Gonzalez backs $15 min. wage, would explore single payer
Courtesy of State House News Service
Democrat Jay Gonzalez made his campaign for governor official on Monday.
For years on Beacon Hill, Jay Gonzalez was the man behind the budget.
Now the former finance secretary under Gov. Deval Patrick is stepping out on his own, and believes he has a vision for Massachusetts that Gov. Charlie Baker has not offered to voters.
Gonzalez, the one-time secretary of Administration and Finance who left his job as CEO of the health insurer CeltiCare in December to pursue the governorship, made his campaign official on Monday, becoming the first Democrat to formally enter the 2018 race.
Democrat Jay Gonzalez, a former member of the Patrick administration, officially announced his campaign for governor. [Photo: Matt Murphy/SHNS]
"One of the things I love about this state is that we've always been a leader, and I want us to lead again. I'm going to be offering an ambitious agenda to move us forward and I believe I bring the public and private sector leadership experience to make it happen," Gonzalez said in a wide-ranging interview from a conference room in the Back Bay law offices of Brody, Hardoon, Perkins & Kesten.
If it sounds like Gonzalez is borrowing from Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan, he insists he is not: "No, that's not my motto. Let's aim high," he said.
For Gonzalez, that means supporting a $15-an-hour minimum wage and an income surtax on millionaires to raise money to support universal pre-kindergarten. He also called Baker's approach to high health care costs a "Band-Aid on a gaping wound," and said everything, including a single-payer health care system, should be debated to make health care "simpler, cheaper and better quality."
Gonzalez went hard after Baker, a Republican who he called a "wait-and-see" governor that has failed to provide leadership on key issues facing the state such as early education. He also cast President Donald Trump as a threat to the state's ideals, and Baker as an inadequate foil to the new administration in the White House.
"I think he's too often sitting on the sidelines when we need him. Right now, in particular, that's not OK. It's not good enough," Gonzalez said of Baker.
Gonzalez attended a rally at Copley Square over the weekend in protest of Trump's executive order on immigration, but noted that Baker was not there, despite issuing a statement expressing his concerns with the order. He also harkened back to Baker's policy of allowing State Police to hold certain people on immigration detainers and his initial reticence toward accepting Syrian refugees.
"It is really important that we have a governor who stands up for every single person in this state and who makes it crystal clear that hate and discrimination are not going to be tolerated and Governor Baker has not been crystal clear about this," Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez, 46, touted his immigrant roots, speaking about his how his mother traveled to Spain as a young college student from Cleveland and returned pregnant and married to a 19-year-old Spaniard who didn't speak the language, but worked hard to provide opportunities for him and his brothers.
Baker attended a funeral for the mother of Senate Majority Leader Bruce Tarr on Sunday, and a spokesman noted that Baker, who did not support Trump for president, opposed Trump's campaign proposal to ban Muslims from entering the country and said the president's travel ban "will not make the country safer." He also opposed Trump's proposal to withhold federal dollars for so-called "sanctuary cities" and wrote to Congress defending aspects of the Affordable Care Act.
In a radio interview, the governor called Gonzalez a "good guy," but said he'd "put our records up against anybody's."
"I don't think he'd be better than me," Baker said on WGBH's "Boston Public Radio."
Should he win the Democratic nomination, Gonzalez could be sharing the ballot with initiative petitions to repeal a transgender protection law, to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and to impose an income surtax on household income above $1 million to generate revenue for education and transportation.
"I think we need to be honest with people about what it takes to invest in a better future and there's some important things that I think we need to do that are going to cost money and government, in my view, does not have the revenue it needs to make the investments to build a better strong community for everyone," Gonzalez said, offering a contrast with Baker, who opposes new broad-based taxes.
Gonzalez opposes the repeal of the transgender law protecting people's right to use public facilities that align with their gender identity, and he faulted Baker for staying silent during the debate last year even though he eventually signed the bill.
The Needham resident also said he supports a $15-an-hour minimum wage and taxing income above $1 million at a higher rate.
"The economy is doing great, but it's mostly doing great for people at the top," he said.
He said he would use the revenue from the income surtax, if it were approved by voters, to expand access to affordable pre-school for all families.
"This to me is a big priority, making sure that every single child in this state gets the same solid start that my kids got and wait lists would end and we would build the best quality system in this country. Right now, Governor Baker has no plan for early education and care. I don't even know if it's on his radar," Gonzalez said.
Baker political advisor Jim Conroy defended the governor's record against Gonzalez's charges, and hit back Monday afternoon.
"Governor Baker remains focused on leading a results-oriented state government that has lead to significant bipartisan accomplishments including closing deficits without raising taxes, reforming the broken MBTA, historic levels of employment, and making Massachusetts a national leader in tackling the opioid epidemic," Conroy said in a statement. "These hyper-partisan and dishonest accusations are so lacking in credibility, one should question whether Mr. Gonzalez has the judgement required to lead."
Gonzalez did agree with Baker on at least one issue - legislative pay raises. After he wasn't available Friday to discuss the issue, he said Monday he would have vetoed the bill passed last week by Democrats that would give lawmakers, constitutional officers and judges a significant pay increase this year. Gonzalez said salaries of public officials are a "legitimate public policy question," but he said he was "troubled with the process" used to quickly ram through the raises with little opportunity for public input or debate. Baker vetoed the pay raise legislation on Friday.
As he takes his first steps toward building a statewide campaign, Gonzalez will confront many of the same challenges that faced Patrick back in 2005. With his only elected experience being as a Town Meeting member in Brookline, Gonzalez will have to start building name recognition and fundraising to compete with not just Baker, but others Democrats eyeing the race.
Newton Mayor Setti Warren has not yet formally announced his campaign, but is actively exploring a run and is being advised by former Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh, a driving force behind Patrick's two gubernatorial elections.
Gonzalez plans to bring on additional staff in the near future to join senior advisor Sydney Asbury, another veteran of Patrick's administration and campaigns for governor. His campaign is being chaired by Henry Dormitzer, a former colleague in the Patrick's budget office who ran the Department of Revenue for a short time.
Dormitzer is former managing director for UBS Investment Bank, and is currently a portfolio manager for Choate Investment Advisors.
Gonzalez's wife Cyndi Roy Gonzalez was also at the law offices Monday helping to coordinate interviews, but Gonzalez said his wife, a former communications aide to Patrick and Attorney General Maura Healey, would not have a formal role in the campaign.
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