MassDems fail in scheme to keep Republican Helen Brady off of election ballot

WOBURN -- Republican Helen Brady has prevailed in her fight against a Massachusetts Democratic Party scheme to prevent a strong conservative female voice from challenging entrenched U.S. Rep. Bill Keating this fall. 

“Here you had the vice chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party lodging a formal complaint during a health pandemic to try and keep a woman off of an election ballot,” Brady said, referencing Leon Brathwaite, who filed the original objection. “The Democrats had a problem with a woman utilizing technology to collect electronic signatures, and most of all they had a problem with a woman daring to challenge a member of their old boy’s club and one of their Washington insiders.

Keating was first elected to the state Legislature in 1976, before being elected to Congress in 2010.

Massachusetts Republican Party Chairman Jim Lyons also called the state Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling striking down the state Ballot Law Commission’s decision knocking Brady off the general election ballot “a win for anyone who has ever challenged Massachusetts’ one-party political rule.” 

“The SBLC’s commissioners, almost all of them activist Democrats masquerading as objective arbiters, have been exposed,” Lyons said. “At the very least, these commissioners should be middle-of-the-road.

“Helen Brady is a strong conservative woman who played by the rules to qualify for the general election ballot, so naturally the radical Democrats tried to pull off as many partisan schemes as possible to keep her from challenging the status quo. But they underestimated Helen’s determination.”

A glance at the history of political donations made by the majority of current SBLC commissioners reveals an alarming pattern of bias. 

Within the last decade, state campaign finance records show Commissioner Sarah Herlihy has donated more than $2,000 exclusively to Democratic candidates. Commissioner Peggy Ho has a similar record, having donated to the campaigns of Democrats including current Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins and Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu, not to mention $1,000 to U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark and more than $500 to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign. 

Commissioner Jennifer Chunias donated $1,000 to Rollins in 2018 in addition to other Democrats. 

Lyons also noted that Commissioner Brian Merrick, a retired Orleans District Court judge who now serves as the chairman of the SBLC, has published op-eds and written amicus briefs opposing the federal charges lodged against Newton District Court Judge Shelley Joseph for coaching an illegal immigrant facing drug charges on how to evade federal authorities assigned to detain him. 

Additionally, the state in 2012 reprimanded Merrick “for repeatedly engaging in conduct while sitting in Orleans District Court that failed to follow well-established procedural requirements” related to adjudicating motor vehicle law infractions.

“There’s a one-party system dominating this state that is growing more rotten with each passing day,” Lyons said. “We need more strong Republican women like Helen who will stand up and say they’re not going to take it anymore.”

Said Brady:

“This is not only a victory for my candidacy, but for every registered voter in Massachusetts who signed my nomination papers.

“The fact that the Massachusetts Democratic Party and Rep. Keating would stoop so low as to challenge my signatures is indicative of how threatened they feel of my candidacy. This was a blatantly partisan scheme that only further exposes the danger of having one-party rule.”