Every election season, there's plenty of talk about the top of the ticket. But there are a lot of important down-ballot races that don’t get as much attention. This one is no different.
NBC10 Boston's political reporter Alison King and political commentator Sue O’Connell shared what they think are the most interesting races down the ballot and why voters should care about them during NBC10 Boston's political podcast, "Countdown to Decision 2022."
King chose the race for Massachusetts auditor, a position charged with making sure tax dollars are spent wisely and that government agencies are transparent and held accountable. Sen. Diana DiZoglio (D-Methuen) and Republican Anthony Amore are vying for the chance to succeed state Auditor Suzanne Bump, who opted not to seek reelection.
O'Connell brought up the race for Bristol County Sheriff, which has been held by Thomas Hodgson for the last 25 years. He is facing a challenge from Attleboro Mayor Paul Heroux. Here's what they had to say about why voters should be paying attention to these races.
MA Auditor Race
King: Let's face it, the auditors race doesn't always get a ton of attention. I think a lot of people don't even really know what the auditor in our state does. But this particular race, I think is pretty interesting.
King: We just finished interviewing Diana DiZoglio, the Democratic candidate running, who is running, I should say, about 15 points ahead, according to NBC10 Boston's latest poll. And she faces though a Republican who is unlike all the other Republicans who are running for statewide office in that he is a moderate Republican. He is not a big Donald Trump supporter, which is something that can be sort of a hindrance in Massachusetts, where a lot of people are not big fans of Donald Trump. So he does not support Donald Trump. He's got a background as someone who was an investigator and auditor, so even though Diana DiZoglio is still 15 points ahead in the poll, it's one that people see as you know, gee, let's see how well this Republican can actually do.
O'Connell: Anthony Amore is a real candidate. I mean, that's part of the issue here. He has run in the past for secretary of state. He has been a moderate within this party. He's also been -- prior to recent years -- he was a bit of a peacekeeper within the party, trying to bring people together. He's been endorsed by Charlie Baker, you know, so it's actually someone that Massachusetts voters who are not extremist Republicans could actually see voting for. There were revelations a couple of weeks ago about some domestic abuse charges regarding a divorce. He was never charged and everything, that seemed to have been put out there and settled down. So, you know, Anthony Amore is actually the type of person that in a state with a healthy Republican Party, he actually could get elected. But, you know, again, he's got an upward battle here because of how many Democrats are going to be voting right down the ticket here.
King: Right and Diana DiZoglio is an excellent candidate, in that she is super high energy, she is very articulate, she's out and about, she has made a name for herself as a sort of maverick at the State House. And, you know, so put it together and I find it a very interesting race.
O'Connell: And in any other state, this would be a real big race.
King: The auditor is generally a check and balance on the Legislature and state government in general. So it's really an important job and there's a lot of different ways of interpreting what the job description is and there are a lot of different ways you can make your mark, you know, depending on what you make your priority and focus in office. So, Anthony Amore has currently got a kind of an interesting job. He's the head of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
More Mass. Election Coverage
King: He stresses that he has the experience as an investigator, as someone who's spent his life doing auditing and doing, you know, investigations that he brings decades of experience to the table. And he sort of paints Diana DiZoglio as someone who has just had some legislative experience. In Diana DiZoglio's defense, she has, as I said, taken on sort of some really, some big battles having to do with nondisclosure agreements. She had a nondisclosure agreement bill that she pushed passed so that people have to be held accountable. You can no longer just say, to tell someone who's being let go, that they can't say anything about what happened and you know, what went down in their separation agreement. She's someone who is not afraid to, you know, push back on leadership despite being young. She's a 39-year-old woman. She, you know, had sort of a hardscrabble upbringing originally as a young person with a housing insecurity in her life and other challenges and issues. She actually said that she experienced herself --and this was a big story back in the day -- her own sexual harassment at the State House that she had to deal with, so she comes with a firsthand experience in that regard. So, you know, you can argue experience for both of these candidates, I think.
O'Connell: If you want to know what the auditor does, because I think and you guys will correct me if I'm wrong, they get to kind of call the dance. They get to choose, a lot of the time, what they're going to audit and what they're going to look at. If you just go to the government mass.gov website and look up the auditor, who many people probably can't name it's currently Suzanne Bump is the current auditor who is not running for reelection. And they send out press releases all the time about things that they have done. And if you're interested to know what they do, like audit finds Berkshire Community College did not retain adequate detailed documentation to support how they distributed their COVID-19 funds, all sorts of things that they look at to make sure that government entities are doing the right thing. So it's an important role. I think both of them are qualified to do it. You know, just somebody who wants to look and double-check things and make sure that everything adds up the way it's supposed to.
Bristol County Sheriff's Race
O'Connell: So here in Massachusetts, we actually vote for our sheriffs in each county and our sheriffs run the jails in the county. Each state and each area has different definitions for what a sheriff does. That's what our sheriff does. And someone that I've talked to for many times over the years, sheriff of the Bristol County is Tom Hodgson, you might recognize him because he has been pretty much standing next to Donald Trump anytime that he could. He has had a number of lawsuits brought against the jail that he oversees. There have been accusations of mistreated federal immigration detainees, that he didn't take adequate precautions against COVID spreading throughout the jail. He's been in office for I think 20-plus years. He has not generally had any opposition and again, it's a down-ballot race, most people don't pay attention to this. But it seems finally he does have someone who is coming at him and has a good chance of beating him and that's Attleboro Mayor Paul Heroux, who's not just a mayor, but he also is been trained in criminal justice. He's got a degree in public administration from Harvard. He worked in the jail system, I believe, in Philadelphia and he has worked as the director at the state Department of Corrections. So one of the funny things about when you run for office for something like being in charge of a jail, you don't necessarily -- to our earlier conversation about experience -- you don't really need to have experience to be elected, right? You can get elected even though you might not have much experience and since this has been the jail in our state that has gotten the most criticism, and Hodgson has gotten the most criticism about the way he runs it, people are excited in Bristol County that there actually is now a candidate who could take him on. So we'll see what happens. I think he's only had somebody run against him for maybe twice over the past 25 years. So this is a race that I'm watching because there's been a lot of criticism of Hodgson, but there's been no one who has run against him.
O'Connell: The New England Center for Investigative Reporting has indicated that his lockups have a much higher suicide rate than those in other urban communities. Most recently, the man who murdered his mother on Cape Cod in Truro, who was then sent to the jail and committed suicide in their care. Even though just about everybody realized that that terrible tragedy was also a result of the murderer's mental illness. He was there for I think, 48 hours without mental health care. Now, of course, there's not a lot of sympathy for people who are in lockup and a lot of folks who are in lockup don't have a lot of political power. So a lot of these criticisms go on and there's not been a lot of action taken. And of course, the argument is, if you don't like him, you can find someone and reelect someone else. So again, it looks like this might be the opportunity for folks in Bristol County, if they're unhappy about that to take action by replacing their sheriff.
O'Connell: I think that we are beginning, I hope, to learn that we are the people who are locked up. Like, they're not someone else. People who are in jail, and in these county jails, they're usually not in jail for long periods of time. This is not federal prison. And the way that they are treated is both a reflection of how we treat them. Also, they're our brothers and sisters and mothers and cousins who are in these facilities, and also they're going to get out. And when they get out, how they're treated when they are in. It's supposed to be a correctional facility, right? They're supposed to be getting services to help them correct their lives and to do better in society. So when we're electing our sheriffs, I hope that we're looking at ways that they will help better the people whose care they are in charge of, right? When you are in jail, you are in the state's custody, and the state is supposed to care for you while you are there. So I think everyone that is looking at sheriffs races in Massachusetts, needs to look at if they're doing what we would do if we -- if one of us or one of our relatives -- was in the state's care and in a jail.
For more on this and other ballot questions, listen to the latest episode of our election podcast, "Countdown to Decision 2022."
