Mass. state House special primary election results

[Lexingtonian]

http://wbz1030.com/massnews/MA--SpecialPrimaries-gn/resources_news_html

Linda Dorcena Forry won in the 12th Suffolk district, which was the excrable anti-marriage Speaker's (Tom Finneran; Dorchester/Mattapan). She is the first minority representative of the 70% minority district, worked her way in the community by working in the Housing Authority, is pro-marriage and was endorsed by MassEquality. She has no Republican opponent and is thus elected.

Michael Moran won for Democrats (the full tally is in and reported elsewhere) in the 18th Suffolk- a mildly messy district. MassEquality endorsed Tim Schofield, who is a gay man, but Moran is also fully pro-marriage and was more qualified by service to the district (I am told). There is minor Indie/Republican opposition, so a general election will take place, but the district is overwhelmingly Democratic. Moran will replace Brian Golden, a vile corruptocrat and meanly anti-marriage. Golden was one of the dozen state legislators, all in the House, who voted against the Travaglini-Lees bill because they wanted a complete ban rather than marriage-in-all-but-name civil union as the alternative.

The Democratic winner in the 3rd Berkshire, Chris Esperanzo, is also pro-marriage. He worked for/with the town government in Pittsfield and was felt to be the most deserving candidate by town officials. He does face a somewhat competitive general election contest versus an anti-marriage Republican, Kinnas- the pro-marriage Republican was a town official and far more qualified, but probably lost the primary today over the issue. Esperanzo should win this one.

In summary: three anti-marriage House members being replaced by at least two, but probably three, pro-marriage folks. This increases the number of strongly committed votes in the Legislature (101 needed) against the Travaglini-Lees amendment proposal to over 85 and decreases the strongly committed votes for T-L/against gay marriage to about 55.

The less strong committed or uncommitted votes lean, or default, the wrong way, unfortunately, but it seems that about 40 of the these 60 (who all voted for T-L passage a year ago, as the safe thing to do) are saying that circumstances are different enough now that they are reconsidering which way to vote if/when T-L comes up for its second vote late in the year.

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There is an article in the March 13 Boston Globe with the latest Massachusetts polling on potential Travaglini-Lees ratification mixed in among polling about embryonic stem cell research funding. The short summary: full (hard) gay marriage support is at 45%, up from 29% last February, and 10% of Mass. voters are on the fence between (marriage-in-all-but-name) civil unions and marriage. The demographic splits in support don't correlate with other demographics- partisan, income, ethnicity, religion- to a particularly strong extent with the exception of age. I believe that means we can expect the 1-2%/month trend in favor of higher degrees of recognition to persist a while longer.