REGION – Hannah Kane, a Republican who’s running for her fifth term as state representative for the 11th Worcester District, is running against Democrat Stephen Fishman, an environmental activist who’s running for state office for the first time.
The district includes Shrewsbury and Precinct 4 of Westborough.
The state election will take place on Nov. 8.
Democrat: Stephen Fishman
Fishman and his family moved to Shrewsbury from Turners Falls in Western Massachusetts, where he owned a Domino’s Pizza franchise.
“The choice was working 110 hours a week, or seeing the kids. My wife said, ‘Let’s find a house where we can live on one salary,’” he said. “We found a house in Shrewsbury, and it turned out to be a great move.”
When his twin sons got older, Fishman began attending Democratic Town Committee meetings, and he was chosen to be a delegate to the 2016 Democratic State Convention.
In 2017, he helped organize a community group to stop the West Boylston Lateral Pipeline project in collaboration with Sustainable Westborough, the Sierra Club, the Massachusetts Audubon Society and local Town Meeting members.
It was during this time that he met Kane, “and I found I differed with Kane on the issues,” he said.
Fishman had started a consulting business for the hospitality industry, “but COVID wiped it out,” he said.
“So I had time to think about running against Kane, and decided to do so,” he said. “I’m happy to step up.”
Fishman said it’s been an interesting campaign so far.
“When I’m knocking on doors, I found that national issues have become local issues. It’s even more important to defend women’s rights, workers’ rights, the environment — the Supreme Court has sent too many things back to the states,” he said.
“Talking about the bigger picture, water quality and water sourcing, I’m concerned about more communities wanting access to the Quabbin Reservoir. Given the recent severe drought, and climate change, we need to be thinking forward.
“A big issue for Shrewsbury is trying to join Assabet. We need to find another way to [access] technical education. We need to expand online education. Everyone deserves the education that works best for them.”
For information, visit https://stephenfishman.org/.
Republican: Hannah Kane
Kane has been a Shrewsbury resident for 25 years. She and her husband live in the Pease Tavern, which dates back to 1751. They have three children — Madison, a senior at Loyola University, Caitlin, who attends Endicott College in Beverly, and Patrick, who attends St. John’s High School.
Kane has been active in the community. Locally, she serves as a Town Meeting member, president of the Shrewsbury Public Schools Foundation, the host of a charity golf tournament benefiting Shrewsbury Youth and Family Services and a member of the Central Massachusetts Opioid Task Force.
On Beacon Hill, she serves on several committees; she is currently the ranking minority House member on the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing and the Joint Committee on Public Health; a co-founder and co-chair of the Legislative Food System Caucus; a member of the Governor’s Food Security Task Force, a state director for the National Women in Government Foundation and an executive board member of the Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators.
She also helped form the Rare Disease Advisory Council, which is up and running.
She said she’s running for reelection because “public service is very much ingrained in me.”
Her top concerns within the district include food insecurity, public health and education.
“I’m concerned about the increase in food insecurity,” she said. “I’ve been working on policy and investment. I try and focus on all levels.
“We have an inefficient, ineffective local public health system. The people who work in it are terrific, but we are the only state in the nation that approaches [health care] on a town-by-town basis,” she added.
Kane said there should be more access to career technical education, and the circuit breaker for special education should be running on the state level, not on the local level.
For information, visit http://www.rephannahkane.com/.
