(EDITOR’S NOTE: Three Democrats will compete in the primary election Thursday, Nov. 8 for the Berkshire Hampshire Franklin Hampden Senate seat being vacated after 10 years by Sen. Benjamin Downing, D-Pittsfield. The elected Democrat will run against Republican candidate Christine Canning of Lanesborough, who has no primary opponent. This is the second of three candidate profiles.)
PITTSFIELD — When state Senate candidate Andrea Harrington returned to southern Berkshire County in 2009 after attending school in Seattle and Washington D.C. and working in criminal law in Florida, she found that the economic landscape had changed.
Harrington, one of three Democrats running for the state Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Benjamin Downing, had gone to Pittsfield public schools, and her family has lived in the Berkshires for generations, many of them working in factory jobs that have now vanished at Sprague Electric and General Electric.
“We had a lot more of those good manufacturing jobs, (but) over time, we’ve seen an increase in service jobs, and there really is dependency on the tourist economy and servicing second-home owners, particularly in south county,” said the Richmond attorney, who watched her family shift from well-paying manufacturing work to servicing the second-home economy: her father moved to carpentering, her mother started a house-cleaning business. Harrington attended the University of Washington and American University’s Washington College of Law.
“In my work, I see a lot of young people who are really struggling, a lot of families in family and probate court who struggle to make ends meet,” said the 41-year-old mother of two, whose husband owns the Public Market in West Stockbridge. “There are two major groups of people: the people who make a living somewhere else and the people who have to earn a living from the people who live here.”
Doing criminal defense as well as divorce and family law, she said, “I see a lot of those people, all the time: They need my help, and can’t afford to hire me.”
She said she’s running for the seat in the 52-community district “because our district needs a leader who understands the challenges facing our communities and will build on the opportunities we have to create jobs and protect our children. … I am running to expand the bright spots in our regional economy. In court I have seen too many lives impacted by financial hardship. … I believe we need to expand economic opportunity in this region.
A board member of Berkshares, a local currency for Berkshire County, Harrington’s work with the organization focuses on supporting local business, growing entrepreneurship, and the new community-supported industry program. She also volunteers with programs to provide expanded educational opportunities for young people in Berkshire County: the Railroad Street Youth Project, the Crocus Fund and the Berkshire Academies’ Mentors.
And she serves on the Affordable Housing Committee in her southern Berkshire County town.
Harrington has been endorsed by the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus and a host of labor organizations, including the National Association of Social Workers, Western Massachusetts Carpenters Union Local 108, SEIU Local 888, and the Massachusetts Organization of State Engineers and Scientists.
Harrington says she loves her work, but confesses, “I feel if I’m going to work this hard, I want my work to have a bigger impact. … I really know what people here in our district are going through. And I have the skills to go and be our voice in Boston and to work for state policies that are going to work better for people here. I’ve been working for the past 13 years as an advocate for my clients every day.”
Among her priorities are to advocate for more education funding and job training money from the state in order to attract and keep better jobs in the region.
“I work with a lot of young people who just don’t have the job skills that they need to support their families,” she says. “Supporting our local businesses is something I’m very passionate about.”
Harrington wants to lower energy costs to make the state more attractive to potential employers. She opposes construction of new gas pipelines in the state and the proposed surcharges to pay for them, while supporting lifting the solar net-metering cap to create green jobs and expand renewable energy sources.
Harrington said she’s intrigued by the Pioneer Valley’s Co-Op Power model of community-owned and controlled energy as “hugely empowering,” especially for people who don’t own their own homes or who can’t afford to invest in rooftop solar.
She favors closing corporate tax loopholes and supports a proposed “millionaire’s tax” amendment to help pay for increased workforce development and improving the quality of education.
She points to problems with funding formulas for rural schools and with an overemphasis on testing rather than on learning holistically.
“In Massachusetts, we have one of the most aggressive innovation economies in the country, second only to Silicon Valley,” she said. “I want to pull those opportunities west and make more connections with businesses here in the western part of the state. … I don’t think this is a situation in which Boston’s going to save us; it’s something we’re going to have to do for ourselves, working together. But certainly we need a strong advocate who’s going to fight for us to build those connections between western Mass. businesses and eastern Mass. businesses, and to get the funding, and also a leader to help the district to work together in a coordinated way on expanding economic opportunity.”
Businesses that are already here need help filling jobs by improving the skills of their workers and improving transportation.
“Absolutely having a living wage is key, particularly in this area, where a lot of jobs are service jobs,” Harrington said. “I am a strong proponent of unions. And I see having strong policies for working families, including a $15 wage as being essential to people’s ability to support themselves — and as a way to prevent further income inequality.”
On the Web:
andreaforsenate.com