Alum runs for Mass. state senate seat

Tufts graduate and three-term State Rep. Scott Brown (LA '81) wants to help the Massachusetts Republican Party gain a foothold in the state government.

"One thing I did was question authority," Brown said of his undergraduate years at Tufts. "I still do, that's what I am." Now, he's challenging the popular notion that Massachusetts is a Democratic Party stronghold.

The Boston Herald has already thrown its support behind Brown. Even with the endorsement, however, he might have a tough fight ahead.

The seventh-year state politician from Wrentham is running in a special election to replace Democratic Senator Cheryl Jacques of Needham. The openly gay Democrat resigned earlier this year in order to take a leadership position at the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group.

Running against Brown in the Mar. 2 election is Democrat Angus McQuilken of Millis, who served as Jacques' chief of staff for 11 years.

There is no love lost between Brown and Jacques. Two years ago, in comments to the Boston Globe which Brown now says are irrelevant, he said that the child that Jacques and her partner were having at the time was "not normal."

Jacques is currently campaigning in support of McQuilken.

But despite the heavy amount of press surrounding the gay marriage debate, both McQuilken -- who supported the recent Massachusetts Supreme Court gay marriage decision -- and Brown and said recently that there were more important issues in the district than gay marriage. "The important issues are education, health, and public safety," McQuilken told the Globe.

Brown is confident that voters will be receptive to a candidate far more conservative than the senator he is vying to replace. "I have about 35 percent of the district already in my House district," he said. "There are almost more registered Republicans than Democrats. The whole district was almost more moderate than [Jacques] was."

Republican Governor Mitt Romney has been campaigning for Brown and other Republicans running for Democratic seats in the state government. "I can't keep fighting the battle over reform without more reformers like Scott," the Globe quoted Romney telling a crowd outside Needham Town Hall. "I'm going to keep fighting for this man, for other people like him across the Commonwealth who want to bring change to Beacon Hill."

Republicans are trying to win enough seats in the Senate to be able to allow Romney a gubernatorial veto. There are currently only six Republicans in the 40-member Senate. The Democrats need a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate in order to prevent the governor's veto.

"It's a question of being able to sustain a veto," Brown said. "Once you have the

ability to sustain a veto, you have proper checks and balances, of which there are none now. As a result, a lot of things are not good government. There's been absolutely no voter accountability up there."

It is because of this needed gubernatorial veto that Romney has been stumping for Republican candidates across the state, going so far as to personally encourage promising candidates to run against Democratic challengers perceived as weak.

Brown insists his run for Senate was a "natural progression" from his House seat. "[Romney] did not encourage me to run, but he's been 100 percent behind me," he said.

Brown wants to frame the debate around the state's recent budget cuts in a new way. "You have to look at it a little differently: if we merged the Mass Turnpike and Mass Highway, we would've saved $220 million, and local aid wouldn't have to have been cut a penny."

According to Brown, he would rather not support cuts to local aid, but until the Democrats streamline the state government, he would never support raising taxes to keep aid levels steady -- a sentiment shared by Romney.

Brown said he was personally in "full support" of letting "gay and loving committed partners pass on benefits" and have hospital visitation rights. However, he thought it was more important for voters to have the final say on the issue. "I think that the bottom line is that the people are smart enough, intelligent enough, and mature enough to have a debate and ultimately vote on this issue," he said.

During his time at Tufts, Brown was the captain of the men's basketball team, sang in Show Choir, played in the Jazz Band, and served in the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate. One of Brown's fellow TCU senators, Dan Winslow, is now Governor Romney's legal counsel.

Brown was also in Zeta Psi. He laments the changes that have happened in the Greek system since his graduation but encourages personal responsibility. "I was a strong supporter of the Greek system then. Unfortunately, kids sometimes forget what it's like to be responsible," he said.

At Tufts, Brown cited Sol Gittleman's Yiddish Literature class as one of his favorites because it taught him to think about a culture that was not his own. "It was very inspirational and enlightening," Brown said.

Brown recalls fondly his years at Tufts -- he was even married in Goddard Chapel and had his wedding reception in Cabot, which he joked was the last held there, "because people were hanging off the balconies."