Calabrese, Velis bring different perspectives to Senate race

Date: 9/22/2022

WESTERN MASS. – With the district lines redrawn and the primaries over, incumbent John Velis and challenger Cecilia Calabrese are now running head-to-head for the state Senate seat serving Westfield, Agawam, Holyoke, Easthampton and several other towns.

Both candidates said they’re willing to debate the issues. In conversations with Reminder Publishing, however, they diverged on which issues they feel are most important.

Calabrese, a Republican and the vice president of the Agawam City Council, said her supporters are talking to her about what they see in public schools.

“Let’s start with school,” said Calabrese. “What I’m hearing from parents is what they want the schools to do is to teach their kids how to think, not what to think, and to stop sexualizing our children. Parents want more involvement with regard to curriculum. They want parental consent with regard to extracurricular activities.”

Velis, a Democrat from Westfield, said what he hears on the campaign trail is, “first and foremost, there is a general disgust with our politics today. ... More than anything, this is the issue with politics in general: the two-party system. Democrats not working with Republicans, Republicans not working with Democrats, to the detriment of everybody.”

“As a senator, I am that rare elected official who crosses party lines all of the time,” he said. He said people tell him, “thank you for your willingness to cross party lines as frequently as you do.”

Velis said he’s seen the consequences of lack of cooperation firsthand. He was deployed to Afghanistan in 2018 and was part of the U.S. Army team that oversaw the nation’s parliamentary elections. To prevent fraud, voters would have a finger marked with ink, but this also made them a target for enemies of democracy, such as the Taliban.

He said Afghans told him, “We could get our hands cut off, we could get, we could get blown up. We could get shot. We could get kidnapped, all these things. It happens to us by exercising our right to vote. ... And yet, they still went out to vote,” he added.

When United States and NATO forces left, however, the Taliban retook control of the country and persecuted pro-democracy Afghans, along with other curtailments of civil liberties, such as restricting girls’ rights to attend school.

Calabrese said her voters are also telling her they want criminal justice reforms.

“I think what we really need in Massachusetts is what they call truth in sentencing,” she said. “In other words, when violent criminals are convicted and sentenced, they serve every single day of those sentences and not one day shorter. I mean, look what’s happening in Springfield, with that person who was arrested for stealing the catalytic converters, and towards Mayor [Domenic] Sarno, you know, he’s just beside himself. This person was arrested over 90 times, but he still was getting released. And then look what’s been happening in Memphis, with the violent criminals getting out and literally going on shooting sprees. The other things that I’ve heard people talk about – I don’t think we have this issue with [District Attorney Anthony] Gullini, I think he’s done a wonderful job as our district attorney – but on the eastern part of the state we had [a] DA that has announced in the past that they’re just not going to prosecute certain crimes. DAs are not the Legislature. The Legislature passes the law and it’s the DA’s job to enforce those laws.”

She also criticized the way that “the district was gerrymandered and sliced up.”

In the redistricting that takes effect this year, the district lost Southwick, Granville and Tolland, and gained West Springfield. Communities continuing in the district are Agawam, Easthampton, Holyoke, Montgomery, Russell, Southampton, Westfield and part of Chicopee.

“The demographics of the voting base make it fewer Republicans and more Democrats in the district,” Calabrese said, claiming that the map change was “intentionally negotiated” by Velis.

“That’s the most nonsensical thing I’ve ever heard,” responded Velis. He said he did not serve on the Senate’s redistricting committee, and so had no direct role in how the new lines were drawn.