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District includes: Bourne precincts 1, 2 and 3; the towns of Carver and Wareham |
Susan Williams Gifford, incumbent
(Republican, Wareham) |
Margaret Ishihara
(Democrat, Wareham) |
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AGE: 46
ADDRESS: Wareham
OCCUPATION: State representative, 2nd Plymouth District, 2002-present.
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in business administration, Western Michigan University, 1982.
MUNICIPAL EXPERIENCE: Wareham selectman, 1999-2002.
CIVIC ACTIVITIES: Wareham Land Trust; Barnstable County Republican Club; Cape Cod Republican Club; Plymouth County Republican Club; Buzzards Bay Village Association; Onset Bay Association; Coastal Hazards Commission; Buzzards Bay Oil Spill Commission; Ocean Management Task Force.
FAMILY: Husband, Mark. |
AGE: 52
ADDRESS: 55B Minot Ave., Wareham
OCCUPATION: Lawyer
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree, Oberlin College, 1976; law degree, Boston College Law School, 1981; certificate in coastal zone management, Cape Cod Community College, 2002.
MUNICIPAL EXPERIENCE: Deputy moderator in Wareham; Wareham representative to Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Advisory Board; Wareham Planning Board, 2002-03; former member of Wareham Bylaw Review Committee; former member of Wareham Finance Committee.
CIVIC ACTIVITIES:Onset Bay Association board of directors, 2002-present; former member of Wareham Child Care board; Canal Region Chamber of Commerce; Wareham Democratic Town Commitee.
FAMILY: Single. |
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Williams-Gifford collects another victory
By KELLY FERNANDES
SouthofBoston.com / Nov. 8, 2006
WAREHAM - Republican Susan Williams-Gifford won a third term as the state representative for the 2nd Plymouth District.
The district consists of Carver, Wareham and three precincts in Bourne.
In a 57 to 43 percent win, Williams-Gifford defeated Democrat Margaret Ishihara, a 52-year old lawyer, Wareham resident and the town’s deputy moderator.
During her campaign, Williams-Gifford focused on her record and the $710,000 worth of allocations in the budget for the three towns in the district.
She has worked to revamp the state’s auto insurance, affordable housing and public education policies.
Neither Williams-Gifford nor Ishihara returned phone calls last night.
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Incumbent got $1,000 from the Romneys
The Patriot Ledger / Nov. 2, 2006
Rep. Susan Williams Gifford has some high-powered friends on her side as she seeks a third term representing the 2nd Plymouth District.
Gifford, a Republican from Wareham, received $500 from Gov. Mitt Romney and another $500 from Romney’s wife, Ann. Gifford spent more than five times what her Democratic opponent, Margaret A. Ishihara of Wareham, did from Sept. 2 to Oct. 20. Gifford spent $25,730 to Ishihara’s $4,932.
Ishihara went into the last weeks of the campaign with $5,783 in her campaign account; Gifford had $27,784.
The district consists of Carver, Wareham and Precincts 1, 2 and 3 in Bourne.
The following people and organizations donated $100 or more to the candidates’ campaigns between Sept. 2 and Oct. 20:
GIFFORD
$500 - Cape Cod Republican Club, Yarmouthport; Ann Romney, Belmont; W. Mitt Romney, Belmont.
$250 - Charles Decas, Wareham; Sandwich Republican Town Committee, Sandwich.
$200 - Peter Ambrose, Wareham; Maria Cananzey, Bourne; Paul Paquette, Wareham.
$150 - Mary Crowley, Wareham; Christine Decas, Wareham.
$120 - Walter Correira, Carver.
$100 - James Bruce, Wareham; Daniel Campobasso, Plymouth; Leo Dolaher, East Wareham; Sandra Fleet, Wareham; William Goyette, Wareham; Clark Griffith, Carver; Gregory Kamon, Rochester; Edward Kiernan, Wareham; David Lake, Wareham; Leighton Peck, Middleboro; Carl Phillips, Wareham; Susan Rowley, Wareham; Louis Uva, Wareham; David Valdina, Bourne; John Westgate, Wareham.
ISHIHARA
$1,056 - Carver Democratic Town Committee, Carver.
$500 - Cape and Islands Democratic Council, Sandwich; Plymouth County Democratic League, Wareham; Wareham Democratic Town Committee, Wareham.
$250 - Carpenters Local Union 624, Randolph; John Zinky, Cambridge.
$200 - Marc Pacheco, Taunton.
$100 - Peter Barrows, Wareham; Carol Couture, Wareham; Richard Kates, Onset; Glenn Kumekawa, Wakefield; Sandwich Democratic Town Committee, Sandwich; Joyce Silverman, Wareham.
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Lawyer trying to unseat
fellow Wareham resident
By SUE SCHEIBLE
The Patriot Ledger / Oct. 6, 2006
After a narrow victory in 2004, state Rep. Susan Williams Gifford, a Wareham Republican, is seeking her third term representing the 2nd Plymouth District. She is opposed by Margaret A. Ishihara, a Wareham Democrat and Mattapoisett lawyer making her first bid for a seat in the Legislature.
Gifford was re-elected in 2004, defeating her opponent by 714 votes. She says she then focused on doing a better job of letting her constituents know “what I’m doing for them and how I work for them.”
Gifford said she has made herself accessible and available through regular office hours. Asked about her accomplishments in the Legislature, she singled out her work on the state’s landmark health-insurance law, consumer choice in home care and local aid. She also stressed that she is a full-time state representative.
Ishihara says she is campaigning largely by “going out and talking to the voters about what their concerns are. I believe I would be a strong or stronger advocate for the district, with my experience as a trial lawyer and on the different town boards.”
Gifford lists her top legislative priorities as school funding, automobile- and homeowners-insurance reform; controlling affordable housing, and expanded commuter rail service to Buzzards Bay.
She favors changing the state’s formula for providing funding to schools; she thinks it should be based on incomes rather than property values.
She considers the state’s current auto-insurance system “monopolistic” - she said it favors five large companies - and she thinks the homeowners-insurance system needs reform so that the writing of policies for coastal property resumes.
Ishihara, in private practice for 24 years, specializes in civil litigation and job-discrimination and land-use cases. Her top campaign issues are public education, working families, seniors and health care.
“I want to make sure the state is holding up its end of the bargain in supporting local school programs,” she said. “There are many state and federal mandates, and for those to be met, the schools must have funding.”
Ishihara has been talking to working families, many middle-class, about the difficulties they have meeting living expenses.
She also favors extending commuter rail to Wareham and Buzzards Bay.
The 2nd Plymouth District consists of Carver, Wareham and Precincts 1, 2 and 3 in Bourne.
Sue Scheible may be reached at sscheible@ledger.com.
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