LYNN — With the Sept. 1 primary election only weeks away, Senator Edward J. Markey named COVID-19 relief, racial inequality, and immigration reform, among others, as top campaign issues during stops in Lynn and Revere Saturday.
As part of a socially-distanced, outdoor interview with The Item, the 74-year-old incumbent discussed his working-class upbringing in Malden and how it played a role in his fight to bridge all types of inequality that have become especially apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Markey faces Democratic opposition for his seat from Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III.
Drawing back to financial issues his own family faced, Markey addressed the necessity of providing a federal “social safety net” that would allow families to not only survive pandemic fallout in the short term, but also provide them with future opportunities to thrive.
“I could see my mother and father struggling at the kitchen table to pay bills,” Markey said. “Am I smarter than my mother? No. Do I work harder than my father, the milkman? No. Could I still see them struggling at the kitchen table with their three sons, trying to make sure they could pay their bills? Yes.
“I know families are sitting at the kitchen table right now struggling to pay their bills, and I know it’s the federal government’s responsibility to provide an economic lifeline for them to make it through,” he added. “Yes, it’s costly. But it’s also necessary.”
Referencing his E-Rate program, which ensures all K-12 students have access to home broadband connectivity and devices during the COVID-19 pandemic, Markey said he also wants to see more programs implemented that prevent children in low-income families from missing large chunks of their education due to a lack of technological resources.
He credited his own early access to education as providing him with future opportunities, adding that the current “digital divide,” or lack of access to adequate technology, is only increasing unequal opportunities among students.
“My father’s son is a United States Senator,” he said. “That’s what our goal has to be for every kid … across Massachusetts and our country, so that they can maximize their god-given abilities.”
On the topic of police reform and racial justice, Markey, who is an outspoken supporter of the Booker Reparations Study, called for an end to qualified immunity, which makes it exceedingly difficult for citizens to sue government officials for constitutional violations.
He argued that the doctrine erodes the public’s faith in the justice system as families like that of George Floyd, the 46-year-old Black man killed by police Memorial Day weekend, rarely receive justice for their loved ones.
“It’s an old concept that was eroded by Supreme Court decisions over a hundred-year period,” he said. “We must put people on notice that if they engage in egregious acts against individuals, that they cannot escape accountability. They cannot use this shield, this immunity, that has been created.”
When it came to the topic of immigration reform, Markey once again acknowledged the ways in which COVID-19 disproportionately affects certain communities.
“What’s very clear now is that essential workers are disproportionately Black, brown, immigrant,” he said. “A high percentage of the workers in Lynn have been determined to be essential, and they’re essential because they can’t Zoom to work. They have to show up. They have to be there to guarantee that the supermarket is open, that the sanitation department is working, that all of the work … even in a pandemic, is (done).
“From my perspective, we can see who they are, and that’s good because next year, in January, that should create our agenda.”
As part of his proposed agenda, Markey called for a comprehensive immigration reform bill come January 2021 that would put most non-citizen essential workers on the path to citizenship, and also called for the dismantling of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“We have to ensure that these people don’t have to worry that the knock on the door of a triple decker in Lynn isn’t just another ICE attempt to separate a family,” he said. “We have to end this anxiety.”
Finally, in a response to a question asking him what he felt his greatest achievement has been, Markey cited several accomplishments.
“I have 500 laws that are on the books, and each one of them is important,” he said. “I was successful in passing a law that President Obama used to increase the fuel economy standards of the vehicles we drive … it was the largest reduction of greenhouse gases of any law ever passed in the United States.
“In December of 2019, I was successful in adding $25 million to the federal budget so that for the first time, the CBC could do research on the costs of gun violence in our society over the years.
“I’m the author of the Insider Trading Act that puts the Wall Street bad guys behind bars when they are harming ordinary families and their life savings.”
He also ended with a nod to a law he passed in 2014 that created a $25 billion Alzheimer’s research program.
The bill also called on the National Institute of Health to report to Congress each year how much money it needs to find the cure for Alzheimer’s by the year 2025.
The issue hits especially close to home for Markey, who lost his own mother to the disease.
“Five million people have Alzheimer’s right now,” he said. “15 million baby boomers will have Alzheimer’s. I’m very proud of that (bill) because if we don’t find a cure, it will pretty much be a disease that every family has.”
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