The MA Senate tells renters to go fuck themselves, or, why primaries matter

In September 2025, the MA legislature set the date for the 2026 primaries, as recommended first by the Secretary of State and then the Governor. These primaries will be used to chose party representatives for the state House, state Senate, the Governor, and also Federal positions like the House, and the Senate seat currently held by Ed Markey.

In many parts of the state, certainly here in Cambridge, only one party runs a candidate. That means the primary is where we actually get to choose our representatives in the state legislature.

So what motivated the choice of this particular primary date? After setting the date for the primary, the MA Senate put out a press release with the headline “Bill Sets Optimal Date for Voter Participation.”

The “optimal” date: September 1st, the biggest moving day in the Boston area for more than a century. Given how much work moving takes, someone who is moving that day is far less likely to vote, in primaries that already have very low voting rates.

So when the legislature says “optimal voter participation” what they mean is that fewer renters voting is optimal. Or at least, it’s optimal for them. Why? Because the fewer people vote, the easier it will be for elected officials to get reelected. And renters, being younger and often newer residents, are plausibly less likely to vote for incumbents.

Contra the state legislature and governor, I’d like to convince you that you should vote in the primary. In the rest of this article I’ll explain why, and give an overview of some of the unusually large number of races that will be decided on September 1st.

Our undemocratic, corrupt, ineffective, opaque legislature

Most members of the MA legislature run unopposed in their primaries. And since most seats aren’t competitive on a party level, that means that for 10, 20, 30 years, they get re-elected automatically. The result is a legislative body that is completely disconnected from voters, and even more so from residents.

This has a variety of bad consequences:

• Three of the past four House Speakers, the top official in the state House, were convicted of Federal crimes (corruption, obstruction of justice, felony tax charges). Perhaps the current one will break the streak.
• From 2016 to 2024 the legislature failed to pass the budget on time, every single year, despite one party having a super-majority in both the House and the Senate.
• The legislature was the least efficient of all 50 states in passing laws in 2023, passing only 21 bills out of a total of 10,508 proposed laws, for 0.20%. 21 bills is also the smallest number of bills passed by any state in absolute terms; the second worst was Alaska, which passed 38 bills.
• The legislature is deeply untransparent, which has for example in the past led to bills to protect immigrants from the Trump administration going nowhere, with no way for voters to know how their representatives voted.

This has real world impacts, from lack of protection from ICE (still not passed as of early April 2026), to tax cuts for the rich instead of, for example, funding more affordable housing.

The impact of just one primary

Transparency has gotten better in the current term: in 2025, the rules were changed so that many more committee votes were posted publicly online. This means representatives and senators now have a harder time claiming in public to support an issue, and then secretly voting the opposite way in committee.

It’s important to understand why transparency got better. In 2024 Evan MacKay ran here in Cambridge against long-serving Rep. Marjorie Decker. A big part of MacKay’s campaign was based on a call for transparency. Rep. Decker had the whole political apparatus of the state Democratic party behind her, from legislative leadership to the governor, and more. She won… but only by 40 votes.

Since most legislators can coast into re-election without even pretending to do any work, it very much seems that this near loss was enough to put the fear of voters into the legislature. So one thing they did was actually improve transparency in the legislature’s rules. The September 1st date is plausibly another reaction, if it lead them to worry that MacKay’s near success would lead to far more primary challenges.

From state to Federal elections, you actually have choices this time!

And in fact, the primaries this year have far more challengers than usual. Instead of the usual boredom of ticking off votes for someone who will win regardless because there are no other options, your vote will have a meaningful impact. Depending where you live in Cambridge, you will have different candidates on the ballot; you can look up your district here. (Moving at the end of the summer and not sure how that interacts with voting? See below.)

I’ll be writing more about these races over the next few months, but to summarize the races I know about:

• 25th Middlesex House district: Evan MacKay is challenging Rep Marjorie Decker again; I’m supporting MacKay.
• 26th Middlesex House district: Neil Miller is challenging Rep Mike Connolly. Rep Connolly was one of only three representatives who voted against tax cuts for the rich; he’s one of the rare members who are willing to challenge the legislature’s leaders.
• 2nd Middlesex Senate district: The incumbent Senator Pat Jehlen is retiring at the end of the year, and there are a large number of candidates. I’m supporting Rep Erika Uyterhoeven, another one of the three representatives who voted against lower taxes for the rich. I believe that the key question in this race, given many similar policy positions between candidates, is which candidate has the best theory of change. Rep Uyterhoeven has been key to pushing for change in how the legislature operates, a prerequisite for actually passing good policies. Other candidates include Cambridge Vice Mayor Burhan Azeem, Rep Christine Barber, Somerville City Councilor Matt McLaughlin, and Tom Hopcroft.
• Suffolk and Middlesex Senate district: Daniel Lander is challenging Senator Will Brownsberger, who is part of the senate’s top leadership. As a result, my baseline bias is towards Lander, but I don’t know much about him yet.
• Middlesex district attorney: The incumbent, Marian Ryan, is being challenged by David Solet.
• Federal House Seat: Jonathan Paz and Tarik Samman are challenging Rep. Katherine Clark. As second-highest ranking Democrat in the House, Clark is part of the Democratic leadership, who for example don’t want to even try to impeach Trump over the Iran war. She has voted to declare me (a Jew) an antisemite which I find personally offensive, but more importantly this is part of a pattern of backing Israel. She is for example refusing to cosponsor the Block the Bombs act. I expect to be voting for one of her challengers.
• Federal Senate seat: Senator Ed Markey is being challenged by Rep. Seth Moulton. Other challengers include Alex Rikleen and William Gates. Given things like Rep. Moulton attacking transgender athletes, my expectation is I won’t be voting for him. It’s not yet clear to me if the other challengers are viable; I suspect not, in which case it’s Markey by default.

Again, I expect to research and then write more about these races over the next few months; sign up below for the newsletter if you’re not already subscriber. Unfortunately tactical voting may be necessary for some of these races when there’s more than two candidates, as unlike Cambridge municipal elections this is first-past-the-post and splitting votes across two similar candidates can mean a third candidate wins.

What you should do

• Donate to a campaign. Money is unfortunately necessary for a successful campaign, and establishment incumbents like Rep Marjorie Decker, for example, have plenty of money from lobbyists.
• Get involved in a campaign! Doorknocking and other outreach can have a significant impact on outcomes, even more than your (still very important!) single vote.
• Make sure you vote! Remember that MacKay lost by just 40 votes; every vote matters. Remember that if you’re a renter, the state legislature would prefer you didn’t vote.

You can vote even if you’re moving September 1st (or August 1st), by using mail voting before you move; just make sure you only re-register to vote elsewhere, or issue a state ID or new driver’s license, after September 1st. I’ll write an article about all the details of how to vote if you’re moving when it’s closer to the election.

A bit more

Song of the day: The Great Curve, covered by Angélique Kidjo.