A6 Nation/Region The Boston Globe TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019
on climate change and pollu-
tion, as well as policy on tele-
communications and nuclear
weapons.
It also served a political pur-
pose for Markey: His partner-
ship with a rising star in the
party helped burnish his liberal
credentials as he headed into
his reelection campaign.
Now, Markey, 73, faces a po-
tential primary challenge in
2020 from another young law-
maker, Massachusetts Repre-
sentative Joseph P. Kennedy III,
who confirmed Monday he is
considering a run. And in what
would be a daunting intra-par-
ty fight with a member of a po-
litical dynasty, Markey’s most
potent weapon is his long re-
cord in Congress.
But Markey will have to base
a campaign on that record at a
time when voters are putting
less stock in experience, as
shown by the success of several
insurgent Democrats who oust-
ed veteran incumbents in 2018.
His party is also in the minority
in the Senate, meaning he has
had less chance to actually pass
legislation since arriving there
in 2013.
“It is a double-edged sword,”
said Ross Baker, a political sci-
ence professor at Rutgers Uni-
versity and expert on Congress.
“There used to be a time
when one of the big talking
points was. ‘I have experience, I
produce legislation, I don’t
need on-the-job training,’ ” he
said. “Now in some instances,
for some, it is a liability.”
Although some political ana-
lysts say Markey lacks the star
power and outsized persona of
other Democratic senators, he
is seen as a liberal workhorse
with a strong legislative track
record on environmental and
technology issues since being
elected to the House in 1976.
When he moved to the Senate
to replace John Kerry, Markey
arrived having served more
time in the House — almost 37
years — than anyone in Ameri-
can history who then went on
to serve in the Senate.
And in an age when some
Democrats are demanding
more direct clashes with Presi-
dent Trump, Markey has a rep-
utation for forging broad legis-
lative coalitions.
Markey is known more for
creating clever acronyms — say-
ing the GOP is the Gas and Oil
uMARKEY
Continued from Page A
Party and EPA under the Trump
administration stands for Every
Polluters’ Ally — than soaring
oratory and has never been
chosen by Democratic leaders
to deliver a State of the Union
response.
“He is funny, and in intense
situations he comes out of no-
where with a good line,” said
Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon
Democrat who has worked with
Markey for years.
Markey told the Globe that
he’s energized to fight Trump,
and his legislative work put
him ahead of the curve on such
environmental issues as climate
change, which he was working
on years before it became the
major political topic it is now.
“I take those issues very per-
sonally because of the threat it
poses to the planet and the
younger generations who are
going to have to live with the
consequences,” he said, beforedirecting a shot at Trump in-
stead of Kennedy. “I think the
president is inflicting a great
moral injury on our country by
denying the science and refus-
ing to move.”
There is little playing field to
the political left of Markey. Con-
gressional Quarterly last year
found he voted with the majori-
ty of Democrats 100 percent of
the time, one of only five sena-
tors from his party with a per-
fect party unity score.
Markey, a Malden native,
was elected to the House in
1976 as a Democratic insur-
gent. He requested a committee
position that allowed him to
work on technology and envi-
ronmental issues.
One of his first major en-
deavors was pushing a resolu-
tion in the 1980s to freeze the
proliferation of nuclear weap-
ons. In the 1990s, he wrote leg-
islation that helped launch thenation’s satellite television in-
dustry. His most sweeping pro-
posal to become law was the
Telecommunications Act of
1996, which helped inject com-
petition into a sector that was
expanding into Internet ser-
vice.
He also has been a leading
advocate for net neutrality rules
to prohibit broadband and
wireless companies from favor-
ing some websites over others
by charging for faster speeds.
On net neutrality, activists
credit Markey for bringing the
issue to the mainstream in
2005, when he allowed the mu-
sician Moby to perform at his
press event. Few knew the defi-
nition of the term then.
Markey and Wyden part-
nered to introduce legislation
to create the first set of net neu-
trality rules. They were eventu-
ally promulgated as regulations
by the Federal Communica-tions Commission under Presi-
dent Obama but the agency re-
pealed them under Trump.
“In Washington there aren’t
many final victories,” Wyden
said. “You get moving, you
make progress, and then you
come back. That is what the
great legislators like Markey do.
You come back for another day.”
Markey scored a significant
bipartisan victory last year
when he corralled enough Re-
publican support in the Senate
to pass a measure invalidating
the FCC’s repeal of net neutrali-
ty rules. But the effort died in
the Republican-controlled
House.
On technology issues, Mar-
key “is the most important
member of Congress and has
been for 30 years,” said Andrew
Schwartzman, a longtime tele-
communications consumer ad-
vocate and senior counselor at
the Benton Foundation, whichadvocates for the public inter-
est on technology issues.
But Markey is most well-
known for his environmental
work.
In 2007, House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi tapped him over
several other key lawmakers to
head a new Select Committee
on Energy Independence and
Global Warming.
He drafted legislation that
President Obama signed to in-
crease fuel economy standards
for cars and trucks. And a 2009
bill that Markey co-authored
would have capped emissions
through 2050 for several green-
house gases, including carbon
dioxide, and established a sys-
tem for trading emissions al-
lowances. It passed out of the
House but died in the Senate.
Last week, the League of
Conservation Voters and the
Sunrise Movement, a group of
young people devoted to stop-
ping climate change, both en-
dorsed Markey’s 2020 reelec-
tion bid even in the face of a po-
tential Kennedy challenge.
“It is hard to think of some-
one else nationally who has
been as consistent a champ on
energy and climate issues,” said
Elizabeth Henry, president of
the Environmental League of
Massachusetts. “He has been
chipping away for decades.”
Markey has embarked on a
series of town hall events to
promote the Green New Deal
across Massachusetts in the
past few months.
“They look at us and they
say, ‘socialism’ — and you know
what we say, ‘Give us the social-
ism you have had for the fossil
fuel industry for the last 100
years,” he said of opponents of
clean energy tax credits at a
town hall in Framingham last
week, drawing loud applause
from an audience.
Asked by a reporter at the
February Green New Deal news
conference why he expected to
be successful in addressing cli-
mate change this time, Markey
said the effort he had helped
start has turned into a move-
ment.
“The green generation has
risen up, and they are saying
that they want this issue
solved,” he said. “We now have
the troops. We now have the
money. We’re ready to fight.”Reach Jazmine Ulloa at
[email protected] or on
Twitter: @jazmineulloa“Our system has been letting
down a lot of people for a long
time, and we can’t fix it if we
don’t challenge it. I’ve got some
ideas on how to do that.
“And I don’t think our dem-
ocratic process promises any-
one a turn,” he continued.
“What it does promise is the
chance for anyone to earn it —
if we think we have something
to offer and are willing to put
ourselves and our ideas out
there.”
The post comes after weeks
of speculation and news re-
ports about the intentions of
Kennedy, who is the grandson
of the late senator Robert F.
Kennedy and the son of former
congressman Joe Kennedy II.
Asked about Kennedy’s Fa-
cebook message, Markey, 73,
said he’s running hard on the
issues the people of Massachu-
setts care the most about.
“I’m fighting to protect peo-
ple who are being punished by
Donald Trump just because of
the color of their skin. I’m fight-
ing to ensure that we have a
Green New Deal that we put on
the books. I am fighting to have
the strongest possible gun safe-
ty laws be instituted in our
country to stop the carnage on
the streets of our nation,” he
told reporters at an immigra-
tion event in Boston.
“The Trump administration
is trying to make America great
again by making America hate
again,” he said. “I have been
fighting him since the day he
was sworn in, and I am going to
continue to fight for the people
who are most vulnerable in our
country every single day.”
Asked if he would continue
his reelection bid if Kennedy
gets in, Markey replied: “I am
running for reelection, and I
am going to criss-cross this
state and give it everything I’ve
uKENNEDY
Continued from Page A
got.”
Markey first won a seat in
Congress in 1976. He held that
perch, representing a suburban
and mostly liberal swath of cit-
ies and towns around Boston,
until he won a US Senate seat
in a 2013 special election.
The Malden Democrat al-
ready has two announced Dem-
ocratic primary challengers in
the 2020 race, labor attorney
Shannon Liss-Riordan and
businessman and author StevePemberton.
Kennedy indicated that he
wouldn’t be making a decision
on the race imminently.
“I plan to spend the next
couple weeks talking to as
many of you as I can, trying to
figure out if this campaign is
right for me and right for Mas-
sachusetts,” he wrote on Face-
book. “I’m grateful for your
thoughts, encouragement, and
especially your patience as I
weigh a big decision.”For his part, Markey has
been working to show off his
grass-roots and institutional
support in recent weeks.
The senator has trumpeted
endorsements, including a vid-
eo from Senator Elizabeth War-
ren and the nod from the Sun-
rise Movement, a group of
young people devoted to stop-
ping climate change, who
hailed Markey for cosponsoring
the Green New Deal. On Sun-
day, Markey announced his topcampaign aide will be John E.
Walsh, a former state party
chairman and top ally of for-
mer governor Deval Patrick.
And activists have rallied to
Markey’s defense.
“He’s been out front on envi-
ronmental issues, particularly
climate change, for decades,”
said Deb Pasternak, the direc-
tor of the Massachusetts chap-
ter of the Sierra Club, who co-
authored an opinion piece last
week calling on Kennedy tostay in the House.
Pasternak said Monday it is
Markey’s “veteran status as a
lawmaker and as a climate
champion that makes him so
valuable in his position.”
Markey’s record also in-
cludes championing issues
ranging from stopping nuclear
proliferation to modernizing
telecommunications to protect-
ing consumers.
Since taking office in 2013,
Kennedy has focused on de-
fending immigrants, expand-
ing transgender rights, safe-
guarding health care, and bat-
tling gun violence. He’s also
made a name for himself as one
of the party’s top communica-
tors in the era of President
Trump.
If Kennedy jumps in the
Senate race, he’s expected to be
able to quickly put together a
robust, top-notch campaign,
from ad-makers to pollsters to
fund-raisers. Kennedy ended
June with more than $4.2 mil-
lion in the bank compared to
Markey’s $4.1 million, federal
records show.
Analysts said the post by
Kennedy on Monday was wise
after weeks of people chatter-
ing about the race.
“Very smart for him to come
out now and start to define the
Senate race on his terms,” said
Democratic strategist Mary
Anne Marsh.
She said the statement was
one more step “in a very me-
thodical march for Joe Kenne-
dy to get into the race.”
Marsh predicted what might
happen after Labor Day: public
polling showing he would be
ahead of Markey, high-profile
people calling for him to run,
and, she said, “I would expect,
thereafter, an announcement
that he’s getting in the race.”Joshua Miller can be reached at
[email protected].Markey’s environmental record leads to Green New Deal
Kennedy confirms he’s considering a run for Markey’s seat
NIC ANTAYA FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE‘They look at us and they say, “socialism’’ — and you know what we say, “Give us
the socialism you have had for the fossil fuel industry for the last 100 years.” ’
SENATOR EDWARD MARKEYASSOCIATED PRESS/2018 FILE‘Our system has been letting down a lot of people for a long time, and we can’t fix
it if we don’t challenge it. I’ve got some ideas on how to do that.’
REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPH KENNEDY III