Coalition for Massachusetts attack Brown's record on jobs

By Mark Arsenault, Globe Staff

A new advocacy group made up of community organizations and local unions, including the powerful 1199 Service Employees International Union, are blasting Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown’s record on jobs.

The group has planned a demonstration tomorrow in Boston to deliver the Republican senator an unflattering “report card” on jobs after his first seven months in office.

The new organization, the Coalition for Massachusetts, is protesting Brown’s votes “against jobs, unemployment insurance, and federal aid for vital community services,” according to a statement from the group.

At noon tomorrow, members will deliver to Brown’s Boston office a six-foot tall report card, on which Brown “fails” in the jobs and education categories, but gets an A+ in “protecting the richest 2-percent” of Americans.

The group is particularly critical of Brown’s vote against a $26 billion package of federal aid to states, which passed without his support. The package will deliver $655 million to Massachusetts, which is expected to be used to restore cuts in the state budget.

Brown also voted in July against extending jobless benefits to the unemployed, while offering his own bill to pay for an extension with unspent money from the federal stimulus law.

“Protests are always apart of politics, but the fact is Senator Brown sponsored legislation that would have extended unemployment insurance and [provided the aid to states] without adding to the astronomical national debt,” said Brown spokeswoman, Gail Gitcho, in a statement.

The “report card” does not mention that in February Brown supported a $15 billion jobs bill pushed by Democrats.