On Richard Neal and why Massachusetts has to move on

Richard Neal has been a representative from Massachusetts from 1998 through the present. He currently sits as the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. 

I want to start by taking a look at Richard Neal’s policy positions and where he lands on a handful of issues:

Corporate Donors

Starting with taking corporate money: His connections with corporate money go way back, he was under investigation by the state’s Attorney General due to his receiving illegal donations from employees of Insurance Cost Control, a company to which Neal had given a contract during his tenure as Springfield mayor. In 2010 Neal was requiring $5000 per person to attend special events and in 2020, Richard Neal was #1 in corporate PAC donations. 

Environment

A quick look at environmental policy makes his stance clear, Richard Neal is the only representative from Massachusetts who has not endorsed the Green New Deal.

Healthcare

On healthcare, Neal does not support M4A or even the phrase “Medicare for All”. In 2019, Neal killed a bipartisan bill that was supposed to end surprise medical billing by releasing an outline of a counterproposal. 

Abortion

In regards to abortion, Neal moved left in 2010, the reason is unclear but it could have been for a political benefit or simply a change in viewpoint. The former seems more likely given his statements that year. "I have always opposed taxpayer funding of abortion. I'd keep Roe v. Wade and restrict it. I've always thought: keep abortion, with restrictions for late-term abortion. [Given] the voting pattern I have, both sides would say I'm mixed, and guess what? That's where the American people are." (Palpini, Kristin (February 12, 2010). "Neal urges piecemeal votes on health care reform." Telegram & Gazette.). In that same year, Neal voted for an amendment to the Affordable Care Act, the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which sought to restrict government abortion funding

Foreign Policy

On foreign policy, Neal was one of the few house democrats to vote against going to war in Iraq. But in regards to Israel-Palestine, Neal has made his loyalties clear. He cosponsored a bill that would make it a felony to support the movement to boycott Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. The ACLU opposed this bill saying that the proposal punishes individuals "for no reason other than their political beliefs". Being on the opposite side of the ACLU on a basic issue such as expressing your political beliefs is not a good look for a Democratic representative to Congress. 

Neal has some weird positions as well, one of which is his support of the Flag Desecration Amendment.

Alex Morse

In 2020, Richard Neal faced a challenge from the left. This challenger was, at the time, the mayor of Holyoke, Alex Morse. Morse saw an outpouring of support from prominent progressives such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Neal drew upon support from party leaders such as Nancy Pelosi, as well as an unexpected attack. 

You see, the University of Massachusetts Amherst Democrats had decided that they did not want Morse as their next representative. They banned Morse from appearing at their College Democratic Events and made accusations of misconduct between him and students (Morse had been teaching as an adjunct professor at UMass Amherst). Starting in 2019, after Morse attended a College Democrats Event, the group began looking for a way to shut him down for good. The chief strategist of the group, Timothy Ennis, wanted a job with Richard Neal as an intern and ended up hunting down Morse’s dating profiles. The group then used these profiles to try to bait Morse into saying something which they could use against him. These efforts failed, but instead, they were able to use Instagram Direct Messages between Morse and another student (who later became president of the College Democrats) to incriminate him. Then went on to claim that Morse had a pattern of dating students. The Neal campaign backed them up and commended their courage.

The attacks were fueled by something very specific, Alex Morse is gay. The group would never have dared make such outrageous claims and attempt a smear campaign against another individual, but for a gay man, it was clear that exceptions could be made. UMass hired a law firm to conduct a report on Morse’s behavior and found nothing wrong. He had not violated school policy, but these accusations still tore at his campaign. Now, this attack was well covered by the state media up until the point that the validity of and motives behind the claims were called into question. “Between August 7 and 13, the Springfield Republican, also known as Masslive, ran, for instance, 16 stories featuring the mayor, all but one focused on the allegations and resulting fallout” (https://theintercept.com/2020/08/27/alex-morse-massachusetts-local-media/). When it became clear that the party had aimed an attack at Alex Morse and that the attack itself was insubstantial, the news coverage fell off quickly. 

Neal ended up winning the race by a landslide 20-point margin. Later during the state’s dealings with the aftermath of the attack on Morse, a homophobic slur was used against a member of the state party member who objected to the party’s involvement with the attack on Morse. The attack was worsened by the party chair, Gus Bickford, who attempted to protect the person who said the slur. More about the party and the scandal can be found here: https://theintercept.com/2021/01/22/massachusetts-democrats-alex-morse-homophobia/

https://theintercept.com/2021/01/22/deconstructed-massachusetts-democratic-party-homophobia/

I also wanted to quickly address a few of the other attacks that the Neal Campaign directed against Alex Morse. Firstly, they realized that in 2015, Morse had as mayor only attended 55% of the 62 school board meetings. Morse claimed that this was due to schedule concerns but this excuse doesn’t really hold up. 

Next, Neal repeatedly attacked Morse on the grounds that he had been harmful to Holyoke and to Holyoke schools. Upon closer investigation, neither of these attacks seems to really hold water. Below is a graph of unemployment in Holyoke from the span of 2006 to 2018. 

(taken from http://www.civicdashboards.com/city/holyoke-ma-16000US2530840/unemployment_rate)

In 2012, Alex Morse became mayor and the unemployment decreased soon after. Obviously, this is not necessarily indicative of Morse’s policies as unemployment could have simply been on a downtrend during that time. 

The other attack surrounded Morse’s handling of public schools. In 2015, the state took over Holyoke Public Schools. “In the years since, Holyoke Public Schools have seen noted improvement, including a dropout rate cut in half over a four-year period and the graduation rate up by more than 10%.” (https://www.masslive.com/politics/2020/08/alex-morse-challenged-on-school-committee-attendance-record-during-debate-with-richard-neal.html). Morse claimed that the schools had improved as a result of his handling, while Neal maintained that the schools merely improved due to the state running them. It is important to note that the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education, Steve Zrike, maintained that Morse had done a commendable job in improving Holyoke public schools and that credit should be given to him. 

Simply put, Massachusetts can do better than Richard Neal. Massachusetts is one of the most progressive states in the country and Richard Neal is not representative of these beliefs nor the beliefs of his district. His pattern of yielding to the interests of corporate donors over the interests of his constituents has made clear where his loyalties truly lie. The fact that his campaign was quiet for a week as homophobic allegations against Alex Morse destroyed all opposition to him goes to show that Richard Neal does not have a problem with homophobia when it benefits him. Pretending as though his campaign was not openly accepting of the disgusting (and successful) attempt to slander his opponent is ridiculous. Neal has been a longtime powerhouse in Massachusetts given his seniority, and his attitude towards blatant homophobia has allowed hate to fester within the party for many years. The weirdest part about it is that Neal’s own son is gay, so it almost seems as though it would be in Neal’s interests to reject homophobia in all its forms. The Massachusetts Democratic Party is fraught with issues, yet it has managed to produce fine candidate after fine candidate. Richard Neal is not among these so-called fine candidates, and he is in dire need of replacement.