Dem Senate challenger says ‘fresh voice’ needed

U.S. Sen. Edward Markey is facing a challenger in next year’s Democratic primary.

Shannon Liss-Riordan, a workers’ rights lawyer, announced her intention to challenge the oneterm senator, but longtime politician, for the Democratic nomination.

Liss-Riordan, 49, made the announcement in a video and email to supporters and Democratic activists.

A graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard College, she said she has spent her career representing workers who have been taken advantage of by their employers.

In her video, she mentions both Anita Hill, who accused then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in 1991, and Christine Blasey Ford, who accused then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh last year of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers decades ago. Both men were later confirmed to the court.

“It was as if nothing had changed,” Liss-Riordan said in the video. “This country is stuck because of the cycle of Washington politics. Washington needs a fresh voice willing to break that cycle.”

In a statement, Markey said the country’s democracy is under assault every day by President Trump and what he called Trump’s “hate, division and inequality.”

“We are all called to stand up in the fight for the future of our country,” Markey said. “I want to continue helping to lead that resistance in the United States Senate armed with an agenda of jobs and justice and a deep commitment to the freedoms born in the Commonwealth.”

Markey is considered potentially vulnerable at a time when an increasing number of women are being elected to Congress, particularly among Democrats. Just last year, Ayanna Pressley defeated longtime incumbent U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano in the Democratic primary and went on to become Massachusetts’ first black woman elected to the U.S. House.