Updated: With Allison Sharma running an official write-in campaign for the now open Ward 4 ward councilor seat, women could end up with three to six of the eight ward councilor seats (up from a high of five). Allison’s candidacy has no impact on the at-large races, where the range remains five to nine women. For the whole council, the range is eight to fifteen women (up from a high of fourteen). Women would have to win all mixed-gender contested races, including three with incumbent men, to get to the high end of the range. Men would have to win all mixed-gender contested races, including one with an incumbent woman, to get to the low end of the range.
There are nine women on the current council 24-member council: five ward councilors, four at-large.
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One thing that jumps out from the (so-far unofficial*) list of candidates for Newton elected offices: Newton is poised at the precipice of a city council with women in the majority. And, that’s despite two sure-bet (had they run again) incumbent women leaving the Council to run for mayor (v. one sure-bet incumbent man). Let’s do the numbers!
The Council currently has four women ward councilors. As of this posting*, there are three unopposed women (2, 3, 8) and women running against men for two contested seats (1, 6). Ward 1 is an open seat. In 6, the man is the incumbent (Dick Blazar). With two men running unopposed (5, 7) and no women in the contested race for 4, women could end up with three to five ward councilor seats.
Despite Amy Sangiolo and Ruthanne Fuller giving up their seats to run for mayor, there will be at least as many women at-large councilors on the next Council as there are on the current: five. Two women are guaranteed seats, because there are only two candidates running in those wards (6, 7). In addition to the two men in 6 and 7 guaranteed seats, there are four more men guaranteed seats because two men are running in each of two wards (4, 8).
For the remaining eight seats, women are guaranteed three in races where there is only one man running (1, 3, 5). Because there are more than two women running in all three, women could pick up both seats. Men are incumbents in 3 and 5. There is only one contested at-large race (more than two candidates) where both seats could go to men (2). The lone woman running in 2 is long-time incumbent and frequent highest-vote getter (across the city) Susan Albright.
Bottom line for at-large seats: at least five women and as many as nine. So, the range for the next City Council is eight to fourteen fifteen women (v. 9 currently). Women would have to unseat three incumbent men to get to the high end of the range. Men would have to unseat one incumbent woman to get to the low end of the range.
For School Committee, there are four uncontested races: three women and one man. One contested race is between two women. The remaining three races have a single woman and a single man running. That makes the range for women four to seven. In the contested races, there is one race with an incumbent (2): Margaret Albright. The School Committee currently has six women.
*This analysis is based on the candidate list on the city web site as of posting. While the deadline for nominating papers has passed, more candidates may be certified.
Great to see us potentially making progress on this. It would be a great distinction for Newton to finally have a gender balance that actually reflects our population.
This is really encouraging, not just for Newton but for our nation. I’ve spoken to a number of first time female candidates in Newton who told me national politics motivated them to run (Gail Spector said the same thing her announcement too).
Hopefully we will find that this trend in Newton is happening all across the country.
The identity or gender of the candidate is generally not important to me.
If the best candidates are all women,
I’ll vote for all of them. I’m less interested in making history or trend setting than I am in having the best candidates elected to enact legislation.
I’m very troubled by people that vote mainly based on gender or identity. It says to me that these people are too lazy to look closely enough at where the candidate actually stands on the issues. That’s the hard part of voting for someone. Looking at their record,
listening to their visions etc. Unfortunately, who the neighbor is voting for or the best slogan on the yard sign seems to be enough, even in well educated, well read Newton.
@Paul: It matters not because of some concept of “identity voting”, but because there should be representatives voting who have experienced the real concerns that women face that we have not personally experienced.
To add to what Bryan wrote, it’s not just a matter of different lived experience and different concerns, it’s also a matter of having a different approach to problem definition and problem solving.
To give one example, it is not irrelevant that 100% of Republican men voted yes yesterday on the motion to proceed to consider repealing the ACA and only 60% of Republican women voted yes. Or that 75% of women in the senate are Democrats.
@Paul – the gender/race/ethnicity are not particularly important to me once it’s time to vote. What matters most to me is proportionate representation among candidates. If a male and female are running for an office, I will vote for the one whose positions I favor and whom I think is more qualified.
But everyone benefits when the whole spectrum of our citizenry can consider themselves able to potentially win office. I don’t want a large proportion of Newton citizens (whether it’s women, religious/racial/ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, whatever) to feel there’s no one on the CC who understands their concerns. And when you have people from those groups running for office, their concerns are more likely to enter into the candidate platforms and debates, and be heard by our city government.
PG, pointing out the possibility of having a majority of women on the City Council and the School Committee is just that. Running the numbers. It’s not an endorsement of the women candidates. Not identity politics.
One more note: It is also encouraging to see a number of people of color running, which have certainly been underrepresented in Newton government, and that we could elect our first gay local official.
I was shocked to learn this, but yes, there have been 0 openly gay local officials in Newton to date.
I absolutely agree with all of the above explanations. Good arguments and reasoning. I’m always happy to get a fresh look on any issue that helps gets the job done no matter who is doing it.
Thank you all!
Bryan,
You do realize we could have two openly gay elected officials, right? The first in Newton and the second.
I do! I didn’t mean to minimize the second, I was more focused on the ridiculousness of never having had one in 2017 in a city where we have 32 people elected every 2 years.
Wow! Imagine a government that was actually representative of its population. That would be GREAT!