowing the islands to maintain control with weighted votes.

“It was a six-year war, but everybody got something they wanted, and Bill deserves a lot of credit for that,” said Turkington, the former islands representative who had cornered Straus at his cubicle, when reached for comment this summer.

What’s next?

Three candidates have announced bids to replace Straus in the 10th Bristol seat. Straus has endorsed Mark Sylvia, Fairhaven’s elected town moderator and the only Democrat in the race. Two Republicans, Bob McConnell of Fairhaven and Joe Pires of Rochester, are running in the Sept. 3 primary.

Straus said he doesn’t yet have any specific plans for his next chapter, other than taking a little more control over his schedule. But he said he’s interested in staying active in public life.

As for any projects he wanted to get done, but couldn’t?

“Ask me in a few months,” he said.

Email Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org

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