Get Your Vote On! Your Primary Votes Really Matter!
Get Your Vote On! Reminder that your September 9th primary votes really matter!
The Democratic and Republican primaries* are less than one week away. I can not stress how important it is to vote on September 9th in the primaries. There are very important primary races for Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General and State Treasurer. Also, one of the Massachusetts U.S. Senate seats, all of Massachusetts’ seats in the U.S. Congress, all the seats in both the Massachusetts State Senate and Massachusetts House of Representatives are all up for election in the primary on September 9th. (To find out where to vote: http://www.wheredoivotema.com/bal/myelectioninfo.aspx)
Historically, there is usually a low turn out in primary races and this, in turn, means that very important primary races are decided by small number of people who are highly motivated to vote (remember this is the big secret the Tea Party has been leveraging).
MALC does not endorse candidates for office, but seeks to provide needed and timely information about candidates’ platforms and policies that impact artists of all disciplines, the art, and cultural and creative economies**.
We sent brief questionnaires to the candidates running for Lt. Governor, Attorney General, and Treasurer. Often, the policies of these elected officials do impact our sector. MALC did not send questionnaires to the Republican or Democratic candidates for Governor. Members of the MALC Steering Committee already met with almost all of those running for Governor earlier this year and we shared our policy vision for our sector with them: http://artistsunderthedome.org/malc/news/massachusetts-governors-race-update/. Instead, MALC has repeatedly reached out to the Republican and Democratic candidates for Governor to specifically ask them when their policy platforms for our sector will be posted on their websites. We urged the candidates to post them before the September primary. MALC feels strongly that any candidate seeking to be Governor needs to have a specific policy platform for our sector.
I urge you, if you have not already done so, to read MALC’s Get Your Vote On! blog series on the primary races. We are updating the blogs if and when any of the candidates running in the primaries add a policy/issues platform for our sector. And I also urge you to share these blog posts with as many people as possible! (The posts are listed at the end of this blog post as well as a complete list of who is running in the primaries for state-wide office)
Let’s make our community of working artists of all disciplines one of those highly motivated populations that votes on September 9th for the candidates that support us (labor), the arts, culture and the creative economy!
Get Your Vote On! Make your primary votes matter!
Kathleen Bitetti
Artist and Co-Founder of MALC
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Get Your Vote On! Blog posts (in the order they were posted:
Intro piece for the series: http://artistsunderthedome.org/malc/news/get-vote/
Attorney General primary race: http://artistsunderthedome.org/malc/news/get-vote-attorney-general/
Treasurer primary race: http://artistsunderthedome.org/malc/news/get-vote-state-treasurer/
Lt. Governor primary race: http://artistsunderthedome.org/malc/news/get-vote-lt-governor/
State District primary races: http://artistsunderthedome.org/malc/news/get-vote-massachusetts-state-district-races/
Federal primary races: http://artistsunderthedome.org/malc/news/get-vote-federal-elections/
Governor primary race: http://artistsunderthedome.org/malc/news/get-vote-governor-primary-candidates/
Link to MALC’s Sector Policy Paper/ Challenge for the Next Governor: http://artistsunderthedome.org/malc/news/the-malc-challenge-for-the-next-governor-be-a-champion-of-arts-culture-and-the-creative-economy/
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The Republican and Democratic candidates (in alphabetical order:
For Governor:
Charlie Baker (R)
Don Berwick (D)
Martha Coakley (D)
Mark Fisher (R)
Steve Grossman (D)
For Lt. Governor:
Leland Cheung (D)
Steve Kerrigan (D)
Michael Lake (D)
Karyn Polito (R)
For Attorney General:
Maura Healey (D)
John Miller (R)
Warren Tolman (D)
For Treasurer:
Tom Conroy (D)
Barry Finegold (D)
Deborah Goldberg (D)
Mike Heffernan (R)
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*From our June 9th MALC blog post:
“There will be primaries in September for candidates of the Democratic and the Republican parties who are running for statewide positions. The winners of those primaries will be on the November ballot for the general election. Those candidates running as unenrolled (also known as independents) and have met the 10,000 certified signature requirement, won’t have a primary in September. Instead, their names will appear on the November ballot along with those candidates who won their respective party’s primaries.” http://artistsunderthedome.org/malc/news/massachusetts-governors-race-update/
**MALC was founded in July 2008 to bring together artists leaders of all disciplines and artist(s) run organizations, initiatives, and businesses around key issues facing Massachusetts artists working in all disciplines. MALC is committed to improving the social and economic position of all Massachusetts artists. The overall goal is to empower our community, support our artists leaders, and mentor new artist leaders. We want to ensure that artists are at the policy making table. MALC is the artist working group for our state’s Creative Economy Council (CEC). MALC does not endorse candidates for office.