Pittsfield — The two candidates for a State Senate seat vacated by former Sen. Adam Hinds debated on Pittsfield Community Television on Thursday, October 27. State Rep. Paul W. Mark (D) went head to head with Pittsfield resident and unaffiliated candidate Brendan Phair, while questions to the candidates were posed by Josh Landes from WAMC, Brittany Polito from the website iBerkshires, and Shaw Israel Izikson from The Berkshire Edge.
In his opening statement, Rep. Mark, who has served 11 years representing the 2nd Berkshire District in the state’s House of Representatives, spoke about his family’s history and how it influenced him to run for office. “What shaped my views is when my father was laid off from his job when the warehouse he worked at closed down,” Rep. Mark said. “This happened when I was 12 years old, and it was devastating. There were times when we struggled and we needed government assistance.”
Rep. Mark also spoke about his educational career where he had to drop out of the University of Massachusetts after a year because he could not afford to attend. “Things looked bleak, but then I got this job at a phone company,” he said. “Because of that, there were all kinds of benefits that union members fight for to get from the employer, including a tuition plan that allowed me to go back to school. In 10 and a half years, I earned an associate’s degree, a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, a law degree, and a doctorial degree. I mention this because I never give up and no one works harder than me when I care about something. A financial barrier was in my way when I was 19 years old. I was able to overcome that barrier because of opportunity, and I’m running to make sure that everyone in this district has the same opportunities for success that I have.”
While Rep. Mark talked mainly about his personal history, Phair, in his opening remarks, went directly into speaking about current issues facing the state. “I’m pro-life, against abortion on demand, and against taxpayer funding of abortion,” Phair said. “I’m against taking the lives of babies because they have Down Syndrome or Spina Bifida. I’m also pro-Second Amendment and I support a constitutional carry. I also support your right to purchase, own, and operate a gas-operated vehicle here in Massachusetts because I am against the 2035 electric vehicle mandate.”
Phair went on to say that he is “pro-business, pro-tax cut, and pro-tax relief.” He explained, “I support reducing the meals tax and sales tax from 6.25 percent down to five percent, and eliminating the quarterly inventory tax that businesses pay … I am pro-parental rights, pro-female athletes, and pro-pregnancy centers. Pregnancy centers are under attack here in Massachusetts and across the country, and our legislators are doing nothing about it.”
In a previous Berkshire Edge interview, Rep. Mark said that his number one priority would be to create educational opportunities for residents, including job training. When asked how he would create these opportunities, Rep. Mark said that the state should partner up to create programs with community colleges, technical schools, and higher education institutions including Williams College. “Higher education was an opportunity for myself not only to get out of poverty but to also stay out of poverty and be able to help other people,” Rep. Mark said. “I think it’s important that our higher education institutions, especially the ones here in the Berkshires, are always ready to make sure that they see what’s coming next, that they can stay relevant, that they can make sure that job training happens in this area.”
Rep. Mark said that he is a proponent of vocational school funding. “I’m also a strong proponent of vocational training, and I work at a vocational high school,” Phair said. “I’ve talked about how we’re losing population in Western Massachusetts, but Pittsfield is holding steady with people in their 20s. I think that’s directly related to vocational training, jobs, and opportunities. We need to ensure that we focus on that and have the proper funding for schools.”
Landis asked the two candidates whether or not life in western Massachusetts was getting better or worse.
“Well, I hope it gets better,” Phair said. “People are struggling. When I knock on doors when I am campaigning, people have expressed that to me. It ranges from being mildly upset to very upset with how difficult [it is] to make ends meet. There is a lack of opportunities and a lack of private school options. I know my wife and I have had a lot of friends leave over the last couple of years, moving to other states, and it’s disheartening.”
“I think life is going to get better in Berkshire County,” Rep. Mark said in response to Landis’ question. “I think we’ve had our tough times. When I think about my story, I think about the story of Berkshire County as well. It’s a region that gets knocked down, but it never gives up and it keeps fighting. I think we are poised right now to take advantage of opportunities that didn’t exist 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. I think the investments that we’ve made in broadband infrastructure are making our area more attractive to people that can work remotely or have the ability to be educated remotely.”
When Polito asked whether or not the candidates supported Gov. Charlie Barker’s executive order to protect abortion access, Rep. Mark said that he fully supported Gov. Baker’s actions. “I think it is important that, regardless of people’s personal needs, that they have the access to health care services that they need and deserve,” Rep. Mark. said. “That is what separates Massachusetts from some other areas of the country. We are seeing some horrible things that I could not imagine 10 years ago that are happening in America. Part of the action that we took in the legislature, in response to what’s going on with the Supreme Court, was to make sure that people that need this type of care, whether it’s reproductive health care, gender-affirming care, or any other kind of personal priority regarding their own personal rights and personal health care, that they have that access.”
Phair strongly disagreed with Rep. Mark’s comments. “The government dictating to insurance companies that they can’t charge patients for fees for co-payments, and telling them what they can and cannot do is wrong,” Phair said. “What’s even more wrong is our legislators embracing a culture of death, as opposed to embracing a culture of life. We have gone all in on a culture of death. There’s no more debate anymore about finding a middle ground. We have abortion on demand for any reason, at any point right up to the point of the mother dilating. We’ve reduced the age of consent from 18 to 16. And we took away language that required life-saving medical care for babies that survived an abortion, and our legislators voted to take that away. That is terrible.”
Rep. Mark said in response, and in reference to the Supreme Court’s late June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, that “as someone that teaches constitutional law from time to time, I find it disturbing that 50 years of precedent disappeared overnight … Women became essentially second-class citizens in certain parts of this country. And Massachusetts has no choice but to make sure that we step in and that we make sure we are leading the nation because states are the laboratories of democracy when the federal government fails.”
“Roe v. Wade was not based on any legal precedent,” Phair said in response. “It was made up. It has no basis in law and it was a horrible decision. It was a contentious decision at the time, and it is 50 to 60 years later in part because, not only because abortion is so terrible, but the legal decision was wrong. There were no historical experts on the pro-abortion side back in 1973. They created a right to privacy, and we should not have a right to privacy to take the life of an innocent human being.”
Izikson asked both Rep. Mark and Phair their thoughts on the Black Lives Matter movement. “The Black Lives Matter movement is a Marxist organization,” Phair said. “They are anti-life, anti-Second Amendment, anti-nuclear family, and anti-Semitic. They are prone to violence. All the money that they’ve raised, I believe is $76 million, and it’s not going to back into our minority communities. It’s such a shame. We should be honoring George Floyd because what happened to him was horrible. For Black Lives Matter to engage and promote violence in 2020 was bad enough. But if people are just taking advantage of victimhood ideology and making money off of it, it’s terrible. So I am not a fan of the Black Lives Matter organization.”
“If I remember correctly, Black Lives Matter began as a hashtag after the Trayvon Martin incident in Florida,” Rep. Mark said in response to Phair. “I think it’s important to talk about as a white person living in extremely white Berkshire County. When I think about the anger that people in different communities must feel, when I think about the persecution that people that don’t look like me have felt, it’s really hard for me to judge how they should act and judge how they should react. I think back to my story where there was a moment when I felt down and out. I’m lucky here because I sit in a suit, and I clean up and people look at me differently, and they talk to me differently. I think there are a lot of people around this country and in this state that don’t have that same possibility. And I don’t blame them for being angry.”
