Candidate Q&A: Michael Day

This is the second article in a series of Melrose Patch Q&As with candidates seeking either the state Senate seat or state representative seat up for grabs in this fall's election.

Name: Michael Day
Party Affiliation: Democrat
Candidate For: Senate seat representing Middlesex and Essex (Melrose, Stoneham, Malden, Wakefield, Reading and Lynnfield).
Challengers: Katherine Clark (D), Craig Spadafora (R)
Age: 37
Where you live and how long you've lived there: Stoneham since 2004. Grew up in Woburn.
Family: Married with two sons, ages 4 and 2.
Current occupation and former occupations: Currently attorney with Mintz Levin in Boston. Previously special Middlesex County assistant district attorney in Framingham District Court; law clerk for United Mine Works of America while attending Georgetown Law; O'Neill and Associates in Washington, D.C.; and for the New England Council.

Melrose Patch: Have you ever held elective office before or run for office, and what made you want to run for Senate?

Day: I have not and I have not. This is my first run, my first campaign. I think the time is right. We need new people in office — we need new ideas, new energy, people who aren't encumbered by the process that they've become used to and adopted, as they get into office and as they progress in their careers. So I got a little fed up with the lack of progress. I saw people doing the same thing over and over again in times that called for new movement. So I decided to run back in September, last September. I've been in on the trail for about a year by the time the primary is over and over a year by the time the general election happens.

Melrose Patch: In an address in March, you said, according to boston.com, "We need to restore dignity to the State House." What do you mean by "dignity" and what exactly at the State House has been undignified?

Day: I think you've seen three speakers in a row who've been indicted. You've seen kind of a go-along, get-along, don't-rock-the-boat mentality up there where a colleague up there gets into trouble, whether it's taking a bribe, stuffing money down their shirt, bizarre behavior up in Lowell attacking or certainly harassing people on the streets. Anything along those lines, and nobody speaks out about it. They say, 'well, let's let the process roll out and see what happens,' when anyone who looks at it, from the other side, says, 'this is crazy.' People aren't speaking up about a direct abuse of the public trust. You're elected to reflect your constituency, to reflect and represent the public. When you abuse that trust, to me, that's the worst of all when you're in office. Put aside the fact that you're not moving things along, put aside the fact that you're not voting on measures or introducing measures that you should be. When you actually abuse the public trust and then you don't get called out on it by your colleagues and they're waiting for other enforcement areas to step in, that to me is where you have a problem with dignity and you lose a lot of the public trust. That's what I think we need to restore.

Melrose Patch: Moving on to statements on your campaign website, you're quoted on your issues page saying, "We must invest in the local, green economy. It will bring quality jobs while improving our environment. This starts with home weatherization projects, but also includes making investments in renewable energy like solar and wind power." What hasn't the state done in this area that you believe it should be doing — and how do you propose paying for that?

Day: When you look at some of the legislation that never made it through, that just died on the vine, and it's a lot of legislation that did that this term. Something like the wind-siting bill, where it would allow the state to come in and cut through these two-to-three year delays of getting wind energy up and moving, to develop that industry, to really start reducing our dependence on oil and develop a new industry in Massachusetts, which would then serve to mushroom out to the rest of the country where Massachusetts is positioned to be a leader in that industry. That didn't go through, that type of bill. That was a disappointment for me. As far as the incentives that we can be putting into place for weatherization, you saw a one-time federal tax write-off if you did your windows over or did your doors over and improved your home energy efficiency. A lot of people took advantage of it. We didn't — we actually did our windows beforehand, so we missed the benefit of that,  (wry smile) which I was very thrilled to see we missed the window on that one by about two months.

But that type of program should be in place to encourage people to improve their home energy efficiency, which'll improve our environment, help reduce our energy consumption and also it's going to put people to work. You're going to have people building windows that will then be installed by somebody else, transported by somebody else, so you're spurring the economy on in a very concrete way. When you see your neighbors getting the windows re-done, then you're seeing three or four people put to work directly on that job. So that spurs the economy as well as improves our energy consumption and the environment. Those types of program, those incentives, very targeted, should be put in place. You've got a plant up in Lynn, the GE plant, that is primed for high-tech and very specialized green jobs manufacturing, where we're in competition right now directly with places like Michigan that have these giant manufacturing facilities that are lying dormant. They're really trying to gain on us and retool their plants to get into these specialized manufacturing technologies. Massachusetts has that capital. We've got the people here that are capable of either being trained in that or already have that knowledge in place. That's our industry — education. And we've got the people here, we've  got the facilities here, yet they're not meeting to get that developed. That's what I'm talking about when I talk about the green environment. We've got a huge opportunity here to be a leader in the country, again, we're just missing it right now.

Melrose Patch: In terms budgeting for that, things like the incentives would obviously cost money. Do you have ideas on where that money would come from? Is it applying for federal grants? Is it taking it from some place else in the budget?

Day: I think it's a combination. You've got in the stimulus package, President Obama essentially adopted a UMass study that said to focus your monies on stimulating the new green economy and it's going to create seven or eight times more jobs than if you focused on the old economy. It's essentially seed money, right? So you put that money into the industry and you're getting people employed, back on the tax rolls who are bringing money into the system of their own right. They're becoming active taxpayers again. You're taking a burden off the social services that are overwhelmed right now when you've got the unemployed drawing down on state coffers. You're actually cutting that down and you're putting people back on the tax roll, and that's increasing the revenue at the same time. So I think certainly applying for federal dollars that are designed to encourage this type of industry is one way to pay for it, and the other is you're going to be getting this revenue back into the system. You're going to be cutting expenditures and increasing revenues by getting people back to work and getting new companies up and running.

Melrose Patch: Another statement on your website, this regarding health care: "We must make sure that the dollars spent on healthcare are going towards health … finally, we must examine moving away from the current "fee-for-service" system." First, what do you propose to do to increase transparency of health care costs and second, regarding fee for service, just this month or last month a special state commission recommended to move towards a system under which health-care providers would receive a sum to care for a given person or family, thereby providing an incentive to deliver care in a cost-effective way. Is that the type of system you'd like to see the state move towards and how do you deal with some of the criticism of a plan like that, such as critics who say that networks would deny costly treatment as HMOs were accused of doing in the 1990s?

Day: The first part, the transparency: we as a commonwealth have — forever, it seems like — been giving away money, been giving basically free-wheeling, no holds barred rules to these industries like the insurance industry, where we don't know what that money is being spent on. And it's the commonwealth's money a lot of times — it's federal Medicare money, it's MassHealth money. Those should be tight with conditions. There should be strings attached to any of that money. So if that money's going into an insurance industry … we want to see the books and we want to know where that money's being spent. We hear these stories in the governor campaign now about out of control salaries for heads of health care plans, multi-million dollar CEOs. Well, where's the rest of the money going? And we have no idea where it's being spent right now. I think they started with a measure in the State House to begin to address that, but we've got to really seriously tackle that issue and find out how much of this money is going to administrative costs and how much is actually going to care of the patients. If it's out of whack, which I suspect it is and where a lot of these escalators are coming from, we've got to find out wher e the money's going and address that. That's going to start reining in some of these expenditures.

The second part was global payments. Clearly the fee-for-services right now isn't working. I don't think global payment is the end all, be all of the problem. I think it's a piece of it for sure. We've got to try something like that out. We can't be afraid to try something new when the system isn't working now because something may happen down the road. Along with that, which nobody is talking about right now, is we need to seriously address tort reform on a state level. These are all small pieces that go together if you're really going to address the health care escalation problem of cost. But you can't do it piecemeal. You can't do one thing and then just let that float, because it's not going to really address the real problems of the system. It's a multi-tiered, multi-layered problem and you've got to take a multi-tiered, multi-layered approach to it. And you've got to do it all at the same time. You can't punt this stuff down the road and attack it piecemeal. One of the legislators this year said, well we're introducing this because it's complex, we'll do it next year and we'll wait to see who comes back before we really tackle the cost issue. That's unacceptable. I was at the senior center today — $65 co-pay that a woman is paying on a fixed income every time she goes down to the doctor's to get her battery of medications and examinations. On a fixed income, a $65 base co-pay is out of control. She said it jumped up from $35 last year. The system can't wait until next year. The individuals who are affected by this can't wait until we see who comes back next year. It's an irresponsible way to govern.

Melrose Patch: This ties into that subject: last month, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care struck a deal with state regulators to voluntarily limit its insurance rate increases for individuals and small businesses. This was a process that started in April when the state insurance commissioner announced he was rejecting the premium increases the industry proposed for small businesses with up to 50 employees, which he deemed "excessive," followed by the state Division of Insurance appeals board ruling against the Patrick administration in favor of Harvard Pilgrim. Is this a way to prevent health insurance costs from climbing higher and higher, or is this only a temporary stopgap? What else can legislators do to control health care costs?

Day: The end result was good, and it showed that there's a lot more give in the insurance industry, because they're striving for profits. That's their job.  The way they went about it is, to me, a reactive measure, where they're not getting proactive leadership to address this issue, to not get these folks at the table or not do it through legislation and say, 'show us the books and we'll find out what an appropriate rate increase is.' Instead of just saying 'this is what the rate increase is going to be because this is what we have to bear,' and it takes the governor to step in or the governor's regulators to step in and say 'denied, go to court, and we'll figure it out in the middle.' That's costing us money to go through the court system, it's tying up the court system which is costing us money on the back end on judicial efficiency. It's not the way to govern, for sure. And so, it's a very, very temporary patch on the problem. It's crying out for people to get involved and start addressing this issue as a whole. Again, not going back to this piecemeal approach. This basically bought us a few months until the next rate time comes up. In the meantime, there's been no movement by the Legislature or the executive to sit down and actually hammer out regulations going forward, to revise regulations that allow these types of escalators to come up.

Melrose Patch: Moving on to taxation: the state scrambled to balance the budget in the face of a fiscal crisis unseen since the Great Depression. During that recession, voters had to swallow an increase in the sales tax from 5 percent to 6.25 percent and the lifting of certain sales tax exemptions, such as on alcohol and on meals. Now, this November voters will likely have the chance, in the form of a ballot question, to rollback the state sales tax from 6.25 percent to 3 percent. Do you support rolling back the sales tax to 3 percent and if not 3 percent, some other figure? And if not now, would you be open to that later?

Day: I would later. Not now, we can't bear that right now. One of the problems, yet again, with the Legislature, is that they put in what should've been a temporary fix on this raising of the sales tax. It should've been in place just to basically provide the services that we need – first responder services, police, fire, emergency response. Those were all in peril when this issue came up, when the revenue shortfall was finally addressed by the Legislature. That should have been a temporary measure. We should have been working at the same time to get people back to work, to get business back in Massachusetts, to really pay for our services the responsible way, by increasing revenue from the bottom. When I say from the bottom, I mean by increasing the amount of people that are in the system, the revenue producers. That wasn't done. So, they put the 6.25 percent in and then it's just left, they don't address anything further. Nothing else comes in behind it to allow us the freedom to then say, 'all right, we're going to roll it back to a level everyone knows and can deal with.'

What happened now is the 6.25 goes in and they say 'fine, we can count on that revenue going forward on a continuing basis.' I don't think that's the way people operate their own lives. It shouldn't be the way government operates. I don't think we can sustain a roll back to 3 percent right now because you're going to have drastic cuts in our social services and the way our government actually operates. If you think infrastructure is bad now with roads and bridges, that's going to grind to a halt when that revenue dries up, so I don't think we can sustain it now. But I fault the Legislature for not allowing us to have an actual debate on that issue, whether or not we want to roll that sales tax back. We're not there yet because there's been no back up measures put in place, there's been no plan to get revenue back into the system which I, again, think the right way is to increase the amount of players in the game.

Melrose Patch: This year, the House indefinitely delayed on an 83-75 vote a proposal to require the state to verify that anyone over 18 who applies for state benefits is legally in Massachusetts. The amendment approved by the House prohibits the proposal from taking effect until Health and Human Services studies its impact on the state's economy and a new bill to require the verification is filed and approved. What would have you voted on this proposal and your thoughts on how the state can tackle the thorny issue of illegal immigration?

Day: I don't think they've addressed it all. That's the problem I've got with the Legislature. They've haven't taken on a tough issue. One of the proposals I saw would open a 24-hour hotline where you could call if you spotted an illegal immigrant. It's sideshow stuff. The real issue is first of all the federal government needs to act on the illegal immigration question. But in their absence, the state does have a role to play and can play a role and they're not right now. You've got to address these employers who are providing incentives for illegal and undocumented immigrants to come here and find jobs. These are the people that I think should be prosecuted. These employers who are taking these folks on, who are cheating the system by not paying benefits, not paying taxes on these individuals, paying them under the able, and offering other people lower (cost for) services.

For example, you look at a roofing company who plays by the rules. They go to bid on a job and they've got all legally documented individuals on their payroll — they're paying benefits for them, they're paying their share of taxes, health care, unemployment, workers comp insurance. They're paying into the system and they're playing by the rules. They put a bid out on that roofing job, That gets undercut by thousands of dollars by another company who is employing undocumented individuals who they're paying under the table and don't have to pay taxes, don't have to pay benefits on. So the individual or the company that's getting their roof redone naturally is going to look at the lower pay. They don't want to spend extra if they can avoid it. But the companies that are benefiting from this are adding to the problems because they're attracting illegal immigrants here. Until we start addressing that issue, we're not going to be able to really, meaningfully address the immigration issue at all in this commonwealth. Nobody is putting any proposals forward that is going to address that problem.

People are cheating the system, doing it consciously and doing it really with a smile on their face because they're making money hand over fist. If you have an illegal immigrant who's working for you and gets injured, they go to the emergency room and we all pick up the tab for that, because they're not covered. They don't have health insurance and the employer certainly isn't providing health insurance because they're illegal. That's the type of abuse that's running rampant in the commonwealth right now that they're not addressing at all. So, the measures that they're putting forward in the Legislature, to me, are barely worth the paper they're printed on. They're not going to do anything to address the real problems. That's why when I get in, one of the measures I'm going to be pushing is to go after these people who are hiring and incentivizing illegal immigrants to come here and take jobs — jobs, by the way, which should be going to people who are unemployed and playing by the system.

Melrose Patch: The state passed an education bill earlier this year that targets underperforming schools, expands the authority of school superintendents in struggling districts to fire teachers, and increase both funding — and the potential for more — charter schools. What are your thoughts on this bill? Did it go far enough, not far enough, too far?

Day: It went far enough in some respects, not far enough in a lot of respects. To me, it was rushed. Again, here's the problem — the process of the Legislature. They rushed this bill through, shut off debate in many respects, because they wanted to chase the federal money. It's a reactive measure to me, where certain amendments were just blocked from coming forward, because they wanted to get this thing signed in time for the Race to the Top. So the process again is broken up there, the way the leadership allows bills to be introduced and debated and ultimately passed, voted upon. More fundamentally, I think what this bill did was it took a sledgehammer approach, when you really need a scalpel. You've got national headlines down south (Central Falls, RI) where they laid off the entire school system. Even I think President Obama commented on it and got involved, which I thought was inappropriate on a local issue … You can't tell me that because kids aren't performing well on a test, the entire teaching faculty needs to go. You see what happened now is a lot of them have been rehired quietly. So, this grand headline grabbing approach of you've got a failing district, we're going to give you carte blanche to wipe out this thing and start anew isn't realistic, it's not practical and it's not good for the kids. You've got to have a far more thoughtful approach and that approach wasn't allowed to be debated and wasn't allowed to be installed in that law.

Now, I do think some of the measures they put in were good, things like the innovation schools, where you can allow a public school to have different approach as to how they're going to educate. I don't think they did nearly enough in going above the approach that relies on standardized testing. I think we really need to start educating the children to compete when they get out. Right now, they're being taught to a test, to perform well on a test, to meet certain benchmarks, and that's really where the education is ending right now. They're not being prepared to compete when they get out in the world. They're not being prepared in things like arts, music, shop class. Those are all things of the past in our middle schools and high schools, and that's a disgrace. That's an absolute disgrace. I think we've got a lot of work left to do and a lot of hard work ahead of us. You've got to have a Legislature that has the backbone to make that case to the public. Take the stance, have the debate and then go out and talk with the public about why you've made that measure or legislation.

Melrose Patch: Speaking of education, what's your position on the state education board voting to adopt national academic standards in lieu of the state's own standards?

Day: As long as the Common Core standards aren't going to hamstring us or tie our hands as far as going above those standards — I mean, they're benchmarks, right? They're standards. There's nothing that says we cannot require things above that in our curriculum and in our individual school districts. As long as that's in place, and if we have a chance to get federal money, then fine. But again, the problem I've got is that's where we're stopping when we're talking about education. We're stopping at chasing federal money and standardized testing as the only measure of how our students are performing. That's wrong, that's the wrong approach to me. You're casting aside kids that have other interests that are going to be beneficial to society and beneficial to themselves allow them to compete when they get out in new industries.

Melrose Patch: The stock answer for any legislator, when asked about their main priority or concern on Beacon Hill, is the budget and specifically local aid. Besides the budget and local aid, what is your main priority if you are elected to the Senate?

Day: Jobs. Jobs and getting these store fronts filled up again. Malden is a little more urban, but we're still a suburban community, we're a suburb of Boston, 10 miles north. Our commercial base in these cities and towns, which is the primary driver of how the cities and towns fund themselves aside from local aid, is the small business and it's the storefronts down here. When you drive through these towns, you see vacant storefronts that had been anchored by institutions in these localities for decades that are now sitting dormant for 10, 12 years at a time, it's no wonder we're struggling to fund ourselves, to pay for the services that we need. Until we start getting those built back up, until we start getting those literal holes in our downtowns filled, we're not going to be able to do anything in this state. We're not even going to be able to govern and provide these services that are fundamental services for government. Until jobs come back, until we get people back to work and until we get these storefronts filled up again, small businesses getting back on their feet — even big business, attracting them back here to Massachusetts — we can't have any sort of real solution to the problem of these cuts to local aid and the budgetary shortfalls.