SOMERSET— Massachusetts state Rep. Patricia Haddad is pensive, and proud of her illustrious 24-year career.
A changemaker who lobbied divisive bills, a longtime champion of clean energy and offshore wind in the SouthCoast, and a symbol of fortitude, Haddad said Republican Justin Thurber’s election win was “disappointing,” she said, “but I look forward with anticipation.”
Haddad, a Democrat, has represented the 5th Bristol District, which includes Dighton, Somerset, Swansea and Taunton, since 2001. She was the first woman to be appointed as speaker pro tempore, “which was a huge honor,” she said.
Controversial bills proved to be major civil rights wins for Haddad
Her first term was embroiled with groundbreaking legislation that made it legal to prosecute priests and clergy members. “I voted yes,” Haddad said, adding, “I was in the newspaper for 28 days straight. People were calling me up, saying ‘what are you doing?’ And I would say, ‘The right thing.’”
“It was controversial,” Haddad said, remembering another bill entitling victims of rape access to free emergency contraception. “We wanted to make sure it was available on college campuses.”
Legalizing gay marriage marked Haddad’s second term, spanning 2003 and 2004. “The tension,” she said, recalling being escorted from her office to her car when throngs of protestors descended on the steps of the Statehouse. “I was one of 35 people who would not vote for a compromise.”
“Part of being a rep is listening to everybody. There are so many votes that are not about you,” Haddad said, referring to herself specifically. “For me, it was a civil rights issue. If I voted against it, I was taking somebody’s rights away. I couldn’t do that.”
Massachusetts state Rep. Patricia Haddad is seen here Monday, Dec. 2, 2024.
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Elevating early education childcare
Haddad chaired the Committee on Education for four years and worked to elevate early education childcare.
Before chairing the committee, she was appointed to a commission looking at providing accessible, affordable and high-quality childcare, and eventually proposed a bill under the banner of education, rather than health and human services.
In Fall River alone, Haddad said, 1,700 kids are seeking spots in early education childcare. “It requires money,” she said, and it’s still in the works.
In parsing the inequities related to accessing affordable early education and beyond, Haddad discovered inequities in a school funding formula that hadn’t been calibrated “since 1993,” Haddad said. “It was 2005. We needed to do something. And I was all about process.”
Her goal was to “create a continuum” that followed students from kindergarten to 12th grade. She planned to survey five or six communities willing to share information about demographics, tax rates and annual school budget. She ending up making 13 stops.
There were dozens of problems, including special education and the condition of school buildings, but the amount of education funding municipalities received was linked to their financial standing, and this needed balancing. The last “wealth measure” assignment was created from the 1990 census, Haddad discovered.
Haddad created a new one, with a new system evaluating municipalities’ self-reported income and a three-year reassessment of their property in line with a new funding commitment that would be assigned a floor of 17.5%, and an approximate ceiling of 85%, “but that no one would be penalized if they hit the ceiling,” whether the town or city lost population or saw an improvement in their tax base.
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Massachusetts state Rep. Patricia Haddad is seen here Monday, Dec. 2, 2024.
Offshore wind blew into Somerset with Haddad’s help
By the time Dominion closed down Brayton Point Power Station in 2017, “they were still paying in the vicinity of 12 million a year in taxes,” Haddad said, making up a significant portion of Somerset’s tax base. “We were at the end of every pipeline.” Then, Haddad said members from Bristol Community College and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth nudged her to consider “alternatives.”
She hosted summertime meetings in 2014 in the Somerset Public Library where global experts weighed in on a major question she was asking: what can you do for Massachusetts? Throughout this process, “it just became more and more clear that offshore wind was the way to go,” she said. “I had three 3-ring binders, filled with all the work that I had done.”
The bill passed almost unanimously in the House before being approved in the Senate and was referred to the Conference Committee in a “true collaboration” between “both sides of the aisle,” Haddad said.
President Joe Biden speaks at Brayton Point Commerce Center in Somerset on Wednesday, July 20, 2022.
President Joe Biden’s visit to Somerset made it clear: ‘This can be real’
“I was constantly going to conferences,” Haddad said. “If I was given the opportunity to speak, I would. Just picture me standing on the Mount Hope Bay, waving my arms, saying ‘come here, come here.’ Everyone got a kick out of it,” but Haddad was committed to bringing in new businesses.
Green energy companies in the supply chain needed incentives. “Then came Jake Auchincloss,” Haddad said, referring to the U.S. representative for Massachusetts’ 4th Congressional District. “And he saw the value.” Haddad believes Auchincloss promoted the idea of offshore wind in Congress, putting Somerset on D.C.’s radar.
President Joe Biden’s surprise visit in July 2022, Haddad said, “was amazing. It was also the hottest day of the year. It was huge.” A presidential visit sent a signal to people outside of Massachusetts that “this can be real,” Haddad said.
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Haddad casts herself as a ‘big picture’ policymaker
It wasn’t until Haddad was appointed to House assistant majority whip in 2008 that a fresh objective originated. “As a woman, your job is to elevate other women,” she said. During her two years as an assistant whip working alongside Speaker Robert DeLeo, 40% of chairs and vice chairs were women.
Negotiating inequities between the gender and racial gap in pay became another of her political victories, with assistance from then-Attorney General Maura Healey and the Boston Chamber of Commerce on a new bill, prompting businesses throughout the state to complete a self-examination of their positions and salaries over a period of three years.
“It’s got to be about the big picture,” Haddad said. “You engage with people, and you make policy based on what’s going to be best for the most people.”
This article originally appeared on The Herald News: State Rep. Patricia Haddad talks about her 24-year career in politics