Rematch for state Senate seat

Chang-Diaz pounces on Wilkerson's campaign finance and tax troubles

Volunteer George Anastos spoke with state Senate candidate Sonia Chang-Diaz, a former schoolteacher, in Jamaica Plain. (Wendy Maeda/Globe Staff)

Under fire for campaign finance violations and engaged in a hotly contested primary fight to retain her seat, state Senator Dianne Wilkerson sits at a cluttered desk in her Roxbury campaign headquarters, the hub of a political organization that she confidently predicts will carry her to victory.

"We know where the vote is," she said, citing her 15 years' experience campaigning in her diverse Senate district.

But for the second election in a row, Wilkerson is facing a strong challenge from former Jamaica Plain schoolteacher Sonia Chang-Diaz, who is making Wilkerson's ethics, campaign finance, and tax troubles an issue in the campaign.

The Sept. 16 election pits Wilkerson's experience and connections in the district against Chang-Diaz's fresh face and demands for change. The winner will face a little-known Socialist Workers Party candidate, William Theodore Leonard, in the Nov. 4 general election.

The primary contest is a rematch of the 2006 primary, in which Wilkerson edged Chang-Diaz by 6 percent; Wilkerson was forced to mount a sticker campaign in that race because she failed to collect enough signatures to get on the ballot.

"People really are frustrated at having to choose between good votes on the issues and strong ethics and accountability," Chang-Diaz said in an interview. "We should never ask voters to make that choice."

Wilkerson parries these attacks by labeling them "desperate," saying she is not bothered by the focus on ethics. "That's what you have to say if you have no record to run on," she said of Chang-Diaz's comments.

In August, Wilkerson paid a $10,000 fine to the state attorney general and acknowledged campaign finance violations dating back to 2000, related to improper reimbursements of campaign contributions to herself and failing to report some contributions. Over the years, she also has been responsible for foreclosure proceedings on her condominium, which she was able to stop, and a federal income tax investigation, in which she pleaded guilty to four misdemeanors.

The two candidates are ramping up their outreach to voters in anticipation of a primary election that both acknowledge is likely, without any major statewide primaries, to attract low turnout on Sept. 16 across a diverse district that stretches from Beacon Hill to Roxbury. At both campaign offices - Wilkerson's in Roxbury and Chang-Diaz's in Jamaica Plain - workers were organizing volunteers, scheduling door-to-door campaigning, and cold-calling voters this week.

On the issues, both candidates are calling for controlling healthcare costs, increasing affordable-housing access, protecting gay marriage rights, and promoting small-business development.

They differ on a few issues. Wilkerson supports a proposed biolab at Boston University, saying it will bring jobs, while Chang-Diaz said she opposes it because of safety concerns; the challenger supports public funding of elections, while Wilkerson has voted against proposals for taxpayer-financed elections; and Chang-Diaz is against using taxpayer money for the Columbus Center real estate project that would be built over the Massachusetts Turnpike between the South End and Back Bay, while Wilkerson has been one of the stalled project's most active advocates.

Wilkerson insists that, over 16 years in the Senate, she has led on the issues important to the minority communities prevalent in the district - racial minorities, immigrants, and gays and lesbians. Wilkerson said she has a history of success on the issues that Chang-Diaz is campaigning on.

"It's one person's dream and the other person's day-to-day reality," Wilkerson said in the interview.

Indeed, Wilkerson was a key figure in the successful effort to block a constitutional ban on gay marriage, and sponsored a bill to require names on ballots in Chinatown to be transliterated into Chinese characters, which has passed in the Senate but stalled in the House.

Chang-Diaz, however, is pinning her hopes on pent-up frustration among voters with Wilkerson's checkered history.

In her campaign office, Chang-Diaz, dressed in a gray business suit, shook off one of her sandals and folded one bare foot beneath her. While she is a political novice, Chang-Diaz stresses her experience as a public schoolteacher on education issues, her work as director of outreach at the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center on taxation and spending, and her lineage as daughter of Franklin Chang-Diaz, the first NASA astronaut from Latin America.

"We get exactly the political system that we demand as voters," she said.

John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com.