A Fighting Chance

for building business liaisons for the campaign: Will Sealy also came along with Elizabeth Vale from the consumer agency to work on the campaign. Will worked to put together a robust network of small-business owners and had a real knack for organizing details, plotting strategy, and building alliances. He also happened to be a dynamite photographer, and many of his shots appear in this book. Will is just plain terrific.

We had a lot of endorsements, but I was particularly moved when the Massachusetts Credit Union League endorsed my campaign. This was the first time they ever endorsed a candidate for office, but I had worked with the credit unions for years on family financial issues, and they said they wanted to make their support public.

advertised 35 percent corporate rate: Nelson D. Schwartz, “Big Companies Paid a Fraction of Corporate Tax Rate,” New York Times, July 1, 2013.

Richard Rubin, “Profitable U.S. Companies Paid 12.6% Tax Rate in 2010, GAO Says,” Bloomberg News, July 1, 2013.

For additional reports on how some big corporations often pay no taxes at all and how many others get loopholes and tax benefits to avoid state and federal taxes, see Citizens for Tax Justice, www.ctj.org.

veterans’ benefits, food stamps, or Medicaid: The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. “The NVRA set the first ever national standards for mail-in voter registration, required states to provide registration at public agencies, outlawed the purging of voters solely for non-voting, and established the nation’s first federal standards for voter list maintenance and the first national voter registration application, [and] required states to provide registration at public agencies.” See “Registering Millions: Celebrating the Success and Potential of the National Voter Registration Act at 20,” Demos, May 20, 2013, http://www.demos.org/registering-millions-success-and-potential-national-voter-registration-act-20. See also the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), United States Department of Justice, http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/nvra/nvra_faq.php.

For context, see “History of Federal Voting Rights Laws,” United States Department of Justice, http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/intro/intro_b.php.

half a million voter registration cards: Massachusetts sent out voter registration forms to nearly five hundred thousand Massachusetts residents “as part of an interim settlement with plaintiffs who argue that the state has failed to comply with a 1993 federal law designed to ensure better voting access for Americans.” See Mark Trumbull, “‘Welfare-Voter’ Spat in Massachusetts Part of Larger Political Duel,” Christian Science Monitor, August 14, 2012. Prior to that mailing, only 58.2 percent of Massachusetts eligible low-income voters were registered to vote, compared to 76.9 percent of higher-income citizens.

See also “Background on Delgado v. Galvin Interim Settlement,” Demos, August 8, 2012, http://www.demos.org/publication/background-delgado-v-galvin-interim-settlement.

attempt to benefit my campaign: Brown released the following statement: “I want every legal vote to count, but it’s outrageous to use taxpayer dollars to register welfare recipients as part of a special effort to boost one political party over another. This effort to sign up welfare recipients is being aided by Elizabeth Warren’s daughter and it’s clearly designed to benefit her mother’s political campaign.” See “Brown Statement on Elizabeth Warren’s Daughter Aiding Effort to Register MA Welfare Recipients to Vote,” ScottBrown.com, August 8, 2012, http://www.scottbrown.com/2012/08/brown-statement-on-elizabeth-warrens-daughter-aiding-effort-to-register-ma-welfare-recipients-to-vote/.

See also “Sen. Brown Slams Costly Push to Register Welfare Recipients as Politically Motivated,” Fox News, August 9, 2012.

I had even thought of running for the Senate: See “Statement: Voting Rights Advocates to DOJ: ‘Enforce NVRA,’” Demos, August 18, 2004, http://www.demos.org/press-release/statement-voting-rights-advocates-doj-enforce-nvra; see “Demos, Project Vote Criticize DOJ After Meeting About NVRA Enforcement,” Demos, September 28, 2004, http://www.demos.org/press-release/demos-project-vote-criticize-doj-after-meeting-about-nvra-enforcement.

See also: “Demos Stands By Long Record of NonPartisan Voting Rights Work,” Demos, August 8, 2012, http://www.demos.org/press-release/demos-stands-long-record-nonpartisan-voting-rights-work.

student voting, you-name-it voting: For a full discussion of voter suppression, see Liz Kennedy, Tova Wang, Anthony Kammer, Stephen Spaulding, and Jenny Flanagan, “Bullies at the Ballot Box,” Demos and Common Cause, September 10, 2012. See also Scott Keyes, Ian Millhiser, Tobin Van Ostern, and Abraham White, “Voter Suppression 101: How Conservatives Are Conspiring to Disenfranchise Millions of Americans,” Center for American Progress, April 4, 2012.

See also Judith Browne Dianis, “Top 10 Voter Suppression Moments of 2012,” Huffington Post, December 26, 2012.