Michelle Wu isn’t on the ballot September 1.
Or is she?
It will be showtime for the mayor’s high-profile attempt to punish the Senate for refusing to play ball with her commercial-property tax plan by taking out incumbents Will Brownsberger and Nick Collins. And a less-discussed test of Wu’s political clout is in the Democratic primary for Suffolk County district attorney, a contest between incumbent Kevin Hayden, former DA Rachael Rollins, and attorney Linda Champion, who lost to Rollins in 2018.
To paraphrase the old saying about the changeable New England weather: If you don’t like the political alliances in Boston politics, just wait a minute. Four years ago, Wu endorsed City Councillor Ricardo Arroyo, claiming his candidacy was “about possibility” and “justice.” Several months later, justice came for Arroyo as far as his critics are concerned, when the Globe reported he’d been investigated for sexual assault (no charges were ever filed).
Fast forward four years, and the mayor is now a Hayden fan. “I’ve gotten to know [Hayden] as a person, and I’ve seen his work up close,” she told Globe columnist Joan Vennochi. “ … [S]howing up to just be with families who have experienced loss and joining in other efforts to make sure that everyone feels supported in our community and that everyone is part of making Boston safe.”
Not quite everyone. Rollins, whose aggressive support of Arroyo in 2022 led to her resignation as U.S. Attorney amid allegations of ethics violations, says in an interview with MASSterList she’s “incensed that my phone is still ringing from people whose loved ones have been murdered or shot and can’t get a call back from the [DA’s] office.” And with a string of murders and assaults in the city making headlines, Rollins’ contempt for the way it’s being handled is characteristically unvarnished. “We really need a safety plan,” she tweeted last week after a broad-daylight slaying at South Station. “Repeatedly chanting - We Are The Safest City In America! - is not a plan. The people getting stabbed, shot & bludgeoned to death deserve better.”
But it’s not just Hayden being targeted by Rollins. “The current DA is endorsed by the mayor because he endorsed her [in last year’s mayoral race],” she told us. In her view that coziness leaves Hayden compromised. “The DA is the gateway to the judicial branch. This mayor, with the endorsement of a weak DA, is now effectively gonna control all three branches of government. It’s not appropriate. If she wants to be the DA she should step down and run.”
Rollins has heaped praise on City Councilor Ed Flynn, a consistent critic of Wu’s public safety policies who’s currently locked in a spat with Wu over his suggestion that National Guard troops be deployed to assist the understaffed Boston Police Department. The mayor calls that “foolish” and irresponsible.” (Interestingly, Flynn tells us he is not endorsing Rollins or anyone else in the DA contest.)
Even when Boston posts some of the lowest crime rates among major U.S. cities, it’s not unusual for the issue to rub the body politic raw. The late Mayor-for-life Tom Menino hated to be challenged on the topic. Politicians and community leaders bristle when the police unions and the media raise alarm about crime, then wonder why it’s so often a struggle to get more funding for policing and related social-service programs.
It’s one thing for the cops to be angry at Hayden and Wu over funding and the controversial recent prosecution of a patrolman over a fatal shooting. It’s quite another for Boston voters to be so worried about crime that they would join Rollins in flipping off the mayor and tossing out the DA.
We’ll see on Sept. 1 just how anxious they are. And just how persuasive this mayor is with those voters when the candidate isn’t named Wu.
