Marty Walsh Drops The Race Angle

Yesterday I hit mayoral candidate Marty Walsh for claiming that signature requirements disproportionately prevent “candidates of color” from ballot access. Today, Walsh is pushing forward with the issue, but has dropped the race angle.

The Walsh campaign has set up a page where people can sign a petition urging the Boston City Council to pass a home rule changing the one-person-one-signature rule; Walsh, a state representative, promises to then introduce it in the state legislature. (This petition on the Walsh web site may or may not be a way of capturing people’s names and email addresses for future contact.)

The petition page includes this:

This is an unfair barrier to getting on the ballot. It mostly affects candidates who aren’t as well funded as others and candidates without networks that take years to build.

Which removes the racial component of this, from yesterday’s press release:

It’s an unfair barrier to getting on the ballot, and it mostly affects candidates of color, candidates who aren’t as well funded as others, and candidates without networks that take years to build.

A longer email to Walsh supporters on the topic, sent today to point them to the petition, also made no issue of the disproportionate racial effect.