A vote for Evan MacKay is a vote for justice
The MIT community needs an advocate against the entrenched establishment on Beacon Hill: democratic socialist Evan MacKay
Many at MIT like myself live in Central Square, Porter Square, Riverside, or around Harvard. We’ve been represented for 13 years by Marjorie Decker in the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill. On September 1, Cambridge voters will decide whether to send her back for another term or elect a challenger — democratic socialist, union organizer, and anti-corruption activist Evan MacKay.
We need change. Massachusetts is a sclerotic, one-party state committed to secrecy. All branches of state government exempt themselves from public-records laws. For instance, Governor Maura Healey has used this exemption to hide hundreds of entries in the newly created ICE Misconduct Portal from the public. The legislature has a practice of secret committee votes and “study” orders, which they use to bury progressive legislation like the state-level version of Medicare for All, the Israel Weapons Divestment Bill for public pension funds (killed by Representative Dan Ryan), and anti-ICE measures like the Safe Communities Act.
It gets worse. House leadership voted to limit the scope of a ballot measure passed by voters in 2024 that empowers state auditors to investigate them. They use shady stipend assignments, which, according to critics, reward loyalty and discourage dissent. Instead of distributing paychecks to legislators equally or by performance, the Speaker of the House awards “leadership stipends” to committee chairs and vice-chairs of upwards of $119,000 on top of a base salary (currently $82,044). Many such committees, like one on “Climate Action and Sustainability,” do not even consider bills.
As a result, lawmakers face incentives to get in line and shut up. According to Watertown’s former state representative Jonathan Hecht, “Acting openly and independently risks losing significant income.” The speaker also removes stipends in apparent punishment for criticism or speaking to journalists without permission, according to former and current state representatives such as Hecht and Russell Holmes. Massachusetts’ legislature also exempts itself from open meeting laws and does not consistently disclose meeting minutes to voters, so it’s hard to know what they’re up to. The result? Massachusetts passes the fewest bills of any state in the US and has made its legislature a cesspool of corporate lobbying and backroom deals.
Dark money makes Massachusetts slow to respond to crises. The Boston metro area faces record-high homelessness and housing costs, and we live in the only blue state that contracts with ICE on deportations. Despite our state’s trifecta and supermajority of seats held by Democrats — ostensibly, the climate-friendly party — Massachusetts still allows unpopular new data centers and maintains a sales tax break for private jets, a loophole that benefits only the richest oligarchs escaping to their summer homes on Nantucket. Bills to electrify commuter rail die in committee, while we lag far behind Vermont, Maine, and some red states like Texas in the share of our electricity produced from clean, renewable sources. Fossil capital and real estate lobbying play a major role in why that happens.
Decker has done some work on gun safety and reproductive health that I admire, but the moment requires a stronger break with the status quo. Decker opposed making committee votes public and voted to limit the audit of the legislature that her own constituents approved in 2024. I’m particularly concerned about her campaign donors, which include lobbyists like Brian Dempsey, who lobbies on behalf of the construction industry, and billionaires like John Fish, who is bankrolling a ballot initiative for a regressive income tax cut in the state. According to data from Massachusetts’ Office of Campaign and Political Finance and Lobbyist Disclosure Reports, in 2025 (the last year for which we have full data), Decker and her re-election committees received more contributions from lobbyists (~140) than she did from Cambridge residents (~56). Only 26% of Rep. Decker’s campaign fundraising total since Jan. 1, 2025 came from individuals living in Cambridge. For MacKay, 59% of total contributions come from Cambridge.
MacKay and the Boston Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) want to clean house. The DSA elected Zohran Mamdani in New York and racked up socialist electoral victories across the nation this summer (Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, Chris Rabb, Melat Kiros, Donavan McKinney) — terrifying elites in both MAGA and the Democratic Party establishment. MacKay’s campaign has cleaner finances compared to Decker’s: although outmatched, MacKay’s finances skew more local and grassroots, and they’ve received endorsements from UAW, SEIU, and IBEW locals; the Massachusetts Teachers Association; Progressive Mass; as well as state auditor Diana DiZoglio. MacKay has fought for working people in the leadership of Harvard’s UAW Local 5118 union, where they served on the bargaining committee and as president. They’ve been a morally consistent opponent to the genocide in Gaza and the persecution of transgender people.
September’s race will be a closely contested rematch. In 2024, MacKay lost against Decker in the primary election by 41 votes (out of 6,901 votes), so the MIT community has the power to reshape the balance of forces. Canvassing events and phonebanks are happening every week. Talk to your neighbors, register to vote, and come September, let’s clean the Augen stables on Beacon Hill. It’s time for sunlight.
Richard Solomon is a doctoral candidate in political science at MIT. He is the political education director for MIT’s Young Democratic Socialists of America and a member of the MIT Coalition for Palestine.