Monday April 24, 2023

CANDIDATE PROFILE: Ben Litchfield

CANDIDATE PROFILE: Thirty Minutes with Ben Litchfield

F2S is committed to bringing candidates for local offices into focus for voters. Not just their policy stances, but who they are as people. From the beginning, we have shone a bright light on the race for Senate District 27 - a new district that could well decide the balance of power in the Senate.

On February 3 we had Ben Litchfield, who is seeking the Democratic nod, answer a set of policy questions. (Democratic candidate Joel Griffin answered the same set of questions in our March 6 edition.)

Today we begin to take a more personal look at the candidates. In recent days I spent time with both Litchfield (at Tito’s Diner) and Griffin (at Hyperion) to get to know these two candidates as individuals.

F2S believes strongly that who candidates are as individuals is an important part of understanding how they will act as elected officials. It is our hope that you will come away better informed about the people seeking the 27th Senate District seat.

Today’s interview features Ben Litchfield. We highlighted Griffin in our April 17 issue.

Note to Readers: F2S has extended invitations to Monica Gary (Independent), as well as Tara Durant and Matt Strickland (Republicans) to answer the policy questionnaire and be interviewed. As of this edition, we have not received a commitment from any of the three. We will continue to encourage them to take part so that readers can better understand them.

F2S: Can you begin by telling us something about your background and how you came to be involved in local politics?

BL: I grew up in a small manufacturing city in Western Massachusetts. General Electric was the big employer. My father worked in factories building trains. My mother was also a factory worker making cassette tapes. The two divorced due to my father’s drinking, which continued until he got hurt on the job. He then became addicted to pain killers.

I raised myself and my sister, surrounded by flawed people who cared deeply about me, but who struggled.

My story was not unusual in western Mass. This part of the state has more in common with the Rust Belt in Ohio than the people and economics of Boston.

What also affected my family and many others was the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It hurt working families like ours in ways it did not hurt people in Boston. This caused a lot of resentment between those in Western Mass. toward those in Boston.

As hard as things were, however, they weren’t all bad.

My mother taught me values and how to exercise good judgment. I spent time fishing with my father.

F2S: The comparison to Rust Belt Ohio is fascinating. It’s a part of the country that many have come to know through the writings of J.D. Vance, who is now a Republican Senator from the Buckeye State. Did you read his book Hillbilly Elegy, and what did you think about it?

BL: I did read it. Vance was clearly hurt by the way he grew up. That kind of hurt wasn’t my experience. Rather than deciding that my family and the people around me were doomed to fail and deserved it - as Vance does - I instead think about the lack of resources for these communities and the people who live there. And I think about what these people could accomplish with those resources.

The book Dopesick by Beth Macy offers some anecdotes to Vance’s perspective. It explains what happened in these small towns around the opioid epidemic and how the people are recovering.

F2S: So if Vance’s approach is to blame people and find a way out, how would you explain your approach?

BL: I view my responsibility as helping people. I am big on reaching back, a value that my mother taught me.

F2S: You did, however, leave Western Massachusetts - How did that happen?

BL: I applied to Boston University and Boston College and was rejected by both institutions. I was accepted to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a full ride. But like a lot of people in their late teens, I was eager to expand my horizons. I’d always wanted to go to D.C., so I ended up applying to, and getting accepted at, George Washington University.

F2S: You are a Democrat, but there was a time in your life that you aligned yourself more with the Republicans. Why did you switch parties for a while?

BL: During the financial crises of 2008, I became angry because I didn’t feel the Obama Administration was doing enough to help everyday people. My turn to the Republican Party was a type of protest. It was an emotional reaction. That experience was very similar to what a lot of Trump supporters are going through.

F2S: So what brought you back to the Democrats?

BL: At Howard University, where I attended law school, I was around students from backgrounds reflective of my own. This had a profound impact on me and started my seeing things a bit differently.

What the Republicans were selling about “self-reliance” was a sort of scam designed to play on working-class resentment. I came to realize that this scam was really about entrenching their own authority.

In short, I let my anger get the better of me for a while. But it proved a good period in my life because it gave me empathy for people who find themselves in that same spot.

F2S: After law school, where did you work?

BL: I’ve been involved in several organizations.

• The National Credit Union Administration was where I started as a contractor, working to clean up the aftermath of the financial crises. We were focused on cleaning up credit unions, how they mitigate risk, and generally tried to shore things up.

• After this I went to the National Association of Federally Insured Credit Unions where I served as a regulatory compliance counsel. I focused on managing cyber-security risks and consumer protection.

• I then returned to NCUA as a writer of rules and regulations on a number of issues: payday lending and mergers, among others.

• I left there to go to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I focused on student loans, auto loans, mortgages, and credit card markets.

• Today, I’m in private practice at Orrick, Harrington, & Sutcliffe. I wanted to get into private practice because I could not run for office working in the government.

F2S: If you win this seat, you - like Joel Griffin - will be a junior member. What will you focus on? And what do you believe you can accomplish?

BL: Because the voting margins will be so tight in the General Assembly, I will have an important role to play in setting budgets.

I also believe that I can play a role in helping to build a coalition around affordable child care.

Jennifer McClellan had developed a $4 Billion plan for child care that’s workable. From a practical standpoint, I believe child care is an easier sell in a tightly divided Senate than affordable housing. The price tag is high, but that’s because of the complexities of the plan.

We can build a bipartisan coalition around this issue because the pandemic set women’s economic potential back a generation. Youngkin could be the governor who put people back to work. This child care plan is a pro-business model.

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