By: Ben Linares

Today, the United States federal government is at the forefront of every news story. In fact, lately all you hear about is what’s going on in Washington, DC. We tend to forget that a great deal of politics (sometimes even good politics) happens at the state and local levels. Boston, one of America’s largest cities can surely attest to that. Over the next two weeks, I will research and analyze the candidates running for mayor of Boston. I will pull apart their biographies, voting history and campaign websites. While I can’t promise you will agree with me, I will give you my honest opinion on both candidates. First up is Marty Walsh.

Walsh, a native of Dorchester, Mass, has been part of Boston politics for sixteen years. He represents Massachusetts’s 13th Suffolk district in the House of Representatives and has had his eyes on the mayoral prize for quite some time. The 46-year-old lawmaker is known for being outspoken and gutsy and has strong roots in the community (If you ask me, he sounds a heck of a lot like Mark Wahlberg.) Walsh has voted on hundreds of measures, but the following are some that I found interesting.

In 2012, he voted “yea” on a bill that requires habitual violent offenders to serve their full prison sentences. Honestly, this should have been passed years ago. We cannot allow criminals who are convicted of serious crimes to walk the streets with innocent citizens and children. Walsh has also launched a “fight against illegal arms.” Civilians do not need to own weapons that should only be used in war, like high capacitymagazine firearms, and they should definitely not be allowed to own illegal firearms. However, Mr. Walsh voted to lower the cost of obtaining a firearm license. I don’t see the harm in asking firearm owners to pay $100 to obtain a license, but lowering that to $40 could potentially make it easier for someone who shouldn’t own a firearm to obtain one. I am all for 2nd Amendment rights; in fact, my family owns firearms, but I question any bill that would put a powerful weapon in the hands of a criminal. 

Boston’s public schools need help. While some have improved, many are still struggling. Candidate Walsh has designed something he calls an “Education Policy,” which will help Boston public schools offer a higher quality of education to every child. There is always something to fix when it comes to education; unfortunately it’s probably the toughest issue in politics. Walsh wants to increase the number of K1 students in the public school system, but at $7,000 a student I know accomplishing this will be no easy task. He wants to fund more arts programs so that Boston’s younger students can have a well-rounded education. Doing all of this costs a lot of money and Walsh is not clear about his plan or how he plans to fund these much-needed changes to the public school system.

Walsh does want to create trade schools in the Boston area so students can learn about high-paying industries such as construction, technology, finance and business. Increasing and creating new sources of funding for vocational training will “increase opportunities for young people to obtain education, training, and career paths.”

This piece by all means does not exhaust Walsh’s voting record or plans for the city of Boston. I still have questions and so should you. However, Mr. Walsh has proven to be a good representative and has the potential to be the next outspoken mayor of Boston. He has accomplished lots of good things for both Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and seems to be pretty well-liked. Who knows, pretty soon it could be Mayor Walsh. Unless of course, John Connolly beats him to it.

[Look in next week’s Journal for Linares’s piece on candidate Connolly]