I have spent my career at the intersection of scholarship and solidarity. As a political scientist, I study the forces that produce inequality in America — in our schools, our health care system, and our democracy. As a union activist for more than three decades, I fight to change them. I am asking MTA delegates to support my candidacy for vice president on a ticket with Deborah McCarthy, because this moment demands leadership that is deeply experienced and fully prepared for what is coming.
My union roots run deep. Since the 1990s I have served on the executive board of the Massachusetts Society of Professors. I served three years on the NEA Board of Directors and six years on MTA’s Government Relations Committee, where I worked closely with Deb McCarthy on the Student Opportunity Act — a $1.5 billion investment in our public schools — and where 2017 marked the beginning of our pursuit of legislation to allow public sector workers to strike. During the COVID-19 pandemic, on the Environmental Health and Safety Committee, I pushed for rapid antigen testing and wastewater surveillance to protect members and students before those measures were widely accepted.
Today I serve as your MTA-appointed commissioner on the Group Insurance Commission. The GIC has faced sustained pressure to shift hundreds of millions of dollars in costs onto members — higher copays, larger deductibles, eliminated coverage for essential medications. These are not abstract budget questions. They are decisions about whether a paraprofessional in Springfield or a community college instructor in Worcester can afford to stay healthy. I have fought those proposals using the analytical tools my research provides and the moral clarity our movement demands. I know how to read a cost trend report. I know when data is used to rationalize harm.
The federal assault on public education has made this moment even more urgent. Proposed cuts to Title I, attacks on DEI and threats to student loan relief fall hardest on those with the least — educators and students of color, first-generation college students and communities that depend on public institutions as their pathway to opportunity. Racial and economic justice are not add-ons to our agenda. They are the foundation. My research on health inequality, my Springfield community work and three decades of union service have grounded that conviction.
I have known and worked closely with Deb McCarthy since 2017. Together we bring complementary strengths — her proven record of statewide organizing and legislative victory, and my expertise in health care policy, higher education and the economics of inequality. I am a professor at UMass Amherst, where I serve as department chair of political science. I have spent my career asking hard questions about power and inequality in service of the communities I represent.
I am ready to fight alongside Deb — building organizing capacity to turn back federal attacks, protect the public institutions we have built together and advance the single-payer or all-payer health care reform Massachusetts workers and families deserve. I am asking for your vote. T
