The Boston Globe - 19.09.2019

A8 Nation/Region The Boston Globe THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

races in the country. Kennedy

and Markey are separated more

by age than ideology. They

share largely similar progres-

sive views on a range of issues

and are well-respected in Mas-

sachusetts and Washington po-

litical circles.

“Joe plans to make a cam-

paign announcement this Sat-

urday in East Boston. He looks

forward to speaking with folks

then,” spokeswoman Emily

Kaufman said.

The great-grandson of an

ambassador, grand-nephew of a

president, grandson of a sena-

tor, and son of a congressman,

Kennedy will continue to be lift-

ed by his family name, which

the vast majority of Democratic

primary voters see favorably,

but he will have to carry the ex-

pectations and the outsized

scrutiny that come with it.

Kennedy isn’t shying away

from his pedigree: He chose

East Boston to make the big an-

nouncement in part because it

is where the Kennedy family

landed when they came over

from Ireland, the people close

to him said. The neighborhood

also illustrates the economic

justice issues Kennedy intends

to focus on in the campaign.

Another reason for the loca-

tion: Kennedy’s wife, Lauren

Birchfield Kennedy, has worked

in the neighborhood through

her child-care nonprofit.

Kennedy’s campaign ap-

pears to be assembling an expe-

rienced and diverse team.

Among others, he has brought

on Tracey Lewis, a longtime ad-

viser to Representative Ayanna

Pressley of Boston.

Markey has hinted that he

will contrast his humble roots

with Kennedy’s background of

privilege. At the state Democrat-

ic Party’s annual convention last

weekend, he described his up-

bringing as the son of a milk-

man “in a blue-collar neighbor-

hood in Malden,” where he

learned his values at the same

kitchen table at which his moth-

er “figured out how long we

could keep the heater on during

the cold winter nights.”

A graduate of Malden Catho-

lic High School, Markey re-

counted how he was the first in

his family to attend college. He

earned a bachelor’s degree from

Boston College, followed by a

law degree from Boston College

Law School. He also served in

the US Army Reserve.

During his final year of law

school, he launched his first

uKENNEDY

Continued from Page A

campaign, a successful bid for

the Massachusetts House of

Representatives.

By contrast, Kennedy at-

tended the elite Buckingham

Browne & Nichols School, fol-

lowed by Stanford University

and Harvard Law School.

A race focused on biography

is not without peril for either

candidate. Kennedy will have to

contend with charges that he

was born clutching a silver

spoon; Markey is vulnerable to

being cast as a creature of

Washington, where he has

spent more than four decades

of his political career. So strong

are Markey’s ties to the Capitol

that he has repeatedly faced ac-

cusations that his main resi-

dence is not the yellow two-sto-

ry childhood home in Malden

as he claims, but rather the

much grander home he and his

wife have owned in Chevy

Chase, Md., since 1991.

Markey brings to the match-

up a long legislative record

fighting for liberal causes — in-

cluding combating the spread

of nuclear weapons, champion-

ing consumer protection, up-

grading laws on technology,

and advancing environmental

protections — work that has

earned him devotion from

many Democratic activists in

Massachusetts.

Most recently, he partnered

with Representative Alexandria

Ocasio-Cortez, a young progres-

sive icon from New York, on leg-

islation creating a Green New

Deal to combat climate change

and restructure the economy. As

the threat from Kennedy

emerged, Ocasio-Cortez en-

dorsed Markey’s reelection bid.

It’s among the numerous en-

dorsements Markey has collect-

ed, including that of Warren.

But stacks of legislative ac-

complishments don’t carry the

weight they once did. Desire for

generational change is coursing

through the Democratic base,

and Markey, who has served in

Congress longer than Kennedy’s

been alive, has posted consis-

tently soft poll numbers since

entering the Senate in 2013.

The electorate’s mood and

Markey’s perceived vulnerabili-

ty, some strategists say, pro-

vides Kennedy a rare shot at

higher office in a state that

doesn’t offer many opportuni-

ties for advancement.

A Boston Globe and Suffolk

University poll released earlier

this month found Kennedy

comfortably leading Markey.

Kennedy’s decision is cer-

tain to roil Democratic circles

in Massachusetts and beyond.

High-level party officials public-

ly urged Kennedy not to get in

the Senate race. They warned

that his challenge would be an

expensive distraction from the

urgent 2020 tasks of ousting

President Trump, winning con-

trol of the Senate, and keeping

the House of Representatives in

Democratic hands.

Other Democrats, however,

welcome Kennedy’s bid, believ-

ing his knack for capturing

public attention — which party

leaders nodded to when they

chose him to deliver the Demo-

cratic response to President

Trump’s 2018 State of the

Union — can help Democrats

advance their agenda in an era

of bitter polarization. A Senate

seat would lend an even bigger

national spotlight to those

skills, they believe.

Kennedy’s decision to take

on a respected colleague over

the protests of party elders

marks a hard break with the

low-key profile he cut for much

of his six-plus years in the

House. Colleagues describe him

as a dutiful, even humble, team

player, focused on working the

inside game and building a rep-

utation on his own merit, not

his last name.

Running against Markey

shows that Kennedy possesses

an ambitious streak reminis-

cent of the political paths of his

great-uncles, President John F.

Kennedy and Edward M. Ken-

nedy, who challenged then-

President Jimmy Carter for the

Democratic presidential nomi-

nation in 1980.

Kennedy last weekend said

he “respectfully” disagrees with

the argument that a primary

challenge by him would hurt

the party. “I don’t see how an

active, engaged race that en-

ables an electorate across the

state to make an informed deci-

sion about who’s going to repre-

sent them in the United States

Senate for the next six years is a

bad thing,” he told reporters.

“That’s exactly what the process

was designed to do.”

Two other candidates have

officially declared bids for Mar-

key’s seat — labor attorney

Shannon Liss-Riordan and

businessman Steve Pemberton.

In early 2012, Kennedy re-

signed from his job as a prose-

cutor in the Middlesex district

attorney’s office and moved to

the re-drawn Fourth District,

whichstretchesfromBrookline

and Newton to Fall River, after

Democrat Barney Frank said he

would not seek reelection.

He trounced his two lesser-

known primary rivals and

cruised on to a comfortable

general election win over a Re-

publicanopponent.

Kennedy had worked less

than three years as a prosecutor

before running for office. He at-

tended Harvard Law School,

where Warren was one of his

professors and where he met his

future wife, who is now a health

policy lawyer. The two married

in 2012. They have two chil-

dren: Eleanor, 3, and James, 1.

After law school, Kennedy,

who is fluent in Spanish, trav-

eled to the Dominican Repub-

lic, where he spent two years as

a Peace Corps volunteer.

During his four terms in

Congress, Kennedy has focused

on several signature issues, in-

cluding transgender rights,

health care and mental health

care parity, and immigration.

After President Trump took

office, Kennedy started to raise

his profile by speaking out

against the controversial poli-

cies of the administration and

House Republicans, who were

still in power.

He started to generate viral

moments, important currency

in the current polarized politi-

cal climate. A minute-long,

middle-of-the-night House

committee speech he gave in

2017 criticizing GOP efforts to

repeal Barack Obama’s health

care overhaul as “an act of mal-

ice” was viewed close to 10 mil-

lion times within days.

Raised in Brighton and

Cambridge, Kennedy is the son

of Joseph P. Kennedy II and

Sheila Rauch Kennedy, who di-

vorced in 1991. His father was

elected to Congress from a Bos-

ton-based district in 1986. The

elder Kennedy bailed on a run

for governor in 1997 and re-

tired from Congress, serving

through January 1999.

Victoria McGrane can be

reached at victoria.mcgrane@

globe.com.

By Daniel Victor
NEW YORK TIMES
Ed Buck, a Democratic do-
nor and activist whose West
Hollywood apartment was the
scene of two methamphet-
amine overdose deaths since
2017, was arrested Tuesday af-
ter investigators said a third
man suffered an overdose in his
home last week.
Buck, 65, who has not faced
charges for the earlier overdos-
es but was subject to a wrong-
ful-death lawsuit, was charged
Tuesday with battery causing
serious injury, administering
methamphetamine and main-
taining a drug house. He faces

up to five years and eight

months in prison.

The charges relate only to

the most recent in-

cident Sept. 11,

when the Los Ange-

les District Attor-

ney’s Office says

Buck injected a 37-

year-old man with

methamphetamine

in Buck’s home. The

man, who was not

identified, survived

the overdose.

Families of the

two men who died

in his apartment — Timothy

Dean, 55, died in January,

while Gemmel Moore, 26, died

in July 2017 — have accused

Buck, who is white, of preying

upon black gay men.

LaTisha Nixon, the

mother of Moore,

said in the wrong-

ful-death lawsuit

that Buck had a

“well-documented

history of isolating

black men for pred-

atory sexual en-

counters,” and

crowds of protesters

have gathered out-

side his home this

year to demand justice for the

men.

“I remain deeply concerned

for the safety of people whose

life circumstances may make

them more vulnerable to crimi-

nal predators,” Jackie Lacey, the

Los Angeles County district at-

torney, said in a statement.

“With this new evidence, I au-

thorized the filing of criminal

charges against Ed Buck.”

A lawyer for Buck, Seymour

I. Amster, could not be reached

Tuesday, but has previously de-

nied that Buck had any role in

the two deaths.

It was unclear when Buck

would be arraigned. Prosecu-

tors recommended $4 million

bail.

The longtime activist has

given more than $116,000 to

Democratic candidates and

groups over a decade or so.

Buck first rose to prominence

in the 1980s in Arizona, when

he was a Republican and led

the Meacham Recall Commit-

tee, an effort to remove from of-

fice Governor Evan Mecham,

also a Republican. Mecham

would later be impeached, ac-

cused of fraud and perjury.

Buck later switched parties

and gave about $1,500 to back

Barack Obama and $2,950 to

support Hillary Clinton, ac-

cording to OpenSecrets.org,

which tracks campaign fund-

raising. He was also a promi-

nent member of LGBT political

circles, and ran unsuccessfully

for the West Hollywood City

Council about a decade ago.

He was considered a suspect

in Moore’s death, but the police

could not prove “beyond a rea-

sonable doubt that suspect

Buck furnished drugs to Gem-

mel Moore or... possessed

drugs,” according to court docu-

ments. After Dean’s death in

January, Lieutenant Derrick Al-

fred of the Los Angeles County

Sheriff’s Department promised

“a thorough investigation to de-

termine if it is criminal in na-

ture.”

President Carter expressed
doubt Tuesday night that he
would have been able to han-
dle the presi-
dency at age
80, saying the
job requires
being‘‘veryflexiblewithyour
mind’’ and suggesting that
there should be an age limit.
Carter did not mention any
of the current presidential
candidates in his comments,
but two leading Democratic
contenders — former vice
president Joe Biden and Sena-
tor Bernie Sanders of Vermont
— would turn 80 while in of-
fice if elected.
Question’s about Biden’s
age and mental acuity, in par-
ticular, have become part of
the conversation in the Demo-
cratic nominating process. He
is 76, while Sanders is 78.
Carter, who turns 95 next
month, was asked during an
event at the Carter Center in
Atlanta what it would take for
him to run for president
again. The questioner noted
that Grover Cleveland had
served two nonconsecutive
terms in the late 19th century.
‘‘I hope there’s an age lim-
it,’’ Carter said with a big grin
as he sat next to his wife, Ro-
salynn.
‘‘You know, if I were just 80
years old, if I was 15 years
younger, I don’t believe I
could undertake the duties
that I experienced when I was
president,’’ he said. ‘‘For one
thing, you have to be very flex-
ible with your mind. You have
to be able to go from one sub-
ject to another and concen-
trate on each one adequately
and then put them all together
in a comprehensive way.’’
WASHINGTON POST

Trumpsaysguncontrol
deal‘muchharder’now
President Trump said
Wednesday it has become
‘‘much harder’’ to reach a deal
with Democrats on gun legis-
lation, blaming an emphatic
call by former congressman
Beto O’Rourke of Texas for a
mandatory buyback program
for assault-style weapons.
O’Rourke created one of
the most memorable moments
of last week’s Democratic
presidential debate in Hous-
ton when he spoke passionate-
ly about a need for gun control
in the wake of recent mass
shootings. ‘‘Hell, yes, we’re go-
ing to take your AR-15, your
AK-47,’’ he said, referring to
his support for mandatory
buybacks of war weapons.
‘‘Dummy Beto made it
much harder to make a deal.
Convinced many that Dems
just want to take your guns
away,’’ Trump said on Twitter,
adding: ‘‘Will continue for-
ward!’’
His tweet comes as Con-
gress waits for Trump to an-
nounce what gun-related pro-
posals he would support fol-
lowing a spate of mass
shootings, including back-to-
back massacres last month in
El Paso and Dayton, Ohio.
Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, Republican
of Kentucky, said Tuesday that
Congress remains ‘‘in a hold-
ing pattern’’ while awaiting
guidance from the White
House.
‘‘I’m still waiting for guid-
ance from the White House
about what [Trump] is com-
fortable signing... and hope-
fully making some progress,’’
McConnell said.

Following last week’s de-

bate, O’Rourke said that his

buyback plan would be ‘‘not

voluntary.’’

Republicans seized on

O’Rourke’s comments, using

them to broadly paint Demo-

crats as overly eager to confis-

cate firearms, while some

Democrats suggested the re-

marks were not helpful in per-

suading Republicans to em-

brace more modest changes,

such as expanding back-

ground checks for gun pur-

chasers.

O’Rourke responded to

Trump on Twitter later

Wednesday morning, accusing

the president of cowardice.

‘‘To be clear: We will buy

back every single assault

weapon,’’ he wrote. ‘‘We’ll also

license every gun & do a back-

ground check on every buyer.

That’s what the American peo-

ple want — and deserve. The

only thing stopping us from

ending this epidemic is you &

your cowardice. Do the right

thing.’’

During a television appear-

ance on Wednesday morning,

Representative Tim Ryan of

Ohio, another Democratic

presidential candidate, said

O’Rourke’s views shouldn’t af-

fect the outcome of a congres-

sional debate over gun legisla-

tion.

‘‘Beto’s not in Congress, so

his opinion shouldn’t have

anything to do with it,’’ Ryan

said on CNN.

WASHINGTON POST

OmarsaysTrump‘putmy

lifeatrisk’withretweet

Representative Ilhan Omar

on Wednesday accused Presi-

dent Trump of spreading ‘‘lies

that put my life at risk’’ after

the president retweeted a post

falsely claiming that the Min-

nesota Democrat ‘‘partied on

the anniversary of 9/11.’’

Omar said the video of her

dancing was taken not on the

anniversary of the Sept. 11,

2001, attacks but at a Con-

gressional Black Caucus event.

Earlier Wednesday, Trump

had retweeted a post by con-

servative actor and comedian

Terrence K. Williams claiming

that the video of Omar danc-

ing was taken on the anniver-

sary of the attacks. The origi-

nal video appears to have been

taken Sept. 13.

‘‘This is from a CBC event

we hosted this weekend to cel-

ebrate black women in Con-

gress,’’ Omar said in a tweet.

‘‘The President of the United

States is continuing to spread

lies that put my life at risk.

What is Twitter doing to com-

bat this misinformation?’’

Williams’s tweet appeared

to have been taken down as of

Wednesday afternoon. Accord-

ing to Twitter, the company

did not take action on Wil-

liams’s tweet. Williams did not

immediately respond to an e-

mailed request for comment.

The Congressional Black

Caucus Foundation’s Annual

Legislative Conference took

place Sept. 11-15 in Washing-

ton. Adam Green, cofounder

of the Progressive Change

Campaign Committee, tweet-

ed the video of Omar dancing

at one of the CBC events on

Sept. 13. The campaign com-

mittee on Wednesday called

the claim that Omar ‘‘partied’’

on the anniversary of the Sept.

11 attacks ‘‘an abhorrent lie

that endangers a member of

Congress.’’

WASHINGTON POST

Kennedy to declare Senate bid

JONATHAN WIGGS/GLOBE STAFF

Representative Joseph Kennedy III waited to speak Tuesday at a Massachusetts Business Immigration Coalition meeting.

Democratic donor is charged in LA with operating a drug house

Ed Buck’s

apartment was

the scene of two

overdose deaths.

Carterdoubtshe

couldhavehandled

thepresidencyat

POLITICAL

NOTEBOOK

Kennedychose

EastBostonforthe

announcementin

partbecauseitis

wheretheKennedy

familylanded

whentheycame

overfromIreland.