That Was Then: This Is the State Legislature

Harvard Commencement, 1970.

Several of the students have refused to wear academic robes, donating the rental fees to various causes. Others have tied multicolored armbands around their black sleeves, protesting the Vietnam war and other actions of The Establishment. There were shootings at Kent State last month. Last week a theater review headline in the Boston Globe proclaimed that "Happy Endings Died in the 1960s."

A young tenant activist leads 20 followers onto the stage before astonished University administrators can stop her. When the sound system is turned off, she grabs a bullhorn to broadcast her demand that Harvard build low-income housing.

The day before, a hundred residents of the Riverside neighborhood encamped in the Yard in front of Grays Hall to protest Harvard's real estate policy. The protesters want the housing on a site near the new Mather House and Peabody Terrace buildings. Both University projects had displaced and angered Cambridgeport residents.

Answering students' cries of "Go Home," the speaker tells them, "You go home. We've been here longer than you'll ever be."

In the fall of '71, Saundra Graham won her first term on the Cambridge City Council. In 1976 she became a state representative from Cambridgeport, and is running unopposed for reelection to that seat. One member of the unruly class she addressed--State Sen. Michael LoPresti, 71 Jr. of Cambridge--represents an area including Harvard Yard as her colleague in the legislature. He is also unopposed for reelection this year.

Another, Democrat Michael J. Barrett '70, said that "I first met Saundra Graham when she stepped on stage and provided local interest for my parents." Since then, he has been her colleague in the State House of Representatives, and is now the heavily favored candidate to succeed State Sen. George Bachrach in representing a district adjacent to his classmate's.

Graham, who remains an advocate of rent control and low-income housing, said tenant activism "isn't out in the street any more. It's grown more sophisticated, and it's at the ballot now." She said she agrees with rhetoric from the recent Cambridge Tenants' Union founding, that "an organization is as effective as its ability to disrupt the system." However, she said a movement that does not use legislative means would waste its energy.

"My methods of doing business may have changed, but not my philosophy," she said.

The district Barrett seeks to represent includes the other half of Cambridge, plus parts of Watertown, Belmont, and the Allston-Brighton region of Boston. The Radcliffe Quad's dorms, like Harvard Yard, are in Cambridge's Ward 7 and LoPresti's district.

However, many faculty and graduate students who live to the north and west will find a choice among Barrett, Alice Nakashian and William Monahan on their ballots. Both of his opponents are Independents. Barrett also notes that "anybody who sleeps in the stacks of the Ed School or the K-School qualifies."

Barrett said he knew LoPresti slightly as an undergraduate. "He was a better jock, and I was a better journalist," he said, adding that the incumbent senator had better grades.

Although Barrett and Graham tend to hold more liberal positions than LoPresti, Barrett said he agreed with the senator on most issues. However, he does oppose a recent bill that LoPresti sponsored as chairman of the State Senate Judiciary Committee. If passed, it would abolish a practice that allows defendants convicted by a judge to demand a trial by jury "de novo" without going through a formal appeal process.

The candidate says such differences can be resolved and that he expects to work closely with LoPresti on issues affecting Cambridge. "If we survived the Harvard Square riots together, we'll flourish in the State Senate," he said.

Graham concurred, saying of LoPresti that "when it comes to Cambridge we do agree a lot."

Like many Harvard students, Barrett opposed the Vietnam war. As a sophomore he was one of almost 400 students who signed a Crimson advertisement proclaiming that "Our war in Vietnam is unjust and immoral... As long as the United States is involved in this war I will not serve in the armed forces."

Barrett served as a State Representative from Reading, Mass. until 1984, when a game of musical chairs similar to this year's left him standing at the end. U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas announced his retirement for health reasons, and his vacated seat attracted U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Malden) as a candidate. Markey's empty position, in turn, drew a large field of candidates, including Barrett.

But when Markey withdrew from the Senate race to run for his old seat, he caused a reverse chain reaction, since a race against such a strong incumbent would have been political suicide. Barrett learned of Markey's decision on the day when he would have filed campaign papers to seek reelection. Unable to meet the deadline, he was left without any elected office.

This year, Barrett seems to have come out on top of a similar "trickledown opportunity." State Sen. George Bachrach forfeited reelection to run for Congress, losing to Joseph P. Kennedy II in the September 16 Democratic primary. He left his Senate seat open to an intense fiveway race among Democrats, of whome two--Olivia Golden '76 and Barrett--held liberal views similar to his.

Political consultant Michael Goldman, who advised moderate Democrat David Holway in the primary, said Barrett won because the vote was split among five strong candidates. He also said that liberals who had supported Bachrach as a popular State Senator wanted to choose a politically similar successor for him--but that Kennedy had a prior claim on their vote for Congress.

In the last weeks of the primary race, the Democrat's face adorned local buses, along with the legend, "Mike Barrett speaks for us. His record speaks for itself." He said that since September, "my record is speaking for itself and it's on its own now, financially"--as he tries to recoup a $25,000 campaign debt by skimping on the paid media.

He described Independent William Monahan's campaigning as "medium speed." "Bill wants the job but he won't knock himself out to get it," he commented.

He said Alice Nakashian, another Independent, is "spending the family fortune" to put her face in place of Barrett's on the sides and ceilings of trolleys throughout the district. Nakashian has allied herself with Citizens for Limited Taxation, the group responsible for placing the taxcap referendum question on the ballot.

Efforts to reach both were unsuccessful.

While he declined to express confidence in victory, Barrett said "my goals have changed for the final. I'd like to win in Belmont against Bill Monahan and in Watertown against Ms. Nakashian."

There is much more conflict on issues among the general-election candidates, although local media have taken less of an interest in the campaign. The two Independents, for example, favor Question 1 on the referendum slate, which if passed would permit the state to regulate or prohibit abortion. Barrett opposes it.

He says that since local interest has moved "from who's right on the issues to who's on first," reporters occasionally confuse the candidate with Red Sox second baseman Marty Barrett. Although the Democrat is no relation to the slugger, he said during the World Series that "as long as he does well, I do well."

The precedent for Independent candidates in this district is a strong one. Departing State Sen. George Bachrach (D-Watertown), for example, won the seat in 1980 as an Independent.

The incumbent in 1980 was Francis X. McCann, a traditional Democrat who had run unopposed for many seasons. In the primary election that year, he defeated Democrat Wendy Abt, whose Republican husband, Clark C. Abt, is now running for Congress against Joseph P. Kennedy II. Bachrach defeated the incumbent as an Independent in the general election.

Spokesman Ken Goode said Bachrach has not endorsed Barrett. Another spokesman for the senator said "we're doing all we can, but he's a shoo-in."