Tuesday, Sep 8: Rep. Ken Sweezey

Good morning. Beautiful day out there. Happy Tuesday. I hope you had a lovely weekend. I did. Hope you enjoyed it. The weather was okay, right? It wasn't horrible. It was okay. If it was, it's not now. So what would it matter, right? Got out a little bit. Went to a couple of nice restaurants. Talked to some people. Read some of the Mark Twain book that I've been working on. I really enjoyed that. We're going to have a big week. The Republicans are having a historic mid-election year convention down in Texas. It's a creation of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and his team around him. And I think it's a marvelous idea. We're going to have coverage from there. I've got people down there. Some of the people you know from the program. Some you may not know. But we're going to have people calling in from Texas, giving us bird's eye view or on the ground view down at the historic, first time ever, a midterms election convention being held in Texas by the Republican Party. I saw over the weekend, maybe towards the tail end of last week, that there were a number of Democrats saying, how come we didn't do this? This is a fantastic idea. We should have done it. I saw a couple of congressmen, more junior type congressmen saying that. And saying how they were basically outvoted by the party leadership, said we're not doing it. And these younger Democrats, really the future of the party, as any party is the younger people, saying we should have done this. But they were prevented or not allowed to even consider it. And I think it's just going to be a really interesting event, all for the Republicans to do a lot of free and earned media around it. So will it hurt them in some districts? Maybe. Will it help them in a lot of districts? I think it will. And I think it'll add to the Republicans' cash advantage. It's a great way to raise more money. So anyway, we'll be talking with Brad Wyatt, who's our representative on the Republican National Committee. Brad's a Worcester area businessman, fairly regular here on the program. We're going to talk with him at the conclusion of the convention. We'll be talking with Chris Ryan, who's on the Republican State Committee out of Amherst. Yes, they have Republicans at Amherst. I was once there. But Chris has been a fairly regular guy here on the program. And he's got his own unique flair. And so he'll be down there. He'll be calling into the program. So that'll be pretty interesting. So we're going to do a lot of that this week. Also, later in the morning, we'll be joined by State Representative Ken Sweezy, who's been here before. He's part of that small group of House Republicans that's looking to add to it, right? There's a number of candidates coming out of South Coast. Heard about another one over the weekend. Mark Sylvia, liberal Democrat, green energy guy, Fairhaven State Representative. He's drawn an opponent, woman named Brenda Lee Smith, lives on 4th Street here in Fairhaven. She got the Republican nomination. She earned it as a write-in candidate. There was such a groundswell of support against the high energy bills and the draconian abortion bill. Just the general cost of living and the lack of state aid, all of that culminated in a groundswell of support at the ballot box that got Brenda Lee Smith the nomination of the Republican Party. So many people in Mattapoisette, Marion, Rochester, piece of a cushion, a piece of New Bedford. And of course, the town of Fairhaven where Brenda Lee Smith lives. So many people in a reaction to the extraordinarily high energy prices, affordability, Prop 2.5 override, all of that, the old colony school. They came out in droves and wrote in Brenda Lee Smith. We'll see what she does with it. It's hers now, her and her group of supporters who got together over the weekend. And I think she's going to be out all over the place. But that's an interesting development that Mark Sylvia now has a Republican opponent. According to what I'm told, Brenda Lee Smith, who lives on 4th Street here in New Bedford, has gotten the Republican nomination for state representative. So that'll be a really interesting situation. Now, so we'll have Representative Ken Sweezy. Don't forget, you get Jesse St. Gilles coming out of Westport and Cushneton, Freetown. Now, Elijah D'Souza did not make the ballot. We learned that Friday afternoon that he did not make the ballot. He was attempting to be a write-in candidate in the city of New Bedford to run against Tony Cabral. That didn't make it. Now, in Dartmouth, you got Chester Tam, who's a nominee of the Republican Party. He really presents well, very bright guy. And I think he's making a statewide impact. I saw him on a show named Mike Urban. Mike Urban, he's a YouTube guy, podcaster, does a fantastic job. I saw Chester on there recently. So Chester, who's running in Dartmouth and New Bedford as a Republican. So we got a big slate of candidates down here. Because I know a lot of you have been calling here and not just calling, you send in messages about affordability, the electric bills, all of that. And most of you by now have recognized it was the legislature with their Green New Deal policies that have caused these energy prices. They laundered the bills through Eversource. So that's the target of your frustration. But I think a lot of you have now recognized that this stuff, in fact, started under Patrick, Governor Patrick, way back when. And you can trace your high energy bills directly back to the energy policies under Governor Deval Patrick and his assorted appointees. I think that'll be more clear to you by November. 508-9960, whatever's on your mind, I'm happy to hear about it. We'll have Bob George, defense attorney. Many of you first learned about George from Oprah when he used to be on Oprah. Bob's a defense attorney, federal and state, handled a lot of big cases. He's going to help us, as he has been, break down what happened with the Lindsey Clancy trial on Friday and all the way through. So Bob will be here at 11 o'clock. And we'll have other guests throughout the program, including you to listen. Did anybody get a chance? I'm sure most of you did. Hear the Chief of Police on Friday at 9 AM. But if you didn't, the podcast, I'm going to play a little clip of it, because I think it's important. Talking about the flawed cameras, the disciplining, the potential disciplining, let's say, of two New Bedford police officers, the future of policing in New Bedford. And I thought the Chief did a marvelous job. It's easy when you're just playing it straight, right? So we'll play more of the Chief's interview on Friday. If you didn't catch it, I think there's some really, I know there's some really important stuff in there. But other than that, it was a long weekend. I hope you enjoyed it. Whatever's on your mind, let's start talking. Good morning, thanks for holding. Hi. Hello. Hi, Chris. Hi. Chris, first, I want to commend you. You do an excellent job. That's not to say that the others that are on this station do not. But I'm fascinated at all the information you know. So that's one thing. Thank you. That I wanted to share. Secondly, you know, the potential Governor of Massachusetts, you know, and the Lieutenant, what is it? The Lieutenant General? I don't know. Lieutenant Governor. I don't, thank you very much. You know, they need to work together, bottom line. They need to work together. They're a team. They need to be a team, you know. And the third thing, because I just condensed my thoughts, otherwise why ramble on for hours, is that as far as the Clancy case, some woman was on prior to me stating that, you know, the one that should be in trouble is the gentleman or the woman with the one that did not, you know, vote with the rest of the group, you know, the jury. And that, you know, he's the one, he's the one. You know something? The man had enough guts to hold tight on how he felt, or the woman, how they felt. And that's what jurors are supposed to do, you know. And I have some questions about, you know, psychosis. I mean, it's very informed the psychosis, so I don't know all of them, you know, but I've worked in the acute psych unit at St. Luke's for a period of time before they moved to Hawthorne Street. But I have to tell you, you know, a lot of what she had done was planned. How could she went down to the basement? She had those exercise stretch bands, you know, and so I'm not going to dispute, or I'm not, oh, how am I saying it? I'm not going to accept that, you know, she was not aware of what she was doing. That's my opinion, you know, and those that call, it's their opinion, you know. But to blame that gentleman, or woman, for standing up for what they believed, I'm sure they got a lot of sass back from the rest of them. You know, and as far as laying them out, you know, they were able to go home. You know, it should have been done in such a manner so that woman there who is taking pictures of everything and recording it, you know, I just feel bad for that individual because, you know, people act crazy. And there were a bunch of people out there that were acting crazy. And if they find out where that individual lives, God bless that individual and their family. I agree with you. Yeah, look, any one of us could have drawn the unlucky card to be on that jury. Any one of us could have. And we've got to recognize they did something none of us, all of us should be lucky we didn't have to do. They will never forget those pictures of those dead children, never in their life will they get that out of their mind. And I know that only because I saw a picture of a dead child, Mary Lou Arruda, decomposed in the Freetown State Forest when I was in the fifth grade. Someone, one of my contemporary fellow students showed it to me. How he got it was just a matter of circumstance that his dad happened to have the photographs. And he had brought him to school, crazy kid stuff. And those pictures are still burned in my mind now. So I can't imagine if they were dead children, full color photos, all the rest. There was a teenage girl, she had decomposed. And even to this day, so those jurors are never going to get those dead children out of their mind. And for anybody who was not in that jury box, to second guess, the jurors I think is doing a whole system a disservice. To the point that you take their character into question. You can disagree with them, certainly other people did. But you got to appreciate the role they play and give them space, right? Yes, for years, a lot of years ago, I worked for DSS a lot of years ago. But working with abused children, I can tell you that's never going to go away with those kids went through. You know, and my role was to make sure that they go with the family. Yes. Anyway, I've done enough talking. No, thank you so much. And listen, by the way, my mother worked for those children because she was in special needs. And our neighbor Kathy Garino worked to those kids as well. She's like a second mother to me. So I know a lot of those stories, with the protected names and all that stuff. It's horrible what people in DSS subject themselves to in the interest of trying to help out perfect strangers. For sure, for sure, and God bless you. Thank you, my friend. Thanks for your kind words. 508-996-0500. We got a lot of people on hold. Guys, we'll be talking more about the Lindsey Clancy trial with an expert, a defense attorney, Robert George. Attorney Bob George will be here in the 11 o'clock hour. Good morning. Thanks for holding. Good morning, Chris. Hey. It is a changing tide. It's where we now turn the villain into the victim. And the actual victims get no sympathy or empathy towards what's taking place. We see it everywhere. It's not just here, but we see it everywhere now. And it's just hard to believe that it's come to that. And I don't know what else to say about it. It's just sad. I do have a question for you. Are you familiar with repeal 188? Is that the gun law? No, no, it's to try to overturn the abortion bill that Marjalee just passed. No, I'm not. So everybody would seem to be waiting for petition forms that are going to be sent out. And if we get 50,000 signatures, they can put that up on the ballot in November to vote against it. And so it's called repeal 188. If you have a chance, look it up. I will look it up. But I would say that look, I'm all for petitions, things like that, and ballot questions. But at the end of the day, you got to change the legislature. And you got to change the hearts and minds of the legislators on this matter, on any matter. This, as you saw with the audit, the legislature, the legislature has incredible power to stymie the will of the voters and to delay it. And if you don't- Well, that's what they're trying to do. Of course, yeah, well, that's what they're doing. They've successfully done it. They've stymied the will of the voters on the audit. I don't think you'll get anywhere near 72% of the vote on the abortion question, not in this state, not in a lot of states, not in the favors, not the numbers that you and I, I think, would appreciate. I think that we'd be really disheartened to see how our friends and neighbors actually feel about the issue, to be honest with you. But you're right, but 50,000, but even I think a lot of Democrats aren't happy about that law. Yeah. About the, it's just, and this kind of goes hand in hand with the Lindsay Clancy case, trial as well. It's not, I mean, they're linked closely together in more ways than we can imagine. And it's the loss of life and no one's there to defend that loss of life. The people that can't fight for themselves, vote for the children. And it's really sad to see it at the state that it is in right now. And so they're closely linked and it's part of what, a bigger picture of what's going on as a barometer of our society right now. I get it, I do. But what I'm telling you, and thanks for the call, my friend. What I'm telling you is that a better way to do it is to change out your legislator. That going out and getting signatures for a petition, for a ballot question, will make you feel like you're doing something. And you are doing something. But a cleaner, more effective way is to support the people that have already taken out nomination papers, got the nomination, and agree with you on the issue. And support them. Put all your efforts trying to get a new legislator or reinforce a positive legislator's career, right? There are people out there who voted against this draconian abortion bill on the Democrat side and Republican side. And they're in the area. So I would say that going out and doing another ballot question, when you look at what happened in the audit, the legislature ballot question, is not, I'm not saying it's a waste of time. Don't get me wrong. But I think tactically, you're better off spending your time supporting a candidate that agrees with you. And strategically, that's going to pay more dividends than a ballot question. Just my well-informed opinion. I gotta take a quick break, guys. If you're on hold, stay there. I got a quick break. We'll be right back. Good morning. Happy Tuesday. I'm Chris McCarthy. Back to Chris McCarthy and South Coast Now on WBSM. Call 508-996-0500. Welcome back to the program. Mack Auto Sales, family-owned business right here in the city of New Bedford. 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Good morning, Representative Sweezy. How are you, my friend? I'm doing great, Chris. Thanks for having me back. So I'm glad you could join us. So, Ken, for my listeners, remind us, although your vote counts for the whole state, tell us the areas that you represent officially. Yeah, of course. Always happy to be down with your South Coast listeners, but I am up in Plymouth County. The 6th Plymouth District contains all the parts of Duxbury, Pembroke, Hanson, Marshfield, and Halifax. So, Ken, we're coming into an election year. Just came through the primaries. You, interestingly, voted no on the state budget. Explain why you did that. Tell my listeners why that was an important vote. Yeah, of course. So that is not something that is super typical here, not something that's common or done by a lot of reps. Last year, there was only six of us. This year, there was nine of us. So in my view, trending in the right direction. But there's a couple really big things for people that pay attention to their city council meetings, go to town meetings and select boards and things like that. We see that local aid by percentage to your local fund is just absolutely collapsing. Post-COVID, the inflation is being eaten up by our municipalities rather than the state. So in my view, the formulas have long been broken. And that view is not unique to me. Many people say that, but no one wants to do anything about it. So what I just can't do in good conscience is go up there, see a budget that is chock full of earmarks and non-municipal funding while our aid formulas continue to go down and not fund our schools, Chapter 90s, our roads, Chapter 70s, that school budget, unrestricted government aid. I just can't support a state budget that creates situations for overrides. Of the five towns I listed, all five of them had either debt exclusions or operational overrides this past spring. And that is directly caused by a bad state budget and why I couldn't support it. Which we could representative Ken Sweezy from the Sixth Plymouth District. So Ken, you're one of the small number of Republicans in the House of Representatives. People vote for a team. Are you Republicans up in the House? Are you going to have an agenda about affordability and energy costs that people around here could say I'm voting Republican because I really believe they're going to be able to reduce the cost of energy if I keep bringing in Republicans. Can you talk about that? A hundred percent. I mean, if you look at every cycle has their issues and by far for me, I talk about the same two issues. Every single day, I'm knocking doors and there's only two things that people bring up. It's accountability, which I think you would include the audit, transparency. And of course, we've all talked about that quite a bit and hope that that gets done soon. The other one, obviously, to the heart of your question, affordability. And I look at affordability holistically to a lot of the things you listed. A lot of people are, well, young people like myself, I'm one of the youngest members of the legislature can't buy homes. And that's true. And it was a struggle for me to buy a house in my district that I grew up in. But there's more to that, to your point. Energy bills, it's incomprehensible to me that we've gone through this session, two winter seasons with people getting rushed by the utilities. And yet we've offered up solutions that gets delayed. The bill doesn't pass both chambers, nothing gets signed. And what they're proposing now is that big comprehensive energy bill was really just a small cut to the mass save advertising budget. That's all it was. The end users of the utilities, the consumers, our constituents are not going to see much of a change, if anything at all. So absolutely affordability as well as accountability, number one issues. Utility prices have to come down. How do you do that? What's that look like in practice? Things that the Republican caucus have offered, at least temporary, but in my view, needs to be permanent removal of a lot of these so-called public benefit charges. Many people who look at their bills see that the actual electricity or gas is less than 50% of their bill. That makes no sense in the economic environment that we are in right now. That there's these public benefit charges go to things like solar panel subsidies and windmills and mass save and all of these things that are wants, not needs. We have to recognize that these, excuse me, 2050 mandates, there are net zero mandates that we put into law. Most states around the nation, even the more Democrat controlled ones or the most aggressive on these carbon emissions, they put them into either regulations or they made them benchmarks, things that aren't binding. The problem in Massachusetts, our benchmarks are legally binding. We're looking at a situation where the Commonwealth of Massachusetts could be liable to litigation because we're breaking the law, but it's impossible to meet them. So we're way off pace and yet there's no adults in the room on Beacon Hill that are willing to just say, hey, we tried to do a good thing. And it's admirable to come out and say we're not going to be able to meet our 2030 benchmark goals, our 2040, and definitely not our 2050 of complete net zero. We have to revise them. We have to be realistic. And we absolutely need to keep consumers at the heart of the conversation and not just advocates and lofty goals. So affordability, absolutely the number one issues. We attacked public benefit charges on utilities. And again, if you go back and fund the towns like I just talked about with the budget, you can actually bring property taxes down. Because again, the towns are having to supplement where the state is falling short on its obligations to fund our schools. So there's absolutely a holistic strategy and something that I and the rest of the Republican caucus continued to fight for during the budget. because it wasn't just a no vote. We offered these solutions as amendments and got shouted down. And that's what's so frustrating about the process. We're speaking with Ken Sweezy. He's a representative from the Sixth Plymouth District, a Republican state representative, talking about the cost of energy. In my opinion, not just my opinion, some of the Democrats you share the legislature with have said to me, the only way there's going to be a change is if some Democrats lose their jobs. Because people just don't get it. They said they will when some people lose their jobs. We have that potential down here in the South Coast and throughout the state. You got a lot of good candidates running. Yeah, absolutely. And I have this conversation with people as well because yes, of course, we can look at it through the lens of R's and D's. And we absolutely have a great slate of state candidates this year, state senate, state rep. And of course, statewides, right from governor, lieutenant governor, all the way down, treasurer, everything, AG. All of that great slate. But look at what you just saw last week in the primaries. You saw two senators in President Spilka's leadership team lose or potentially lose, depending on how the recount in one of them goes, lose their seats. This isn't just an R&D thing. And again, back to the accountability and the audit. People are so pissed- Off at the establishment and the lack of accountability that they're looking for any alternative, even if they're registered in their own party. But absolutely, I really hope that in these competitive areas, now that we are past the primary, people take a look and find out who is on their ballot and who's running. Even someone who's unenrolled or traditionally voted Democrat in the past, there's some high quality candidates that are not talking about the craziness in DC and what's going on in Washington. And when I did my rebuttal to the state of the Commonwealth last year, I made one big plea, is don't let your state voting be clouded by the national environment. Let national R&Ds do what they're going to do in DC. But here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Republican Caucus and many of these candidates are focused on local matters that are important to you. The affordability, local control, whether it's battery farms being zoned, MBTA Communities Act being jammed in. Any number of things, utility costs and the audit. That's what we're focused on. Not who the president is, not what's going on in DC. And I really implore your listeners and everybody in the Commonwealth, and especially down there on the South Coast, to look at your ballot, see that there's alternatives. It really, truly doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to. There are better alternatives. Speak with Representative Ken Sweezy. Representative, give us an inside the building view on how under assault Proposition 2.5 is at the legislative level by the interest groups, and how dangerous that is if we ultimately get rid of Proposition 2.5. Chris, that's a great question. And of course, Proposition 2.5 is the old law that, the old ballot question that is law that limits how much municipality can raise the overall levy and essentially your property taxes. It is openly discussed. It is so scary. Now, of course, you won't really find any candidates. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is not on the ballot this year, so she's basically the only one openly talking about it. But elections this year on November 3rd, I guarantee you on November 4th, you will hear people talking about Prop 2.5 needing to go away. It's scary how you hear some unions, some advocate groups, and I understand municipal finances are there right now to all the points that we've already mentioned the last few minutes here. And I get it, I sympathize. But that is not the solution. We have one of the highest budgets per capita in the nation, a $63.4 billion budget. Again, we're just setting money on fire, whether it was the migrant crisis that we went through a couple of years ago at its peak. And you have, just as an example, there was a foundation that was run by Jalen Brown, who is now playing basketball for the 76ers, about $700,000 in the budget. What are we doing here? What are we talking about when our municipalities are underfunded? So to your question, Prop 2.5 is absolutely in the crosshairs, and just because it's been a foundation for decades now, don't think that they won't come for that too. We had a long history of having a flat rate income tax. Look what they did there with the so-called fair share amendment, the millionaire's tax driving business out of the state now. There is nothing sacred as far as our economy, your family's budget in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They're coming for all of it. So absolutely, we need to defend two and a half to the very bitter end, because it's one of the only things, even with the tough environment that we have now, keeping people in their homes. We're speaking to Representative Ken Sweezy. Representative, talk about when you now have nominated Mike Minogue after a tremendous convention win and now a landslide victory in the Republican primary. Talk about why it's important to elect Mike Minogue governor. Yeah, and I think it shows a lot of excitement too. I really do appreciate his marketing on a new kind of governor because it is what we need. An outsider that's not really involved at the state level, but that gets, he grew a business, all these great things that he's done and is very professionally accomplished. We just can't afford four more years of Governor Healey. We flat out can't and again, this doesn't have to be an R and a D argument at all. It's just a matter of fact, no governor's ever had as many secretaries resign as her. We've never had as many businesses leave as her historical businesses. When you lose Yankee Candle and Cape Cod ships and all these things just fleeing the Commonwealth because it's so unaffordable. It's just incomprehensible that we can keep doing business as usual. These are extraordinary times. We have to be the adults in the room again, look ourselves in the mirror and say, hey, this can't just be about Democrats and Republicans, we just need to be in a different direction. I mean, between all the scandals you have the Apple Green Service Plaza, now there's $2 billion courthouse and just, I mean, the crash bill, the fox throw up for less than that and we're getting that not very much out of this courthouse building. It's just, it makes no sense to me there has to be a better way. There is a better way. And why I really encourage people again, especially our unenrolled constituents and neighbors that may even traditionally vote Democrats. We have to recognize that things are unaffordable. Your kids, your grandkids aren't able to leave here. That's why so many people, younger people are going to school and staying away. We used to be the most talent rich area in the world with our economy and the tech and the biotech and pharma that's around here. And now people can't leave fast enough. And that is a direct relationship with the lack of leadership that we've had in the Commonwealth. And that's why I really encourage people to take a hard look and vote for Minogue this year. We're speaking with Representative Ken Sweezy. Representative, you're a young guy and you're a strong leader in the legislature. Give people how they can follow you on social media or any of that stuff. Yeah, I'm very active. I'm trying to be out in the community, especially on election day. Every year I'm very active on social. So if you visit me at State Representative Ken Sweezy on Facebook and Instagram, as well as my website, which is just kensweezy.com. Keep you up to date. Please reach out in or out of the district. I'd love to hear from residents about what we can be doing better. Can I appreciate you're always available whenever I reach out. We'll talk to you soon, my friend. Yeah, please, Chris, anytime. Thanks again for having me. All right, that's Representative Ken Sweezy. We'll take a break. We'll be right back. By the way, this hour is brought to you by the cold beer and the world's best chicken wings. At Rose Alley Alehouse, who said the weekend's over. It's a great day to go sit on the deck at Rose Alley, have some chicken wings or anything off that full menu and a couple of drinks. Make some mistakes. Have a good time at Rose Alley. We'll be right back. South Coast now with Chris McCarthy weekdays on 1420 AM and 99.5 FM WBSN. Welcome back to the program. It's a beautiful day out there, but we all know that cold weather is looming, looming in our future. And how cold it's going to get, we don't know. But I can tell you what, we have one company, Columbus Energies, family owned since 1960. They can handle both the remaining months of your air conditioning that's necessary. They handle that. They can lengthen the use of it, right? Prolong the life of it. It's very important. But also they can handle all your heating needs. One company for your heating and cooling needs. 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