McGovern has served as the main representative for Central Massachusetts in U.S. Congress for so long, it could be easy to take him and what he does for granted. But the upheaval in the federal government since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term in office has placed renewed importance on McGovern, who must fight to protect funding, programs, and people as a member of the minority party in the House of Representatives.
McGovern first took office in 1997, having worked as a congressional intern and then U.S. Senate aid before winning election to Congress on his second attempt. He’s been the top Democrat on the powerful House Rules Committee since 2018 and has advocated for Congress to work in a more transparent, bipartisan way, including securing new – seemingly obvious – rules giving Congresspeople more time to read bills before they vote on them.
Since Trump took office in January, McGovern has helped Central Massachusetts organizations and people make sense of the chaos following Trump’s attempts to drastically overhaul the federal government, including detailing the harmful impacts of cuts to National Institutes of Health funding, criticizing the U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council, calling for a key Trump appointment to the U.S. Department of State to be withdrawn, and pushing back against Republican efforts to cut Medicaid and food stamps.
While all these moves have yet to yield any true high-profile wins for McGovern, they add up to the important resistance against the threats to everything McGovern has spent his career defending.
Brad Kane is editor of the Worcester Business Journal.
