Around New England

Russell Holmes Drops Bid For Speaker of Massachusetts House

December 29, 2020

State Representative Russell Holmes (D-Mattapan) decided he won’t run for Speaker of the House in Massachusetts after all.

While the current House speaker, state Representative Robert DeLeo (D-Winthrop), is resigning as speaker and as a member of the House at 6 p.m. Tuesday, December 29 to pursue a job at Northeastern University, state Representative Ron Mariano (D-Quincy) is the only Democrat pursuing the post as of Tuesday morning. Mariano is the current majority leader of the House and a longtime ally of DeLeo, and he was the favorite to win the vote for speaker.

Holmes told MassLive on Monday that he lacked the support to keep going.

“My thought was I could go in here and just be a sore loser like what we’ve been seeing our president be … or I can be respectful and respect the process and say, ‘O.K., I lost, I’ll be supportive of the Democrats and of the caucus and move forward with Ron’,” Holmes said, according to MassLive.com.