Kim Janey disavows email to Andrea Campbell supporters telling Campbell to seek DA instead of Boston mayor

Acting Mayor Kim Janey is disavowing an email sent to some supporters of City Councilor Andrea Campbell that Campbell is decrying as Janey’s supporters trying to “pressure her out of the race.”

Campbell in a statement referred to an email first reported on by Commonwealth Magazine from a local developer to Campbell supporters that suggested the city councilor should bow out so Black support could coalesce around Janey.

Campbell characterized the contents as “supporters of Acting Mayor Kim Janey … trying to pressure her out of the race.”

“Black women candidates for public office are not interchangeable. Like everyone else, we all have our own story and unique leadership styles that inform our candidacies and our policy making,” Campbell said in a statement. “I would hope everyone would be offended by the suggestion that one Black woman candidate is interchangeable with another with ‘no difference.’ I would never allow my supporters to push this narrative and neither should Acting Mayor Janey.”

Janey’s campaign manager, Kirby Chandler, said in a statement that the email “does not reflect the views of this campaign.”

“This diverse field of candidates is an unprecedented reflection of Boston’s greatness and how far we’ve come,” Chandler said in a statement. “Everyone who wants to run for office should be empowered to do so.”

According to the magazine’s reporting, Roxbury developer Richard Taylor, who was the state’s Transportation secretary in the 1990s, sent a email to some Campbell supporters that it would be a “win/win” if Campbell bowed out and sought the district attorney posting. That “could be a benefit to all,” the magazine reported that Taylor wrote, as it would make Janey’s path to election easier while landing Campbell in a different powerful role.

The DA’s office would be open for appointment by Gov. Charlie Baker if current top prosecutor Rachael Rollins becomes U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, a job for which she remains in the running. Campbell is an attorney, but reportedly has not been a prosecutor.

Taylor didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.

Both Janey and Campbell are Black women. Janey, who rose to the position of acting mayor when former Mayor Martin Walsh left in March, is the first person of color and first woman to serve as the city’s top executive.

The mayoral race continues to heat up as polls show a close race with now less than five months until the preliminary election. One this week from Channel 7 and Emerson College show City Councilor Michelle Wu, Janey and City Councilor Essaibi-George in a statistical dead heat at 16%, 15% and 14% respectively. Campbell is at 11%, with state Rep. Jon Santiago and former city economic development director John Barros at 4% and 3%. Another survey two weeks earlier from MassInc showed Wu and Janey in a tie, but with everyone else well back in the single digits.

In both polls, heavy pluralities of Bostonians remained undecided.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3eNTJUs