MA-1: Morse accused of inappropriate sexual relations with college students

[Figueira]

Well this is the closest I've ever been to a political scandal. I live in this district and volunteered for his campaign, and I was in one of his classes at UMass.

When did these events happen? I'm doubting they happened this year.

Apparently some of them happened during his congressional campaign. I doubt they were his students (the letter probably would have said so if they were) and I don't think this makes him a horrible person, but it seems like enough to end a political career. It's unfortunate, because he's a good mayor from what I understand.

[Figueira]

I’ve read and reread the article, and I’m conflicted. Seems very carefully worded to imply but avoid actually saying:
 - That anyone has accused him of using status to pressure College Dems, or anyone, into sex
 - That he sexually harassed/propositioned anyone via Instagram DM or otherwise
 - That he had sex with any of his students

The worst thing that’s directly alleged is that he slept with students at the college, which is apparently a violation of UMass policy but not this massively awful ethical breach people are making it out to be. There’s definitely a weird power dynamic between elected officials and College Dems, but (again) all that’s directly alleged is that he hit people up to talk and put them on his Close Friends when they weren’t comfortable with it.

Whole thing just seems very weird. Not sure who’s “right,” or if anyone is.

Actually it's not, unless they were his students or he advised them or anything like that.

[Figueira]

I'm sorry but the Democratic Party can not be the party talking about sexual assault while supporting people who use their position of power for sex. I don't care about the age difference, what UMass policy is, and I certainly do not care about the sexuality. It is not homophobic to say that people with leverage at institutions like universities and student orgs should not go after the people attending them.

If the relations was consexual, it should be allowed. There is 30K students in UMass.

consent is not the same when you are a student and a professor at college you go to is making advances on you, or you're a college democrat trying to make your way up the ranks and the icon of the organization is making advances on you.

Denying those advances could result in the power that person has over you being used against you. the conflict of interest is clear. It's simply not consent if it's under pressure

A teacher in another department has no pressure on you.

That's simply not true, people at the university have a lot of sway over their departments and research direction

He was an adjunct professor who taught one class as a side gig while being mayor. If anything, he had more influence from being a popular local politician.

That said, having sex with students at the same university you teach at is kind of icky (even though it's allowed) so I'll probably end up voting against him. Too bad, because Neal has been running a dishonest campaign and I wanted to punish him for it.

[Figueira]

I'm sorry but the Democratic Party can not be the party talking about sexual assault while supporting people who use their position of power for sex. I don't care about the age difference, what UMass policy is, and I certainly do not care about the sexuality. It is not homophobic to say that people with leverage at institutions like universities and student orgs should not go after the people attending them.

If the relations was consexual, it should be allowed. There is 30K students in UMass.

consent is not the same when you are a student and a professor at college you go to is making advances on you, or you're a college democrat trying to make your way up the ranks and the icon of the organization is making advances on you.

Denying those advances could result in the power that person has over you being used against you. the conflict of interest is clear. It's simply not consent if it's under pressure

A teacher in another department has no pressure on you.

That's simply not true, people at the university have a lot of sway over their departments and research direction

What? You say I'm wrong and then restate exactly what I said.

sorry, I misread what you said. But at the end of the day, if you're running as a young progressive insurgent and college dems at the university you work for ban you from their events, clearly you've made so many people uncomfortable that you've done something wrong.

Or you made one influent puritan unhappy or someone is hoping to get a job with Neal as a reward for the hatchet job...

I don't think this the time for baseless conspiracy theories

Can I get an apology now?

Still does not dismiss anything he did

https://www.wwlp.com/news/local-news/hampden-county/holyoke-city-councilor-to-file-an-order-for-the-recall-of-holyoke-mayor-alex-morse/

now there is this. I think it's only a matter of time for the other shoe to drop

Morse has faced right-wing opposition in his home town as long as he's been Mayor.

[Figueira]

Name the GOP opponents he had as mayor.

I don't know as the elections were non-partisan. But all his opponents ran against him from the right and one of them promised to "make Holyoke great again" in a debate. Holyoke is Safe D at the national level, but low turnout as well as weird local politics allows conservatives to be competitive at the city level.

I'm not sure why you keep harping on this though. Who cares what party his opponents are?

[Figueira]

Name the GOP opponents he had as mayor.

I don't know as the elections were non-partisan. But all his opponents ran against him from the right and one of them promised to "make Holyoke great again" in a debate. Holyoke is Safe D at the national level, but low turnout as well as weird local politics allows conservatives to be competitive at the city level.

I'm not sure why you keep harping on this though. Who cares what party his opponents are?

My mayor, Steve Jones (R-Garden Grove) never promised to "make Garden Grove great again", but he's a Republican mayor of a Democratic leaning city. All municipal elections in California are nonpartisan. Do you think there's a good chance Morse faced GOP opposition?

I would honestly be surprised if any of his opponents (besides the incumbent he initially beat) were Democrats.

[Figueira]

Name the GOP opponents he had as mayor.

I don't know as the elections were non-partisan. But all his opponents ran against him from the right and one of them promised to "make Holyoke great again" in a debate. Holyoke is Safe D at the national level, but low turnout as well as weird local politics allows conservatives to be competitive at the city level.

I'm not sure why you keep harping on this though. Who cares what party his opponents are?

My mayor, Steve Jones (R-Garden Grove) never promised to "make Garden Grove great again", but he's a Republican mayor of a Democratic leaning city. All municipal elections in California are nonpartisan. Do you think there's a good chance Morse faced GOP opposition?

I would honestly be surprised if any of his opponents (besides the incumbent he initially beat) were Democrats.

Really? You think most of them were Republicans?

Really. I don't see what's so surprising about that.

[Figueira]

Name the GOP opponents he had as mayor.

I don't know as the elections were non-partisan. But all his opponents ran against him from the right and one of them promised to "make Holyoke great again" in a debate. Holyoke is Safe D at the national level, but low turnout as well as weird local politics allows conservatives to be competitive at the city level.

I'm not sure why you keep harping on this though. Who cares what party his opponents are?

My mayor, Steve Jones (R-Garden Grove) never promised to "make Garden Grove great again", but he's a Republican mayor of a Democratic leaning city. All municipal elections in California are nonpartisan. Do you think there's a good chance Morse faced GOP opposition?

I would honestly be surprised if any of his opponents (besides the incumbent he initially beat) were Democrats.

Really? You think most of them were Republicans?

Really. I don't see what's so surprising about that.

Republicans almost never run in MA-01. They probably won't in 2022 either. Republicans almost always run in most of California's districts that are far more Democratic than MA-01.

There's a big difference between city politics and national politics. (Also Holyoke is a city of 40,000 so it doesn't dominate the district at all.)

[Figueira]

I still definitely have reservations about Morse having relations with students (even if it was consensual and they weren’t his students), but this kind of slimy hit job from his opponents definitely puts him above Neal. Hopefully Morse shows better judgment in the future.

Neal has been running a really dishonest campaign even if he's not connected to this.

[Figueira]

https://twitter.com/DRBoguslaw/status/1300563955253948416

I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been more oppo on Neal coming out during this campaign. There's no chance his time as Mayor of Springfield was perfect.

[Figueira]

https://twitter.com/DRBoguslaw/status/1300563955253948416

I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been more oppo on Neal coming out during this campaign. There's no chance his time as Mayor of Springfield was perfect.

One shouldn't need to dig up ancient history when he's outflanking the Trump administration to protect big pharma.

Oh sure, there are plenty of reasons to vote against Neal but Morse could clearly still use some help.

[Figueira]

So gross. This will discourage young, gay progressives from running for office in the future. But I look forward to all the cis-het red avatars lecturing me about how the Democrats, who spent the 2000s throwing us under the bus, are the LGBTQ+ party...

All the incumbents won in Massachusetts. It's a state full of establishment Dems who don't want to throw out incumbents who haven't had serious screw-ups.

That being said, there may well be unconscious bias against unmarried gays. A Buttigieg type person who is in a TV-friendly marriage might fare better.

Massachusetts has had two successful House primary challenges in the last decade (Moulton and Pressley)

[Figueira]

Shameful that the homophobic smear campaign dragged a promising candidate through the mud.

Here's hoping Morse comes back in 2022 and annihilates Neal.

High probability that redistricting removes some of the more progressive Morse-friendly towns from this district and Neal becomes even safer

Massachusetts has had two successful House primary challenges in the last decade (Moulton and Pressley)

Not quite a fair comp, Moulton took out a fairly corrupted incumbent who almost lost the general the previous year despite it being a Dem district and a good Dem year, and MA-07 has the activist types. Otherwise MA remains a very incumbent-friendly state.

Every state is "incumbent-friendly" in primaries. Successful primary challenges don't happen nearly as often as often as people think they do (although they are happening a little bit more this year).

[Figueira]

Shameful that the homophobic smear campaign dragged a promising candidate through the mud.

Here's hoping Morse comes back in 2022 and annihilates Neal.

High probability that redistricting removes some of the more progressive Morse-friendly towns from this district and Neal becomes even safer

That'd be incredibly difficult to do. Many of Morse's best towns were from Berkshire county, which borders Vermont. It'd be very difficult to finagle MA-01 and MA-02 to get rid of these towns, especially since both seats need to expand eastward.

It's much more likely that Neal's seat becomes less safe for him after redistricting just due to population trends, not vice versa.

Most of Morse's best towns were in Franklin and Hampshire Counties, and can easily be added to MA-2 (where they would be a good fit for Jim McGovern). The question is, what MA-2 towns do you add to MA-1 to make up for it, especially when Neal's district probably needs to expand to keep up with population trends? I think Belchertown, Ware, and parts of Worcester County are the obvious choices. It might cut into McGovern's Worcester base, but his pre-2013 district didn't include all of the Worcester area either.

[Figueira]

I hope I'm not breaking the redistricting discussion rule, but here's a sketch of what MA-1 could look like if they want to make it even safer for Neal. It has the added bonus of making McGovern's seat more D (and more McGovern-friendly). This is based on 2010 population numbers, so if more towns need to be added, the district can be extended along the RI border.

Edit: I should have kept Granby in the district.

[Figueira]

Shameful that the homophobic smear campaign dragged a promising candidate through the mud.

Here's hoping Morse comes back in 2022 and annihilates Neal.

High probability that redistricting removes some of the more progressive Morse-friendly towns from this district and Neal becomes even safer

That'd be incredibly difficult to do. Many of Morse's best towns were from Berkshire county, which borders Vermont. It'd be very difficult to finagle MA-01 and MA-02 to get rid of these towns, especially since both seats need to expand eastward.

It's much more likely that Neal's seat becomes less safe for him after redistricting just due to population trends, not vice versa.

Most of Morse's best towns were in Franklin and Hampshire Counties, and can easily be added to MA-2 (where they would be a good fit for Jim McGovern). The question is, what MA-2 towns do you add to MA-1 to make up for it, especially when Neal's district probably needs to expand to keep up with population trends? I think Belchertown, Ware, and parts of Worcester County are the obvious choices. It might cut into McGovern's Worcester base, but his pre-2013 district didn't include all of the Worcester area either.

The issue to this is population trends though.
https://population-map.districtbuilder.org/

According to the 2018 census estimates, Neal's seat is going to need about 30K new voters. MA-02, on the other hand, is going to need 12K new voters. The issue that I brought up is that, just simply due to population changes, Neal is going to get voters who are either:
A. Hostile to him to begin with, as is with Franklin, Hampshire, and a large portion of Berkshire
B. Have no connection to Neal at all, as the voters in Worcester county would be

Neither of these groups are good from a primary perspective, especially since Neal's base is extremely Hampden county-centric.

It's not true that those areas of Worcester County have no connection to Neal; they were part of his district pre-2012. It's also not true that Berkshire County is hostile to Neal: while Morse won some towns there (in the far south which can't exactly be redistricted out), he lost the county by only a slightly smaller margin than the district as a whole.

I made this map to show how Neal's base can be solidified using the 2018 population numbers:

[Figueira]

Shameful that the homophobic smear campaign dragged a promising candidate through the mud.

Here's hoping Morse comes back in 2022 and annihilates Neal.

High probability that redistricting removes some of the more progressive Morse-friendly towns from this district and Neal becomes even safer

That'd be incredibly difficult to do. Many of Morse's best towns were from Berkshire county, which borders Vermont. It'd be very difficult to finagle MA-01 and MA-02 to get rid of these towns, especially since both seats need to expand eastward.

It's much more likely that Neal's seat becomes less safe for him after redistricting just due to population trends, not vice versa.

Most of Morse's best towns were in Franklin and Hampshire Counties, and can easily be added to MA-2 (where they would be a good fit for Jim McGovern). The question is, what MA-2 towns do you add to MA-1 to make up for it, especially when Neal's district probably needs to expand to keep up with population trends? I think Belchertown, Ware, and parts of Worcester County are the obvious choices. It might cut into McGovern's Worcester base, but his pre-2013 district didn't include all of the Worcester area either.

The issue to this is population trends though.
https://population-map.districtbuilder.org/

According to the 2018 census estimates, Neal's seat is going to need about 30K new voters. MA-02, on the other hand, is going to need 12K new voters. The issue that I brought up is that, just simply due to population changes, Neal is going to get voters who are either:
A. Hostile to him to begin with, as is with Franklin, Hampshire, and a large portion of Berkshire
B. Have no connection to Neal at all, as the voters in Worcester county would be

Neither of these groups are good from a primary perspective, especially since Neal's base is extremely Hampden county-centric.

It's not true that those areas of Worcester County have no connection to Neal; they were part of his district pre-2012. It's also not true that Berkshire County is hostile to Neal: while Morse won some towns there (in the far south which can't exactly be redistricted out), he lost the county by only a slightly smaller margin than the district as a whole.

I made this map to show how Neal's base can be solidified using the 2018 population numbers:

1. Just because the same towns were in Neal's district does not mean that they have some sort of connection to him. If these towns were in Hampden county, then I would agree that these places would be favorable to Neal, but these towns are so far away from his power base and have been away from him for a decade. These are also towns that, historically, Neal has had issues with.

2. I did not claim that Berkshire county is hostile to Neal: he won it afterall. What I did claim was that a large portion of the district seems to despise Neal no matter what. Looking to previous primaries, a good portion of the county seems to reflexively vote against him, with Pittsfield keeping Berkshire loyal. This base of voters can't be removed.

3. I do like your map. This isn't a critique, I just really like it. MA-07 is a bit janky, but otherwise it looks great!

4. Just going back to the beginning, Neal is and always was a Hampden county Democrat. That's always been his base, and they've continued to stick by him. With Hampden county's relative decline in population compared to the state, however, Neal is going to need to take in territory that he inherently does not have a connection with. It may not be enough to pose a serious threat, hell Neal may just retire in 2022 and this whole point will be moot, but it will still be unfriendly turf.

1. I'll be honest, I didn't know Neal had issues with those areas. Still, they're not some bastion of progressivism so while they could give him a challenge in 2022 (like Berkshire County did in 2012) I don't see them voting for a Morse type in the future.

2. It's not just Pittsfield; most of northern Berkshire County is pretty establishment-friendly as well.

3. Thanks! Yeah, I wasn't sure what to do with MA-7. Allston and Brighton had to go to MA-5 to connect to Brookline, so I had to make that up somehow. Maybe I should have just made Brookline part of MA-7. I removed it from MA-4 to protect Auchincloss (assuming he wins).

4. Well there's no way Neal is going to be 100% safe. But I think the lines I drew will make him more safe from a Morse-style challenger. Which is unfortunate, because it means the rest of us are stuck with him being in Congress until he retires.