AMHERST – Providing more state aid to local schools, promoting development of clean energy technology and renaming the holiday on the second Monday of October are among legislative objectives for the 3rd Hampshire District’s next state representative.
Not facing any competition on the Nov. 8 general election ballot, Solomon Goldstein-Rose, who is expected to succeed the retiring Ellen Story, said in a phone interview Tuesday that he feels fortunate to have two extra months to learn about the flow of business in the Legislature and its dynamics.
“I’m feeling much more positive about how it will be when I take office,” said Goldstein-Rose, 22, who is expected to be among the youngest legislators at the State House when he is sworn in in January. “There’s room for a lot to get done.”
Goldstein-Rose said he’s been busier in recent weeks than when he was on the campaign trail earlier this year competing against five other Democrats in the Sept. 8 primary.
Already, he has met twice with House Speaker Robert DeLeo, talked to other western Massachusetts legislators, and spoke with business people, town and University of Massachusetts officials and representatives from local organizations.
“I’m taking some of the most immediate ideas fleshed out in the campaign and putting them out there in conversations with other representatives,” Goldstein-Rose said.
In the midst of getting up to speed, Goldstein-Rose is holding what he calls a thank-you event to the voters in Pelham, Amherst and Precinct 1 in Granby Sunday from 12:30 to 2 p.m. at the Pelham Library, 2 South Valley Road.
This will include an informal lunch, pumpkins for children and adults to decorate and a raffle of items that will benefit COSA Hampshire County, the umbrella organization that supports other agencies such as Tapestry Health, Big Brothers Big Sisters and Family Outreach.
Goldstein-Rose said he wants to recognize his challengers in the campaign. “It was a model of what politics should be,” Goldstein-Rose said.
In fact, some of the ideas discussed can be used to craft policy. He said his former challenger Lawrence O’Brien often talked about the need to reverse the 1998 legislation that cut the tax rate applied to dividend and interest income from 12 percent to 5.15 percent Goldstein-Rose said he spoke to DeLeo about his support for reversing this and generating $880 million for the state.
Goldstein-Rose said he would also like to see charter school funding shifted to the state, which would mean an additional $440 million for K-12 education. Covering health care and special education costs for local districts through Chapter 70 state aid would mean an additional $440 million for public education.
Another education initiative he mentions is funding for diversity, social justice and inclusion training that would be administered by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
One of his proposals could lead to battery development as a means of fighting climate change and producing jobs.
“I want to make sure that, at the every least, it creates good manufacturing jobs,” Goldstein-Rose said.
Carbon pricing and raising the net metering cap are other environmental legislation he may pursue..
Goldstein-Rose also pledges to file the bill that would make the second Monday in October Indigenous Peoples Day, replacing Columbus Day, and taking on the idea from the Student Advocates for Change group that started at the Amherst Regional Middle School last fall.
“As a former student activist myself, I’m excited to work with them on this,” Goldstein-Rose said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
