FIRST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT – It’s now coming down to the wire.

The primary to determine the final candidate for the November ballot will be Sept. 1 and the contest between incumbent Congressman Richard Neal and Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse has certainly accelerated.

News Anaylsis 

Neal has been very visible on local television with ads, while Morse’s first commercial has just made its debut.

Morse’s campaign has been active with press releases, calls to homes and other fundraising activities.

Neal has made numerous appearances highlighting his work as both the representative for the district and as the chair of the House Ways & Means Committee. Last week Neal announced a more than $8 million award of COVID-19 relief money to Holyoke Medical Center (HMC). HMC was initially not eligible for the funds until Neal advocated for them and arranged for the president of HMC to speak directly to the under-secretary of Health and Human Services.

The saving of jobs at CRRC MA and the retention of a necessary branch bank serving the Mason Square neighborhood of Springfield were two other efforts showing Neal’s influence.

Morse is running on a progressive platform, while Neal represents more of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party.

Neal has received support from unions, such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The endorsement included the following statement: “As Richie Neal was creating emergency relief legislation in the wake of COVID-19, he was also making sure that our economy was supported with stability measures like the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), grants for child care and development, and Election Assistance Grants,” said Kwesi Ablordeppey, a Springfield worker at the Holyoke Soldiers Home and member of SEIU 888. “Because of this comprehensive approach, Richie Neal successfully secured broad facets of our society as the economy, Holyoke crashed. He addressed the immediate, while taking the long view on saving our future.”

Morse has received the backing of members of the Easthampton City Council: District 3 Thomas W. Peake, and all four Easthampton City Council Members-At-Large including City Council President Margaret A. “Peg” Conniff and City Council Members William E. Lynch, Owen M. Zaret, and Lindsey M. Rothschild.

Justin Hurst, the president of the Springfield City Council, also endorsed Morse and said in a statement, “I’m endorsing Mayor Morse because I need a congressman who I can connect with; one who is willing to build a relationship with legislators at the local level to help inform decision making at the Federal level. For the last seven years that I have served on the city council and even in my current role as president, I have yet to have a dialogue with Congressman Neal about the issues impacting the constituents that we both serve. The residents that I speak to regularly are frustrated with perennial politicians who run on maintaining the status quo that continues to marginalize and exclude impoverished communities of color from receiving their fair share of resources.”

In an interview with Reminder Publishing Morse charged Neal is “doing the work of special interests,” as well as charging Neal is not present to many of the people of the First Congressional District, which includes all of Berkshire County, all of Hampden County, except for one ward in Palmer, and communities in Franklin, Hampshire and Worcester counties.

“People want their members of Congress to be in touch with the district,” Morse said. He added that expressing feeling forgotten by Neal is a common theme is much of rural parts of the district.

Morse supports a Medicare for All health insurance program, unlike Neal, and said he would have fought for “the people’s bailout” in the CARES Act, rather than create what he called “a $500 billion slush fund” for big business.

“It’s not trickling down,” Morse asserted about COVID-19 relief funds.

Morse supports universal childcare and is one of 18 mayors across the country who have signed up for a pilot program funded by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey that would provide a Universal Basic Income. When asked how this would work, Morse said the program is still in the early stages and could not offer details at this time.

Morse has asserted he has reduced both unemployment in Holyoke during his time as mayor, as well as improved graduation rates in the city’s schools.

When asked to explain what kind of influence he has had in the administration of schools over the past five years when a receiver representing the Commonwealth has been in charge, Morse said that as the chair of the school committee he has “worked hand in hand” with the receiver and has a “tight relationship” with school officials.

Not everyone agrees with his accomplishments as mayor. City Councilor Terence Murphy wrote, “I have received campaign literature from Mayor Morse which I find to be filled with hypocrisy based on the facts.

“The most hypocritical statement he makes is that as mayor he raised graduation rates by 47 percent. This is certainly a false statement. Since 2015, the city’s schools have been in receivership, and the mayor has had little influence.

“Even prior to that, the mayor many times, if not a majority of the times, failed to even attend school committee meetings, despite being chairman.

“Second, he wants to take credit for reducing unemployment in half, but was this something he did as mayor, or the national trend. When he took office, Holyoke’s unemployment rate was 9.5 percent and as of Jan. 1 this year it was 5.0 percent. However, if you look at national trends, the unemployment rate in 2012 was 8.3 percent, and as of January of this year, it was reduced to 3.6 percent. Therefore, while Holyoke’s rate has indeed gone down by 47.36 percent, it is lower than the national average, which went down 56.62 percent. The facts would seem to indicate that Holyoke’s employment rate has improved, but by less than the national average, so should we instead blame the mayor.”

While speaking to Neal, much of the conversation centered on not only what has been done by Congress to address the pandemic, but what is yet to be done. The Heroes Act, crafted in large part by the Ways & Means Committee, was passed by the House and now sits in the Senate.

He noted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been opposing an extension of an additional $600 payment in federal funds the unemployed have been receiving. One criticism that has been voiced is by paying people that much they have no incentive to returns to work.

“There has been no evidence of that,” Neal said.

Neal said the new legislation is necessary. “Right now, we have the worst recession since the Great Depression,” he said. Thirty million Americans are out of work.

“It’s clear you can’t convince people that children should go to school until the works place is on the other side of the pandemic,” he noted

One program for which Neal has been a vocal advocate has been the New Market Tax Credit, a program that has been used in Holyoke to help fund the construction of the new library, help make the Victory Theater renovations a reality and build The Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, among other projects in the Paper City.

Neal also criticized Morse for his assertions about the progress in Holyoke’s schools and said it was “an embarrassment” that Morse missed many school committee meetings.

When asked if he is able to work with the party’s progressive members in Congress, Neal said all the members of the Democratic caucus voted for him to be chair of the Ways & Means Committee.

Both men said they were eager to debate one another.