BOSTON – Democratic attorney general candidates Maura Healey and Warren Tolman made their pitches to the Boston area business community on Wednesday, as they enter the final week of what is shaping up to be a tight race.
“This is a job I believe I’m suited for,” Healey, a former bureau chief in Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office, said at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast. “I don’t view it as a consolation prize. I don’t view it as a stepping stone.”
Tolman, a former state senator, previously ran for governor and lieutenant governor.
Tolman told the crowd that the race is about “leadership” and stressed the leadership he showed in the legislature on issues such as regulating tobacco companies. “I didn’t tiptoe around on Beacon Hill,” Tolman said.
Both candidates are delivering their final arguments to voters in the last days before the Sept. 9 primary. Polling released Tuesday by UMass Lowell found Tolman leading Healey by just five points, 39 percent to 34 percent, with 27 percent of likely Democratic primary voters undecided. A poll conducted last week by the Boston Herald and Suffolk University gave Tolman a six-point lead, with 35 percent of voters undecided.
As of Aug. 15, both Healey and Tolman had around $600,000 in the bank. Tolman, who has built up an extensive political network over the years, had raised around $1.5 million. Healey, a first-time candidate, raised around $1 million.
Healey and Tolman are scheduled to face off in another debate Wednesday evening on NECN, one of several debates they have held in recent weeks. But they also met earlier in the day at the Chamber of Commerce breakfast. The organization is a powerful political force that represents businesses throughout the Boston area. Tolman and Healey spoke one after the other and took questions from the audience.
As they have in the past, the Democrats stressed their differing backgrounds and experiences, rather than policy disagreements. Both answered questions related to business issues and current events.
Asked how he would help the financial industry, Tolman said he would sit down with industry representatives and learn from them to find out what they need to create jobs. He also stressed to need to protect consumers from “scam artists.”
Asked what he would do as attorney general to address a situation like the riots that erupted in Ferguson, Missouri after a police officer fatally shot an unarmed black man, Tolman said the riots were the result of “years of neglect” when the police were not “working collaboratively” in the community. Tolman said it is important to have a diverse police department that is engaged in the community; to have transparency when an incident occurs; and to provide training to the police on things including racial issues, mental illness and domestic violence.
Tolman, who frequently describes himself as a progressive, used the slightly more centrist description “left of center Democrat” to describe his politics to the audience of business people.
Healey stressed her work in Coakley’s office on the case Massachusetts brought against the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which was instrumental in getting the law, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman for purposes of federal benefits, struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce signed onto a brief opposing the Defense of Marriage Act.
Asked about regulatory reform, Healey stressed the importance of dialogue and “lines of communication” with businesses about eliminating unnecessary or conflicting state regulations.
Coakley recently appointed a special prosecutor to look into the 2009 death of Joshua Messier, a patient at Bridgewater State Hospital. The hospital is a correctional facility used to house mentally ill criminals, but also houses some people who have been civilly committed and who, like Messier, are not accused of a crime.
Healey said someone like Messier should be treated by the state’s mental health department, not by corrections officers who are not trained to deal with someone with mental illness.
“That strikes me as wrong,” Healey said.
Healey said the attorney general should look at systemic policies and practices that can be changed before a bad situation results in litigation.
Paul Guzzi, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, urged forum attendees to oppose a question that will be on the November ballot that would repeal the indexing of the state gas tax to inflation. Neither Tolman nor Healey were asked about that during the forum but afterwards, both said they oppose the repeal because the state needs the added gas tax revenue to pay for infrastructure.
“I want to keep the gas tax as it is,” Tolman said. “The gas tax hasn’t been adjusted for inflation for several years and I think our roads, our highways, our bridges are in serious state of disrepair. To cut that is a recipe for disaster.”
Healey said similarly that she opposes the repeal effort because the increased gas tax is important for infrastructure.
Tolman talked up the endorsement he received this week from Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. Tolman is the only statewide candidate Walsh has endorsed before the primary.
Both Tolman and Walsh are strong supporters of organized labor and outspoken proponents of treatment for substance abuse addiction. Walsh, in a statement, stressed Tolman’s work taking on “tough fights” and his interest in addressing gun violence and campus sexual assault. Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone also endorsed Tolman this week, and Worcester County District Attorney Joe Early came out in support of Tolman last week.
Healey has been emphasizing the support she got from Jack McDevitt, an associate dean at Northeastern University who chaired a recent legislative committee on addressing gun violence, and Marian McGovern, a former superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police.
Healey recently released her first television ad, which mentions her time as a professional basketball player in Austria and focuses on her experience as a prosecutor and civil rights attorney.
Tolman released a new ad focused on his plan to require smart gun technology such as trigger locks. Tolman criticizes Healey in the ad for wanting to “wait” to implement smart gun technology. Healey has said she supports the technology as part of a comprehensive plan to combat gun violence but thinks it should be passed through legislation rather than mandated unilaterally by the attorney general’s office.
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