‘No on 2’ supporters rally near Baker home
Several dozen supporters of the No on 2 campaign to defeat public charter school expansion in Massachusetts, including state Auditor Suzanne Bump, staged a rally yesterday in Swampscott’s Linscott Park — within shouting distance of Question 2 proponent Gov. Charlie Baker’s home — but insisted it wasn’t an attempt to harass him.
“If I thought that this was just an opportunity to come out and harass the governor, I wouldn’t have participated in it. I’m not interested in humiliating anybody,” said Bump, one of the event’s featured speakers.
Brian LaPierre, a Lynn city councilor at-large and political organizer for the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, said the location was a midway point between Salem and Lynn to launch volunteers to spread Save Our Public Schools’ position at thousands of doorsteps ahead of early voting for the Nov. 8 general election, which starts today for the first time in the Bay State.
A No on Question 2 rally took place in Holliston Saturday, and another is planned in Boston Nov. 1, LaPierre said.
“He lives a block away. Good for him,” LaPierre said of Baker. “He’s a ‘yes’ guy. We can’t convert him.”
Baker was away for the weekend ahead of his keynote address in New York City tomorrow before the Manhattan Institute’s breakfast forum titled “Education Reform in the Bay State.” He’ll be in Dorchester tomorrow to help the statewide coalition Great Schools Massachusetts knock on doors and urge voting yes on providing parents disgruntled with underperforming public schools greater education choices for their children.
Great Schools spokeswoman Eileen O’Connor wasn’t ruffled by the Swampscott display. “They can have rallies wherever they like,” she said. “The important thing about Swampscott is that it has great public schools, sends few kids — less than 1 percent of the total population — to charter schools, and would not be impacted by lifting the cap.”
Baker spokesman Billy Pitman said the governor “is proud to be part of a broad and bipartisan coalition of elected leaders, educators and families that supports expanding access to high quality public education for all children by lifting the cap on public charter schools in Massachusetts.”