Who does Massachusetts lieutenant governor Karyn Polito want to see elected to public office in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts?
Women who support legal abortion and want to expand abortion access in the Commonwealth, apparently.
And if you’ve ever made a campaign contribution to the incumbent Republican lieutenant governor, you may have helped her financially support the cause.
Between 2016 and 2017, Polito used campaign funds to donate a combined $2,000 to the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, according to records kept by the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance. Polito gave $1,500 to the organization in October 2016; and in October 2017, she contributed another $500. Her campaign listed the October 2017 contribution as a “CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTION.”
The Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus is an organization whose goal is to help more women get into elected office in Massachusetts. Its political action committee, which has existed since 1974, “provides support to qualified, pro-choice women candidates running for municipal, legislative and statewide offices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” according to its web site.
So are those women that it wants to elect Republicans? Typically not.
The political action committee of the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus endorsed U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Dorchester), a member of “The Squad,” for re-election in 2020. It also endorsed former Planned Parenthood employee Jesse Mermell, another Green-New-Deal-and-Medicare-for-All-supporting Democrat, in the Fourth Congressional District west and southwest of Boston last year.
The Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus’s political action committee made 49 endorsements last year; all but one went to a Democrat. The lone exception was state Representative Hannah Kane (R-Shrewsbury) who ran for re-election unopposed.
In November 2016, the PAC’s web site listed the following as its key issues:
Reproductive freedoms and the right to choice
Equal and civil rights for all citizens regardless of sexual orientation, religion, race
Support for the Equal Rights Amendment
Accessible and affordable child care
It also said that the organization supported “issues of quality education, family leave, pay equity, prevention of domestic violence and crimes against women, and prevention of sexual harassment.”
Massachusetts Citizens for Life executive director Patricia Stewart condemned Polito’s donations in an email message to NewBostonPost.
“Massachusetts Citizens for Life regrets that the lieutenant governor would ignore the indisputable, scientifically proven fact that human life begins in the womb, and instead, choose to finance those who promote the life-destroying evil of abortion,” Stewart wrote.
Polito supports legal abortion and says she is proud of her voting record on abortion.
In 2014, she also told MassLive that she regretted supporting in 2003 a “Right to Know” bill — supported by Massachusetts Citizens for Life, which opposes abortion — when she was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. The bill would have required doctors to provide women seeking an abortion with a pamphlet containing scientifically accurate information on fetal development such as brain, heart, and organ function of an unborn child, as well as psychological and emotional risks associated with abortion. It also would have required the doctor to inform the woman of alternatives to abortion. It would not have restricted abortion access in the state.
“I am extremely proud of my nearly perfect ratings from NARAL, and consistent support of provisions like the buffer zone and women’s access to contraceptive care,” Polito told MassLive in July 2014. “With respect to this 2003 legislation, I no longer support this approach and regret being associated with it. As lieutenant governor I will not waiver in my support for choice and women’s health care access.”
Polito is widely expected to run for statewide office in 2022, but it’s not clear whether it will be for governor or for lieutenant governor. Polito is closely tied politically to Governor Charlie Baker, a fellow Republican who has not yet announced whether he intends to run for a third term.
A spokesman for Polito’s campaign could not be reached for comment on Sunday or Monday.
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