End of Bay State Bipartisanship?

Kerry Healey:

Yeah, I think Massachusetts is a wonderful model, uh, for people to look at, uh, when they’re looking at what are the advantages of bipartisan government.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

Dr. Kerry Healey is the former moderate GOP Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, a state with a history of bipartisanship and a huge number of unenrolled or independents voters, currently close to 60%, more than both major parties combined.

Kerry Healey:

I think that when you look at that history of bipartisan, uh, cooperation and collaboration around education reform and maintaining high standards in the schools, that’s a real success story that people should be looking at.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

But that bipartisanship has been eroding over the past decade or two. We’re going to hear more about what is lost to Massachusetts and the nation as this purplish, split ticket voting state trends more purely blue. This is The Purple Principle, a podcast about the perils of polarization. I’m Robert Pease with help today from reporter Dylan Nicholls who’s presenting another informed perspective on Massachusetts politics.

Dylan Nicholls (Reporter):

Yeah, that’s right Rob. I interviewed Dr. Alexander Theodoridis on the recent populist tilt in the Massachusetts GOP which will likely result in a Democratic trifecta this election. That means both state houses will remain under Democratic control, as they have for 6 decades. But the governor’s office, long contested by moderate Republicans, will likely turn blue in 2022. Theodoridis is a professor of political science at UMass Amherst whose work has been been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Scientific American and the most respected political science journals.

Alexander Theodoridis:

Things have become nationalized, right? Um, and it becomes much more difficult for the average voter to think to themselves “well, you know, I really can’t stand these Republicans at the national level, but, you know what, I’m gonna pull the lever for, for a Republican here in Massachusetts ‘cause they’re different.”

Rob Pease (Co-host):

The perspectives of an experienced legislator and insightful scholar on this, our second episode on changing dynamics in Massachusetts politics, once a model of bipartisanship for the country in electoral and policy terms. We kick things off with one of the major figures in that story, Kerry Healey, Lieutenant Governor to Mitt Romney, a candidate for governor herself in 2006 and now President of the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream.

[Enter Healey Interview Part 1]

Kerry Healey:

Well, thank you, Robert, first of all, thank you for having me, uh, on the podcast and for giving me an opportunity to talk about some of the things that I care very deeply about. And one of them is decreasing polarization. My current position, working as the new head and the founder of the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream in Washington D.C., the whole point of this center is to bring people back together around this notion of the American dream. And so when we start to see this idea of the American dream itself being politicized, either by Republicans or by Democrats, we’re really threatening the health of the entire nation and an entire new generation that might grow up believing either that the American dream belongs to one group or another, or that it’s being denied to them systematically.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

Yeah. Well, you’ve had such an interesting career, both, private sector politics, president of a college now, directing a major foundation. We’re wondering how you have personally felt political polarization in your career at these different intervals.

Kerry Healey:

I think that I have experienced it fairly profoundly because I straddle ideologies, and I have never been willing to let go of those pieces of my personal belief system, which are attributed to either one party or another. So for example, I have been pro-choice throughout my life. And yet, in terms of foreign policy or economics, I would be much more likely to be classified as a Conservative or as a Republican. And so I found a bit of a home in Massachusetts where there was more of a libertarian streak in the Republican party, which allowed me to hold the positions that I wanted to hold on social issues, while still maintaining a strong belief in fiscal control and strong foreign presence overseas.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

Let’s talk about one party state rule then. We currently we have 37 trifectas in the country. Next election, very likely we’ll have 40. The long term trend could be close to 50 states that could be trifectas. So what do we lose nationally when no legislature needs to work in a bipartisan way, and what will Massachusetts lose as a Democratic trifecta?

Kerry Healey:

Um, and I’m not too worried about Massachusetts going to an all Democrat regime for a few years. It will swing back, but the party, the Republican party, has to learn, or perhaps maybe an independent needs to come forward, who can offer that kind of balance that was traditionally provided by a Weld or a Romney over time. And to this day, the Massachusetts schools, as a result of the standards that were put into place due to bipartisan cooperation at that time, are ranked number one in the country. Another one obviously is healthcare reform. While Governor Romney had his name eventually attached to it, Romney-care, the Democrats in the legislature who collaborated with us on that proposal and also Senator Kennedy, they were equal partners with us. And, and the other area that I think that we were very successful in creating compromise in was gun reform. You know, when you look at the gun control discussion today, and you think about that we were able to ban assault weapons in 2004 and have both the Gun Owners’ Action League and also Stop Handgun Violence on the stage with us standing there because of the compromise that we’d created. That’s why gun violence is so low in Massachusetts today. It’s the second lowest in the country, only to Hawaii. So, I think that those kinds of compromises create very healthy government.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

Let’s turn to Governor Charlie Baker’s decision not to run again, he was and is a very popular governor–

[Archival, Governor Charlie Baker press conference]

Charlie Baker:

Focusing on campaigning and focusing on politics and focusing on all the things that come with that, um, while certainly appropriate and necessary for anybody who chooses to run in 2022, just seemed to us like a big step away from what we should be focused on which is continuing as the Lieutenant Governor said to make sure our kids can stay in school, to make sure our economy gets better, and to deal with all the very significant issues our communities are going to face going forward.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

Were you surprised at that decision, or in hindsight, did he just not have the stomach for a fairly fractious primary battle?

Kerry Healey:

Well certainly I was very disappointed by the decision, but that’s a selfish disappointment. Anyone who has served the state for eight years deserves to be able to do whatever they want to do [laughs] they deserve some time off. Um, but from a selfish standpoint, and from the standpoint of Massachusetts, I believe that the balance that he brought to government was really important, and he was the most popular governor or, or almost the most popular governor throughout his entire time. And he led during a period that was so difficult, you know, to be a governor during COVID must have been one of the most challenging and exhausting things one could possibly do.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

Yeah. So we wanted to get your comment on the fact that Geoff Diehl did win the GOP nomination. He has, uh,Trump’s endorsement. He has echoed some of the stop the steal rhetoric–

[Archival, WCVB Boston, On The Record broadcast 10/10/2021]

News Anchor:

…governor’s race. Republican Geoff Diehl picked up the endorsement of former President Donald Trump. Diehl now claiming the 2020 election was rigged and that absentee ballots led to fraud–both of these claims are not based in reality. Uh, I’m gonna start with you…

Rob Pease (Co-host):

You know, how does it feel to you as a former moderate Republican, a centrist, to see your former party have somebody as the nominee who espouses pretty extreme positions?

Kerry Healey:

Yeah. So, obviously this is very disappointing to me, and, but the disappointment begins with the party itself right now. Uh, in 2021, virtually all former Republican leaders in Massachusetts and a number of the current ones in the legislature called for Jim Lyons, who is the current Republican party chairman, to step down because of his extreme views, and a party is going to reflect its leadership. So I don’t know how a chairman who has managed to lose so much membership, uh, during the time of his presiding over the party could possibly wish to retain that position and think that that’s in the best interest of the state. But apparently that’s what’s been going on. So as a former party chairman, I regret that, and I think that the goal should always be to expand the membership of your party, not contract it.

[End Healey Interview Part 1]

Rob Pease (Co-host):

That’s former Massachusetts GOP Party Chair and Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey bemoaning the Trumpian tilt of state party politics in some races this election. Most notably, the Mass GOP has nominated Trump-endorsed Geoff Diehl in the governor’s race, though he trails the Democratic nominee, Maura Healey, no relation to Kerry Healey, by very large margins. Before we hear more from Dr. Healey, let’s take in another informed perspective on what’s happening to the Mass GOP.

Dylan Nicholls (Reporter):

Yeah Rob, I was able to sit down with Dr. Alexander Theodoridis of UMass Amherst. He’s a professor of political science whose work has focused on hyperpolarization. He emphasizes the nationalizing trends of our partisan politics, even for states with very different traditions like Massachusetts. Again, there’s been a string of moderate Republican governors in the past thirty years like William Weld, Mitt Romney, or the current governor, Charlie Baker, who decided not to run for a third term. But it seems no states are immune to the forces of polarization.

[Enter Theodoridis Interview]

Alexander Theodoridis:

Well, you know, Massachusetts is obviously a blue state and the way that you get Republican governors in blue states is, you know, like Charlie Baker, you, you, have a, a Republican candidate who’s actually very popular among Democrats. And so what you end up with is, at the current moment, basically a Republican Party here that has to be completely divorced from the national Republican Party. You know, I mean, people like Charlie Baker and Larry Hogan in Maryland, and, and a handful of others, you know, those are considered RINOs, right? Those are, they’re sort of, in most Republican circles, are persona non grata. And obviously as the state becomes more and more blue, you end up with the apparatus of choosing nominees being controlled on the Republican side by a smaller and smaller, more extreme, you know, set of people.

Dylan Nicholls (Reporter):

Yeah. So I guess another question then on the future of Massachusetts is, well after the results of this primary, does it seem most likely that Massachusetts will once again become a trifecta state, completely controlled governor’s house, Senate, state house, all by Democrats at this point?

Alexander Theodoridis:

I mean, it certainly seems so. Things have become nationalized, right? You have people all over the country really interested in what’s going on in Pennsylvania, you know, in Georgia, more than they’re interested in what’s going on in their own state, right? You, you even will sometimes see yard signs for candidates out of state in places. So, you know, as politics has become more nationalized, and the parties are more consistent at the national level, then it just becomes much, much more difficult for someone like a Charlie Baker to really break through.

Dylan Nicholls (Reporter):

Yeah, absolutely. And speaking about the national scene, and different efforts that are underway right now to reduce polarization across the country, ranked choice was on the ballot in Massachusetts in 2020, but it failed in a 55% to 45% vote. Do you think ranked choice is, or could be an effective tool for reducing hyper-polarization and political discrimination?

Alexander Theodoridis:

To me actually ranked choice voting, it’s certainly not a silver bullet. I think most people now would tell you that. I think it’s something that’s, tends to reflect public will a little more. And I think it’s actually very valuable in the nominating process more than in the general election process actually. I think ranked choice voting is fantastic there, it’s not clear to me that rank choice voting–a lot of people sort of propose it as a, as a way to get third parties bolstered–and it’s not clear to me that it will work that way always. If you really want third parties in this country, you have to get rid of single-member, winner-take-all districts. That’s the, that’s the key, uh, ingredient that you would need to change.

Dylan Nicholls (Reporter):

So does this election, and increased polarization in Massachusetts and nationally make it fairly unlikely that they would adopt RCV going forward? Or conversely Alaska’s rank choice election has brought RCV into the national spotlight. Could that create fertile ground in other states? I know it’s on the ballot in 2022 in Nevada, for instance.

Alexander Theodoridis:

You know, I think it will gradually make its way into different electoral systems, but again, the place where I see it being most valuable is actually in the nominating stage, uh, less so in the general election, across parties, but within parties. ‘Cause you really have this dynamic and it’s particularly true in the Republican party. There’s you know, the Tea Party made a, which is in a lot of ways the beginning of the Trump stuff, the Tea Party made a really concerted effort to just learn the, in certain places, to learn the rules and take over the party, right? They didn’t operate as an outside force, largely, they operated within the party. Ranked choice voting would absolutely help with that. I’m very confident about that. It would make it so that candidates have to try to push to be a second choice for people. It would make it so that candidates can’t just win, you know, with a, with 25% of the vote. Right? Um, you know, so, that’s where I really, uh, from my perspective, in terms of choosing better candidates, in terms of decreasing the extremism of the parties, that’s where I really would like to see ranked choice voting emerging more and more.

[End Theodoridis Interview]

Rob Pease (Co-host):

We just heard from Dr. Alexander Theadoridis of UMass Amherst, emphasizing the potential for ranked choice voting to depolarize our polarizing primaries and possibly push back against the nationalization of our partisan politics.

Dylan Nicholls (Reporter):

Which might help restore the tradition of states as policy laboratories, like Massachusetts was for education reform, healthcare reform, gun violence and other issues during the terms of Governor Mitt Romney and Lieutenant Gov. Healey.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

We heard more about this bipartisan policy making from our first guest in this Massachusetts series, former Democratic Governor Deval Patrick. His administration was left to implement the so-called “Romney-care” legislation that would become a Democratic template for the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” at the national level.

[TPP Archival, Deval Patrick Interview S3Ep18]

Deval Patrick:

That bill, we call it, you call it Romney-care, I will say it took effect the day that, uh, that I took office. And, uh, so it was up to us to implement it. And there are 98% of our residents today who are insured. There was a broad coalition that came together to invent healthcare reform, right? They were policy makers from both sides of the aisle, they were healthcare providers, grassroots and faith leaders, business leaders, they came together to craft this reform and then they stuck together.

Dylan Nicholls (Reporter):

But as Dr. Theodoridis mentioned, that pragmatism and willingness to compromise from the Massachusetts GOP has been eroding. And one consequence of that has been important moderates like Kerry Healey leaving the party to become independents.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

Let’s hear from Dr. Healey on her decision to leave the party and what could be done to moderate extremism in the GOP and zero-sum tribalization between our two major parties.

[Enter Healey Interview Part 2]

Kerry Healey:

Yes, I, I became an independent on January 7th. I had hoped that the Republican party might, uh, swing through various stages, and return to something that I could recognize as traditional conservatism. But I, at that moment, felt that it was important to make a statement that that was not the Republican Party to which I wished to belong.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

Yes. Well, most of our listeners we assume are political independents, probably more of the centrist variety. In some states they’re called nonpartisan or unaffiliated. But we’d like to play a clip from Carlos Curbelo, former moderate three-term Republican congress member from Florida, who may share some ideological positions with your own.

[TPP Archival, Carlos Curbelo Interview S2Ep26]

Carlos Curbelo:

Yeah, I’m a member of the Republican party. I, uh, I told people that, uh, I was not gonna let Donald Trump define this party or kick me out of it. My, uh, you know, as long as we have two parties in this country, I firmly believe that they both have to be good viable options for most Americans. So as long as we only have two, I think we need people in both parties trying to keep them honest, trying to shape them in a way that will help them appeal to the greatest number of people possible.

Kerry Healey:

Well, first of all, I know Carlos, and I think he, I have a great deal of respect for him, both as a thinker and as a politician. And I completely understand his thinking and his, um, form of logic there when he decides to stay. But it wasn’t proper for me to do so. For me, I felt that the differences had become too pronounced and that I, I had for throughout my time in the Republican Party had significant policy differences. And so it made sense for me at this point in my life to see if there was something else, see if there was a third way out there. If there was a group of individuals who shared more of my belief system. And by 2019, I was looking very seriously into the, a large number of movements who were looking at democracy and also looking for perhaps a pathway to establishing a third party. I’m still watching those movements very closely. I’m particularly interested in the No Labels movement and, and where they’re moving right now to establish a pathway for a third party candidate to be able to be on the ballot for the presidential race. But I don’t really see that there’s a pathway for that candidate to succeed ultimately yet. I believe that the movement toward acceptance of a third party, if that ever occurs, has to be a grassroots one, and we have to see third parties coming to us through state legislatures and then into our congressional districts and our congressional legislation, legislators. And then we can think about whether a national party might make sense.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

Well we’d also like to discuss electoral or structural reform efforts to combat the polarizing effect of primaries in so many states. So what’s your take on those efforts?

Kerry Healey:

One of the best, uh, pieces of work on this in recent time has, was written by, uh, Michael Porter at Harvard Business School. He did a wonderful analysis of the two party duopoly and, and how that operates and what the impact of that is. And one of the outcomes of that research was that a number of us, me included, have been advocating for exploring ranked choice voting. And so while ranked choice voting was on the ballot in Massachusetts last round and it failed, and failed pretty heartily, I think it’s because people don’t really know how it’s going to impact them. Before people vote for a voting reform, they want to know, is this going to advantage me? Is this going to disadvantage me? I would urge people to look at it as is this fair? Is this a fair way of looking at voting? Would this create better outcomes? And my guess is that ranked choice voting would allow more people to feel that they are being represented. In Massachusetts, we’re lucky in that independence can choose to pull a ballot for either the Democrats or the Republicans and vote in the primary. They’re called open primaries. And in states where there are open primaries, then there’s some hope of having a moderate candidate survive that process.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

I believe Michael Porter co-wrote that book with Katherine Gehl of the Institute for Political Innovation, we have had Katherine Gehl on the show. Since initially promoting final four voting, they’ve moved on to final five voting, but same idea, open primaries combined with ranked choice voting. So first of all, with regard to Massachusetts and ranked choice voting, were you disappointed that Governor Baker was not supportive of that ballot measure?

Kerry Healey:

Well, I think again, it’s one of those situations where you don’t know how it’s going to turn out. And I think also if you’re a sitting politician, there’s more, uh, skin in the game to support something like ranked choice voting. You, you could be endangering your own prospects or you, you don’t know what the outcome will be. And for those of us who are standing on the outside at this point, looking back in, perhaps we are more comfortable with the idea that this is not really about us at this point. This is about trying to get the best candidates and the most representative candidates into office moving forward.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

Well that’s great. We hope to see that on the ballot again or in the legislature. We do like to ask all of our guests to show a bit of purple and name, one or two people in each party that they particularly respect as being, you know, sort of less partisan, more bridge building, more bipartisan. And since you’re an independent, you can name one or two from each of the major parties, either living today or in recent memory that you have particular respect for.

Kerry Healey:

Well, I will focus on people who I think are the future of both parties. And so, I’ll start with the Democrats. I think Josh Gottheimer from New Jersey is one of the most intelligent, balanced Democrats I’ve run into. He’s one of the leaders of the Problem Solvers Caucus. He has been able to accomplish getting things passed in Congress in a time when gridlock was the order of the day.

[Archival, Josh Gottheimer interview on Chat Box, NJ Spotlight News]

Josh Gottheimer:

First, to your point, it’s very important to show that these things can be done in a bipartisan way, and that we can actually act and take steps. I mean, I think a lot of people are very frustrated. We’ve had two hundred and fifty mass shootings already this year. I can’t tell you how many people come up to me, by the way, from both parties, and say “How’s this possible in the greatest country, that this, when no other country’s grappling with what we are here? What do we do about this?”

Kerry Healey:

So he’s I think going to be challenged, you know, very strongly in his upcoming election this November. But at the same time, I believe that he will win and that he has a long career ahead of him. On the Republican side, I very much like Francis Suarez. Uh, who’s the current mayor of Miami. And he has been enormously innovative in what he’s been bringing to that city. He’s reached out and, uh, made it a Mecca for people who are looking for a new place to start the financial industry. It’s a banking hub now for the world. And, uh, when you go to Miami, it’s just abuzz and there’s a certain energy to him that is, uh, terrific. Uh, he might, I don’t know whether he’ll throw his hat into the ring for president this upcoming time, but certainly, uh, in the next eight years or the next six years, I should say, um, I would, I would watch him. Um, another is Will Hurd, from Texas, Congressman from Texas who resigned to pursue other things.

[TPP Archival, Will Hurd S3Ep6]

Will Hurd:

Look, I was able to get 21 pieces of legislation signed into law when I was in Congress. And part of it was because I always started with a Democratic partner and I always had a Republican and Democrat in the Senate to work on these things. And so, so it can exist. It can exist again. But it’s gonna require elected officials to really focus on solving problems and not just bomb throwing.

Kerry Healey:

He has a background in the intelligence community. He’s, uh, just smart and his policy, knowledge of the world is terrific. We need a president who is really able to understand global dynamics and Will would bring that into play. So I, I hope to see all of them, you know, back in the mix and I’d love to see Carlos Curbelo in the mix as well. And so I think there’s a lot of good next generation politicians out there, and they don’t have anything to do with some of the extremism that we’re seeing today.

[End Healey Interview Part 2]

Rob Pease (Co-host):

That’s former Lieutenant Governor and Mass State GOP Party Chair, Kerry Healey, now a political independent and the non-partisan director of the Center for Advancing the American Dream at the Millken Institute. And Dylan, a lot of interesting observations there from both our guests, Dr. Healey, Dr. Theodiridis, on the potential for structural reforms to alleviate some of our destructive tribalism.

Dylan Nicholls (Reporter):

For sure. Both seem really supportive of ranked choice voting, which didn’t pass in Massachusetts but is now a 2022 ballot initiative in Nevada. Plus we are about to see the first ever full statewide election with rank choice voting coming up in Alaska, which we’ll cover in episode two of our Alaska series.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

That is coming up soon on the Purple Principle. But next up is episode two in our Hispanic Swing Voter series. That’s clearly the most pivotal bloc in US politics because of its size and diversity. To help us understand that dynamic we’ll be speaking with Mike Madrid and Chuck Rocha, veteran campaign strategists, Mike on the reformist side of the GOP as one of the co-founders of the pro-democracy Lincoln Project.

Mike Madrid:

I’ve learned certainly as a professional from Chuck, um, he’s changed my approach on a lot of the ways I look at campaigns because I now see that certain things are more possible.

Rob Pease (Co-host):

And Chuck Rocha from the Democratic side:

Chuck Rocha:

I knew Mike, because he’d been working in California politics and he’ Latino there ain’t, but like five of us of doing it this level in either party. Yeah. So it was hard not to know of him, right? I never dreamed we would ever do any work together, but I think Donald Trump brought us together and, and to fight a common enemy, and then we was like, “Hey man, I kinda like him.” “Hey, I like him.”

Rob Pease (Co-host):

Mike and Chuck have now teamed up to create the news aggregation website latinos.vote, and also co-host the popular and insightful podcast The Latino Vote. A lot to learn on that episode. Please join us then, and share The Purple Principle with a friend or colleague if you’ve enjoyed the show. And if you’re looking for more in-depth interviews with politicians, academics, reformers, other thought leaders calling for civility and compromise in these polarized times, then take a look at our premium content on Patreon and Apple Subscriptions. We’ve just added our full interview there with former Massachusetts Governor and presidential candidate Deval Patrick. As always, thanks for listening from the whole Purple Principle team. The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production. Original music by Ryan Adair Rooney.