< Back to front page Text size – +

Challenger steps up to take on Gov. Patrick in primary

E-mail|Link|Comments () February 4, 2010 06:03 PM

By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff

Grace Ross, a human services activist who ran as the Green-Rainbow Party's nominee for governor in 2006, has told the Democratic Party she will challenge Governor Deval L. Patrick for the party's gubernatorial nomination.

Grace Ross

Ross delivered a letter to the Democratic State Committee's headquarters in time for the 5 p.m. deadline today for candidates seeking statewide office on the Democratic ticket to declare their candidacies to the party and qualify to seek delegates in this month's delegate selection.

As the Green Party candidate, Ross got less than 2 percent of the vote in an election in which Patrick, getting 55 percent of the ballots casts in the four-way race, won in a landslide.

"Governor Patrick welcomes Grace Ross to the Democratic primary, and the passion and commitment to service that she brings with her," said Alex Goldstein, a spokesman for Patrick's reelection campaign. "He looks forward to a vigorous and substantive discussion about creating jobs, providing affordable health care, and ensuring a quality education in the Commonwealth."

Ross said during the 2006 campaign, among other things, that she was running for governor to be a voice for the poor, and she wanted a structural change in the tax system, which she believed heavily favored the wealthy.

One of her first acts as governor, she said, would be to push for a new "circuit-breaker" tax break to help low- and moderate-income residents, a move that would shift more of the tax burden onto the wealthy. Ross also wanted corporations to pay taxes based on the amount of business they do in Massachusetts rather than on the facilities they have here.

Ross also called for devoting bout $50 million in state money to low- and no-interest loans for small businesses, municipalities, and property owners who want to add solar panels or wind turbines. She said the initiative would nurture the state's alternative-energy industry, reduce demand on the power grid, and lower energy costs for cities and towns.