Rep. Auchincloss prioritizes COVID vaccinations, casts doubt on political unity
While COVID relief comes first on U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss’ list of priorities, the 4th District’s new representative has big plans on issues including transportation and education.
Joining Brookline’s Select Board Tuesday, he shared his legislative priorities and thoughts on the atmosphere in D.C. following the Capitol riots, President Joe Biden’s inauguration and former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment — all of which happened within Auchincloss’ first few weeks on the job.
COVID relief and vaccination
“The single most important thing that we are doing right now, bar none, is winning the race between vaccinations and variants,” he emphasized.
Biden has proposed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan, which would include direct funding for families, small businesses, state and local governments, and vaccination efforts, Auchincloss explained.
“We need to be focused on shots in arms, not just for Massachusetts, not just for the country, but indeed for everywhere in the world, because anywhere there is a reservoir of unvaccinated people, we’ve got a ticking time bomb,” he said.
Most of the state’s congressional delegation — Auchincloss included — recently penned a letter urging Gov. Charlie Baker to create a centralized pre-registration system to improve Massachusetts’ vaccine rollout.
“It’s 2021. You can book a restaurant on OpenTable; it really should be possible to do this on a website right now,” Auchincloss said.
While he said he is confident the state’s vaccine rollout is improving and will continue to do so as vaccine supply becomes more predictable, Auchincloss also emphasized the need for greater community outreach.
Specifically, he said, state leaders need to think about partnering with community organizations and launching mobile vaccination clinics to go town-by-town and reach underserved or vaccine-hesitant groups.
Transportation
Next up after COVID relief should be a transportation infrastructure package, said Auchincloss, who has been assigned to the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee.
A large part of that will include reducing maintenance backlogs for existing infrastructure, as well as investing in transit as both a transportation and climate change imperative, he said.
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Auchincloss also emphasized the need for transparency in how leaders judge which transportation infrastructure best serves constituents.
Education
Asked his thoughts on universal early education and inequities in learning, the former Newton city councilor harkened back to his days in local politics, when he fought for universal pre-K.
“My friend and mentor [U.S. Rep] Katherine Clark will tell you, childcare is infrastructure,” he said. “It’s socioeconomic infrastructure, and it shouldn’t have taken a pandemic to lay that bare, but if this is one of the silver linings that comes out of it, then let’s seize that opportunity.”
14th Amendment
Representatives like Auchincloss are navigating a fraught political atmosphere in the nation’s capital.
While Biden began his presidential term with a message of unity, “The atmosphere in the Capitol really underscores to me that there’s not going to be unity until there is accountability and truth,” Auchincloss said.
He cited certain Republican lawmakers who attempted to undermine the 2020 presidential election results and “who are spreading conspiracy theories about a cabal of satanic pedophiles in government.”
“It just feels like there’s a big portion of the GOP that you can’t even — they’re not even a serious partner in governance right now,” Auchincloss said. “That’s frankly not the way I think any legislator wants to come to work.”
And while the Senate acquitted Trump in his second impeachment, Auchincloss said there might be other avenues for accountability through the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Section Three of the amendment states federal office holders who have sworn an oath to the Constitution cannot incite insurrection against the U.S. government.
“What Donald Trump did is really self-evidently a violation of the 14th Amendment,” said Auchincloss, who has called for a Congressional resolution stating Trump incited insurrection in violation of the Constitution.
Congress can also pass complementary legislation directing the Attorney General to prosecute Trump’s alleged 14th Amendment violation in federal court to prevent him from holding office in the future, he explained.
Auchincloss emphasized any 14th Amendment action would not come down to politics: “[Trump] was a terrible president, but that’s not why I’m doing this, because people who have bad policy ideas are still allowed to run for office.”
He continued, “This is about upholding the rule of law and asserting, as a country, that nobody is above the law, not even the president of the United States, and that there are consequences for violating the Constitution.”
Charter change?
Brookline Select Board member John VanScoyoc asked Auchincloss for advice on one hotly-debated issue of local significance: whether Brookline should become a city.
“I’m not going to presume to know what’s best for Brookline. You’ll have to ask more people in Brookline who are thinking hard about that,” Auchincloss said, chuckling.
Source:
Abby Patkin