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Jack Stanton

    STATE HOUSE RACE

    Peake and Stanton Face Off in Sept. 6 Democratic Primary

    Their only in-person debate is Sept. 1 at 9 a.m. on public radio

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Democrats Jack Stanton and state Rep. Sarah Peake both entered politics to take on Republican incumbents.

    Sarah Peake (Photo courtesy Sarah Peake)

    Peake ran her first race for state representative for the seven Lower Cape towns 18 years ago, when she unsuccessfully challenged longtime incumbent Rep. Shirley Gomes (R-Harwich) in 2004.

    Stanton began his quest for state office in 2018 by running against former state Rep. Randy Hunt (R-Sandwich). He lost to Hunt but set his sights on the Democratic primary the next year for the state Senate seat left vacant by the early retirement of Sen. Viriato deMacedo (R-Plymouth). Stanton dropped out of that primary, which was won by Susan Moran of Falmouth, who is now the senator for Plymouth and the Upper Cape.

    Since then, Stanton moved from his hometown of Sandwich to Provincetown, where he lives on his sailboat and waits tables at the Lobster Pot restaurant. He previously worked with the World Bank, for Forcier Consulting in Africa, and as a lobsterman.

    Peake, 64, has a law degree from Pace University and was a Provincetown Select Board member from 2002 to 2007. She was motivated to run against Gomes by Gomes’s vote to reverse the state’s legalization of gay marriage. Peake lost that 2004 race, but Gomes did not run for re-election in 2006, and Peake defeated two Democrats and a Republican to take the seat.

    Peake has served as the representative for the Outer and Lower Cape ever since and is now second assistant majority leader in the House.

    “I am part of the leadership and I am very proud of that,” Peake said in an Aug. 12 interview. “The relationships I have here in the Fourth Barnstable District I treasure and prize and find as valuable as the relationships that I have built inside that building on Beacon Street.”

    Stanton, 31, was president of the Sandwich High School class of 2010. He has not served in public office. But, he argued in an Aug. 12 interview, he understands the real lives of Cape Codders. He is frustrated by the established political machine, which he said has been unable to pass important legislation even though the Democrats have a “veto-proof supermajority.”

    “Mitch McConnell is not a problem in Massachusetts,” Stanton said. “Joe Manchin is not a problem in Massachusetts. We have all the power to enact the things that we should be able to enact in this deeply progressive state. And yet session after session, very popular pieces of legislation just go to die.”

    The Safe Communities Act hasn’t made it out of committee to support members of the immigrant community, Stanton said. Same with LGBTQ-friendly sex education in schools, and the single-payer health care act.

    “I think that we get complacent because we’re a one-party state, and we do not deliver on what we’ve promised voters that we’re going to do,” Stanton said.

    Peake argued that it takes someone who knows the system to get results from the system.

    Jack Stanton (Photo courtesy Jack Stanton)

    The single-payer health care act “is not ready for prime time yet,” she said. “We need Medicare waivers. That bill has been filed and refiled for something like 18 years now; not one word of it has changed. You have to be willing to not just work outside the building and scream at legislators to pass something. You have to be willing to come into the building and sharpen your pencil and go to work.”

    Stanton criticized Peake for standing against legislation to improve transparency in the state’s lower chamber.

    “We’re the only state in the country where the state legislature is not subject to public records law,” Stanton said. “You have more scrutiny as a planning board member.”

    Peake said committee hearings are now recorded and can be viewed remotely. Also, “yes” votes in committee are now recorded for the public to see. The nays and blank votes, however, are not.

    Stanton called Peake’s response “such a bunch of bull. It is not that complicated.”

    Transparency is high on the agenda for the nonprofit Act on Mass, which Stanton volunteered for and which has endorsed Stanton in this race. The group has argued that the public should have 72 hours to review bills before the House votes rather than the current 24 hours.

    These reforms, said Peake, will help the Republicans.

    “The Republicans have pressed for all of those issues every session that I have been in there,” she said. “And I am always joined with the majority of Democrats, including this time 135 Democrats, voting no. Five voted in the affirmative, and all the Republicans. I am a proud Democrat, and I will continue to vote as a Democrat against things that will give more power to Republicans, especially now.”

    The Independent asked both candidates how to alleviate the Cape’s critical lack of affordable year-round housing.

    Stanton said the state should itself build affordable housing. He also wants renters to have a right of first refusal when landlords puts their properties on the market.

    Of Stanton’s advocating state-constructed housing, Peake said, “I don’t even know how to begin to unpack that. I would be afraid of some bureaucrat in Boston making a decision about what housing Truro needs.”

    The renters’ right of first refusal could work, she said, if there was a way to keep the price within reach for a year-rounder. Peake also said she has worked for years to advance a zoning reform bill.

    Peake said she and state Sen. Julian Cyr — who has endorsed her — successfully transferred the Cloverleaf parcel in North Truro from state to town ownership for affordable housing. Peake was a leader in pushing the short-term rental tax law, which is now adding millions of dollars to town coffers that can be used to buy land and construct housing. She argued that towns should use all their short-term rental tax revenue for housing.

    She and Cyr also wrangled an additional 2.75-percent excise tax on traditional lodging and short-term rentals for the Cape Cod and Islands Water Protection Fund for improvements to wastewater treatment.

    Better wastewater treatment allows denser development. “If we are going to build our way out of this, we need to be thinking big: 30, 40 units at a time,” Peake said. “Wastewater will allow us to do that.”

    The Harwich Democratic Town Committee and 350 Cape Cod invited Peake and Stanton to debate on Aug. 24 or 25, and both candidates were invited to speak during a Cape Cod Sierra Club meeting on Aug. 16. Peake turned down both requests. The two candidates will debate live at 9 a.m. on Sept. 1 at WCAI, public radio for the Cape & Islands.

    STATE HOUSE

    Rep. Peake Has a Challenger for a Change

    Climate, housing, and transparency are top issues for Democrat Stanton

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Barnstable Fourth District state Rep. Sarah Peake has not had a primary challenger since 2006.

    Enter Democrat Jack Stanton, a 30-year-old Provincetown lobsterman and service worker who is running against Peake in the Sept. 6 primary on a platform of climate action, affordable housing, and increased transparency, he said in an interview this week.

    “Democrats have veto-proof majorities in both chambers, yet we don’t deliver on the values of the party platform,” Stanton said. “We don’t have a functional state legislature in terms of addressing our biggest challenges with a commensurate response.

    “With regards to climate, we’re out of time,” he continued. “What we do in the next decade is going to dramatically affect the lives of generations.”

    The 2021 Mass. legislature’s Climate Roadmap Bill commits to net zero emissions by 2050, but Stanton says that’s not good enough.

    “We should be financing new industries we can start here,” Stanton argued. Specifically, he would like to see the state’s intellectual and financial resources put to work on new renewable battery storage technology.

    “House leadership is content to nibble around the edges,” he said.

    Stanton worked in Mozambique, on the coast of East Africa, for the consulting firm Forcier after graduating in 2014 from George Washington University. He said he saw climate change’s effects first-hand, an experience that informs his politics.

    Jack Stanton, Provincetown lobsterman and service worker, says “the whole system is broken.” (Photo courtesy Jack Stanton)

    Growing up in East Sandwich, “I also come from a fragile place,” he said.

    Stanton ran against Republican incumbent state Rep. Randy Hunt in Barnstable’s Fifth District in 2018. He received about 43 percent of the vote, according to certified election results, similar to the percentages Democrats Patrick Ellis (2012) and Matthew Terry (2014) received when they challenged Hunt for his seat in the House.

    As for his current opponent, Stanton said, “Rep. Peake has done an exemplary job in advancing herself in House leadership.

    “She is an excellent public servant,” he added.

    On housing, Stanton said, “We’re at a crisis point, and we need to address the systemic causes.” He supports a renter’s right of first refusal and a public bank to help “increase access to credit” with down payments.

    Stanton said he is currently living with a friend in Truro, but will soon move onto his sailboat, which is moored in Provincetown Harbor during the summer.

    He is starting his second season as a waiter at the Lobster Pot, and he has been a commercial fisherman since 2018. “It’s important to have representatives who reflect the experience of the community,” he said.

    Stanton said, because the “Speaker of the House wields an enormous amount of power, the voices of rank-and-file Democrats are stymied.”

    Frustrated with the House’s limited transparency — he noted that the Mass. legislature ranked last, alongside Kentucky, Alabama, and Nebraska, in a 2013 Open States report card — Stanton said he volunteered with the People’s House campaign, organized by Act on Mass, to publicize committee votes and increase the time representatives have to read bills before voting.

    Stanton also pointed out that three of the last five speakers of the Mass. House were convicted of felonies committed while serving in office, a fact confirmed by MassLive reporting.

    “The whole system is broken,” Stanton said.

    Stanton has yet to receive public endorsements from current representatives in the State House, but he said former Rep. Kathleen Teahan has endorsed his campaign.

    Peake’s Tenure

    In a May 6 interview, state Rep. Sarah Peake, who is the House speaker’s second assistant majority leader, said, “I’m looking forward to talking about my large record of accomplishments and achievements during my campaign. I’ve fought every day for the past eight terms.”

    Peake added, “I think my race will gin up turnout and focus attention on the statewide candidates on the Cape, and ultimately I think it’ll be good for Maura Healey.” Healey, the state attorney general, is running for governor.

    Peake referred to herself as “an environmental warrior and hero.”

    “I know my opponent claims to be a lobsterman,” she said, “but I have served as the Mass. legislative commissioner since 2009 on the Atlantic State Fisheries Commission. I have a seat at the table on a policy making board, and I’m the voice for Cape Cod fishermen.”

    Sarah Peake, eight-term incumbent, says her campaign will help strengthen the statewide Democratic ticket. (Photo courtesy Sarah Peake)

    Peake also chairs the Regional Transit Authority caucus and has previously served as chair of both the Joint Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government and the Joint Committee on Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development.

    As for the 2021 People’s House campaign to increase transparency in secret House committee activities, Peake voted against the group’s amendment, explaining in part, “Committees are incubators of ideas, not a final vote. What I did favor is posting final roll call votes. Those are the votes that count.”

    Negative committee votes are also recorded publicly, she added, and “anyone can do the math.

    “I am fully in favor of transparency,” Peake said. “I worked to ensure that all of our sessions are live streamed, and that people continue to have the possibility to participate in committee meetings remotely.

    “I think what people really care about is what you’re doing for them,” Peake said. “Yes, I work on statewide policies, but I’m also unwinding red tape and helping connect voters with state agencies.

    “Just today, I answered three constituents’ emails,” Peake added. “That’s a very large part of what I do.”

    Cape and Islands Sen. Julian Cyr endorsed Peake during a May 6 interview.

    “I could not ask for a better partner,” he said. “Not sending Peake back to Beacon Hill would be a huge loss, not only for the Cape, but also for the feminist and LGBTQ movements in Massachusetts.”

    No Republican has filed papers for Peake’s House seat, so the Democrat voters elect in the September primary will likely run unopposed in the general election.

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