State Rep. Steven Howitt raised some eyebrows last week when he reported having $87,000 in his campaign finance account.
State Rep. Betty Poirier, R-North Attleboro, is an assistant minority leader, and she has only $6,000 in her bank account.
State Sen. Richard Ross, R-Wrentham, represents a district that is four times as large as Howitt’s, yet Ross only has $9,000.
One reason Howitt, R-Seekonk, has more is because he brought Gov. Charlie Baker to his district to host a fundraiser. That netted Howitt $30,000. But, the representative already had a healthy $60,000 before Baker helped out.
Howitt has been able to rely on constituents, friends from nearby Rhode Island, trade groups and local businessmen for contributions, too.
State Rep. Paul Heroux, D-Attleboro, said Howitt’s total is large for the area, but not for the Legislature as a whole.
Local legislators tend to raise less, he said, because it is believed that grassroots campaigning is more effective locally than money.
Still, Heroux’s constituents were peppered with mailings from a conservative group slamming him last election and he needed the money to respond with fliers of his own.
Another factor is that local legislators often run unopposed, so there is no need for them to raise money.
Poirier is secure in knowing she does not have to campaign every two years to keep her seat.
Howitt, on the other hand, has a Democratic challenger this year in Paul Jacques, an Attleboro firefighter from Rehoboth who has the strong backing of certain labor unions.
He has raised $11,000 in just one month, so it looks that campaign is going to be a rare high-priced one for our area.
Elsewhere in politics
* Presidential candidate Donald Trump seems to have a magic touch when it comes to badmouthing his opponents.
Every time he attacks one, that opponent sinks in the polls. First it was his ridicule of Jeb Bush, who was the frontrunner at the time. Bush has now all but disappeared. More recently Ted Cruz was gaining on Trump until Trump turned his rhetorical fire on him.
* The state and the City of Boston will lavish a combined $145 million on GE for its move to Boston with its 800 headquarter jobs. That comes to $181,250 per job.
There is also talk of building a helipad, replacing an old bridge and making road improvements for GE while MBTA commuters get lousy service and 10 percent fare hikes.
* Several weeks ago the Baker administration took exception to a Sun Chronicle column saying the governor was more concentrated on fixing state government than introducing grand new ideas.
Thursday night, Baker gave a State of the State speech saying he was indeed more concentrated on fixing state government than introducing grand new ideas.
Source Author:
JIM HAND SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
Source Link:
www.thesunchronicle.com