Rep. Garry refuses to toe her party's line
Colleen Garry is still a Democrat.
She swears she is.
It's just that her fellow Democrats don't always vote the way she wants, and so she votes her conscience or the way she feels her constituents would want her to vote.
Revolutionary thinking, right? Especially for a longtime politician who knows how to play the go-along-to-get-along game.
"I'm still a Democrat," Garry, the state representative for Dracut and Tyngsboro, said recently, not long after voting against the Democratic leadership -- and just about every other Democrat -- on several bills before the House.
According to Beacon Hill Roll Call, all of the bills had to do with taxes or controversial monetary issues. The Democratic Party does not like voting on tax issues because, this being Massachusetts, the party is always partial to raising taxes rather than lowering them. So when bills arise that would, for example, lower the sales tax or the income tax, or exempt cities and towns from paying the 24-cents-per-gallon gas tax for municipal vehicles, the Democrats instead vote to conduct a "study" of the issue.
Would it surprise you to find out that these "studies" are never actually done, that it's just a way for the Democrats to get around voting against lowering taxes so they don't have to hear about it from their constituents in an election year?
Of course, it wouldn't. It's Massachusetts.
And so, the votes to perform these studies break down along party lines, and the Democrats never lose.
But among local lawmakers, you can rely on Garry to buck that trend. After all, she has been named by nonpartisan groups as the most conservative Democrat in the House.
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Rep. Garry refuses to toe her party's line