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The 9th Congressional District consists of Easton (BRISTOL), Avon, Braintree, Canton, Dedham, Holbrook, Medfield, Milton, Needham, Norwood, Randolph, Stoughton, Walpole, Westwood (NORFOLK), Bridgewater, Brockton, East Bridgewater, Hanson Pcts. 1, 3, West Bridgewater, Whitman (PLYMOUTH), Boston Wd. 3, Pcts. 5, 6; Wd. 5, Pcts. 3-5, 11; Wd. 6; Wd. 7, Pcts. 1-9; Wd. 13, Pcts.3, 7-10; Wd. 15, Pct. 6; Wd. 16, Pcts. 2, 4-12; Wd. 17, Pcts. 4, 13, 14; Wd. 18, Pcts. 9-12, 16-20, 22, 23; Wd. 19, Pcts. 2, 7, 10-13; Wd.20
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Stephen F. Lynch
incumbent, Democrat, Boston |
Jack E. Robinson
Republican, Brockton |
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AGE: 51
ADDRESS: South Boston
OCCUPATION: Congressman
EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree, construction management, Wentworth Institute of Technology; law degree, Boston College; masters, public administration, Harvard University.
GOVERNMENT EXPERIENCE: Massachusetts House of Representatives, Massachusetts Senate, U.S. House of Representatives.
FAMILY: wife, Margaret; daughter, Victoria. |
AGE: 46
ADDRESS: Brockton
OCCUPATION: Lawyer
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree, Brown University; MBA, Harvard Business School; law degree, Harvard Law School.
GOVERNMENT EXPERIENCE: None
FAMILY: separated
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Lynch, easy winner, in line to head major subcommittee
By RICK COLLINS
The Patriot Ledger / Nov. 8, 2006
U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch easily held on to his seat and is now poised to assume control of an influential oversight committee in the House.
The South Boston Democrat garnered 80 percent of the vote in the 9th Congressional District, swamping Republican challenger Jack E. Robinson of Brockton. Lynch won every town in the district.
“It’s better than you can reasonably expect,” Lynch said at his celebration party at Florian Hall in Dorchester.
In the background, supporters and aides closely monitored a pair of TVs as the Democratic Party regained control of the House of Representatives.
For Lynch specifically, the Democratic takeover means the former ironworker is in line to become chairman of the Regulatory Affairs subcommittee, of which he is the ranking Democrat. The subcommittee has oversight over a number of federal agencies, including the Federal Communications Commission, the Internal Revenue Service and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Lynch said that as chairman, he would consider investigations into Iraq reconstruction contracts and the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
However, he said, Democrats need to refrain from retaliatory actions - such as trying to impeach President Bush - and must proceed in a “gentlemanly way.”
“We have to do it in a way that we’re viewed as advocates of good government and not advocates of getting even,” he said.
Robinson, who suffered his third defeat for political office, said he was the unfortunate victim of anti-Republican sentiment on the statewide and national level.
“We got caught up in a whirlwind,” he said from his downtown Brockton campaign office. “We could have spent a million bucks and it wouldn’t have made any difference.”
Lynch said his priorities in the new Congress will be to restore funding for the three Veterans Administration hospitals in his district, to increase funding for the No Child Left Behind education law, and to reform immigration laws.
Rick Collins may be reached at rcollins@ledger.com.
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9th Congressional, Norfolk County Commissioner
Candidates for 2 seats to debate in Norwood
Patriot Ledger staff / Oct. 27, 2006
NORWOOD - Congressional candidates Jack E. Robinson and Stephen Lynch will square off in a debate at Norwood Town Hall at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 2.
The debate is being coordinated by the League of Women Voters and will also feature a debate between the two candidates for Norfolk County commissioner, incumbent Peter H. Collins and challenger Thomas E. Gorman. Read about that race
Robinson, a Republican from Brockton, is trying to unseat Lynch, a Democrat from South Boston, who has held the 9th Congressional District seat since 2001. This will be the first time the two have met face-to-face to debate the issues.
Lynch has boasted of his success in returning federal tax dollars to the communities in his district, which includes Boston, Braintree, Milton, Stoughton, Sharon, Brockton, Easton, parts of Hanson and Whitman, and East and West Bridgewater. Although he voted for the use of force in Iraq and against a resolution setting a timeline for withdrawal, Lynch has filed legislation establishing a commission to recommend an exit strategy for the war.
Robinson, a former candidate for U.S. Senate and Secretary of State, just moved into the district last month. He says he wants to use federal grants to attract high-tech businesses to Brockton, and favors splitting Iraq into three territories controlled by the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites.
In the lone contested county race, Peter H. Collins, a Democrat from Milton, is seeking a fourth term as Norfolk County commissioner. His GOP challenger, Thomas Gorman, of Dedham, doesn’t even want the job. He says the first thing he will do when elected is ask the Legislature to eliminate Norfolk County government.
Collins says the county provides critical services that many towns can’t handle on their own, such as traffic engineering and cheaper, pooled purchases of fuel oil and other municipal supplies.
With the jail and courts already effectively functioning as state agencies, Gorman says the Registry of Deeds and other county services could easily be transferred to state control, while Norfolk County Agricultural High School could be merged with Blue Hills Regional Technical School.
Gorman says eliminating county government would save county taxpayers $4 million annually.
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Robinson,
Lynch differ
on Iraq and
N. Korea policies
By RICK COLLINS
The Patriot Ledger / Oct. 17, 2006
Congressman Stephen Lynch says Pacific Rim nations such as Russia and China should be handed the diplomatic reins for attempts to ease newly heightened tensions with North Korea.
His Republican opponent, Jack E. Robinson, says the response to North Korea’s apparent nuclear weapons test needs to go beyond the United Nations-imposed political sanctions to include the threat of military action.
“An invasion has to be one of the options,” said Robinson, a Brockton resident. “I don’t think we can take it off the table.”
Robinson is running against Lynch in the 9th Congressional District, which stretches from Boston to Bridgewater and includes includes Braintree, Brockton, Canton, Holbrook, Milton, Randolph, Stoughton, Whitman and two precincts in Hanson. This is the first general-election challenge that Lynch, a South Boston Democrat, has had since winning the 9th District seat in 2001.
With North Korea’s nuclear ambitions a more immediate security threat to China, Japan, Russia and South Korea than to the United States, Lynch said the U.S. should “tread carefully” and urge those nations to take the lead in efforts to peacefully resolve the emerging crisis. China, which has given North Korea $2 billion in economic support in recent years, “has the carrot” needed to dangle in front of its fellow Communist country, he said.
“We just signed onto a (United Nations Security Council) resolution that expressly excluded the use of military force,” Lynch said. “Not that I see (the resolution) as being a terribly effective instrument, but that’s what we got right now.”
Both candidates say keys to the long-term security of the United States include improved diplomatic standing around the world and reduced unilateral involvement in Middle Eastern affairs - a “cooling-off period” as Lynch put it.
But they differ on how to get to those points, especially the latter one.
Robinson says Iraq would be best served by splitting the nation into three territories, with one each being controlled by the Kurds, the Sunnis and Shi’a Muslims. It is a view being considered by a special commission on Iraq set up by Congress and headed by former Secretary of State James Baker. Under Robinson’s plan, the Iraqi government would be in charge of the city of Baghdad and the nation’s oil infrastructure, with each man, woman and child receiving a $3,000 annual oil dividend - or about double what the average Iraqi makes right now.
“Twenty-seven hundred American soldiers have died and we just cannot continue this unitary thinking in Iraq,” Robinson said. “I don’t believe (current Bush administration policies are) effective. It needs to change along the lines I am proposing.”
Lynch, who has made five trips to Iraq and one to Afghanistan, scoffed at Robinson’s stances, saying the United States should not try to foist any sort of governing plan on Iraqis. However, he said the U.S. military does need to force Iraq’s leaders to take more control over their nation.
“They have to figure it out for themselves,” Lynch said. “We should be figuring out how to get more responsibility into Iraqis hands and get our troops home.”
Lynch voted in favor of the 2003 resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. This year, he voted against setting a troop-withdrawal timeline, saying soldiers would be at risk if a withdrawal schedule were made public. He also has sponsored legislation establishing a commission to draft an exit strategy, and he says the country needs to modernize its intelligence-gathering operations.
Robinson, who supports the use of warrant-less wiretaps, but not torture, to fight terrorism, said Massachusetts would be better served in homeland security with a Republican voice in Congress.
“We only have Democrats in Congress who can’t advocate for Boston,” he said.
Lynch, who voted against the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, said Republicans have been playing games with Homeland Security money, placing an Alabama petting zoo on the same list of potential terrorist targets that the port of Boston is on.
Rick Collins may be reached at rcollins@ledger.com.
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Robinson thinks he has
a chance to oust Lynch
By RICK COLLINS
The Patriot Ledger / Oct 12, 2006
Jack E. Robinson is hoping the third time will be the charm.
The 46-year-old Republican, who has run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate and state secretary, is again targeting Washington, D.C., this time aiming for the 9th Congressional District seat held by Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-South Boston.
Robinson says his own polls show more voters know who he is than don’t, and he feels he has a chance to take Brockton, the district’s largest population center outside Boston.
The district includes Braintree, Brockton, Canton, Holbrook, Milton, Randolph, Stoughton, Whitman and two precincts in Hanson.
“I think this race is winnable,” said Robinson, sitting in his downtown Brockton law office that also doubles as his campaign headquarters.
His opponent, Lynch, has spent his five years in office trying to maintain the standard of constituent service set by his legendary predecessor, the late Joe Moakley.
Since winning a special election for the seat in 2001 after Moakley’s death, Lynch hadn’t faced a challenger in the general election. In this year’s primary, he easily dispatched Westwood’s Phil Dunklebarger, taking 77 percent of the vote.
“The congressman was heartened by the margin of his primary victory and he plans to work hard to get around the district and tell people what he’s been doing for the past two years and plans to do for the next two years,” said Scott Ferson, Lynch’s campaign spokesman.
In the primary, Lynch touted his efforts to ensure that every city and town in his district received federal grant money for projects or capital purchases. Lynch’s office has announced that he had secured funding for bullet-proof vests for 13 towns in his district.
Although he was born in and lived in the district for many years, Robinson was a registered Duxbury voter until last month, when be bought a condo in downtown Brockton near his office. He says he has received a quick education about the area since moving his office into a building across the street from The Enterprise newspaper earlier this year.
Now, one of his biggest campaign pledges is to steal a page from the late Sen. Paul Tsongas’ playbook and secure hundreds of millions in federal grants to help revitalize Brockton into a high-tech manufacturing hot bed, as Tsongas did for his hometown, Lowell.
“I want to make Brockton the Lowell of the 21st century,” he said, referring to the rebirth that Merrimack Valley factory city experienced in the 1980s thanks to the arrival of companies like Wang and Digital.
“Imagine what Brockton could be with $200 million,” Robinson said.
Robinson is billing himself as a moderate Republican in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt, and opposes efforts by the ultra-conservative wing of his party to interfere in the personal lives of citizens. He said issues such as abortion, gay marriage and end-of-life decisions should be left to individuals, not the federal government.
Lynch has voted in favor of bills restricting the availability of abortion. He also voted in favor of allowing the parents of Terry Schiavo, a comatose Florida woman, to sue in federal court to block her husband from having her feeding tube removed. He also voted against a federal ban on gay marriage.
Lynch is a former South Boston ironworker who rose through the ranks to become union president, earned a law degree from Boston College and served in both the Massachusetts House and Senate.
Robinson is an Ivy League-educated businessman who has made a political living in Republican circles by taking on entrenched Democrats. Robinson wants to cut capital gains, estate and income taxes. He backs the Social Security reform plan pushed by President Bush, and supports dividing Iraq into three territories.
The two sides say they are trying to work out a date for a debate moderated by the League of Women Voters.
Lynch has a wide money lead in the race, with nearly $1 million in his war chest as of September, despite spending $549,000.
Robinson has $2,522 on hand, after spending $71,000.
Rick Collins may be reached at rcollins@ledger.com.
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