Deciding not to run for office, from someone who later did
I’m running for State Representative for the 34th Middlesex District in Massachusetts. In this newsletter, I’m going to document my campaign, show the process, and use it to go in depth into the policy that I want to bring into the State House.
But first, I want to share the story of why, last year, I didn’t run for office.
I live in Somerville, a city of 81,000 people just north of Boston. It’s an amazing place to live. Good schools. Walkable. Guster played at our public music festival. Sure, there are some times when it gets cold and snowy, but I still enjoy it.
Post-blizzard looking out at the Mystic River
At the start of 2025, I heard that two of our four At-Large City Councillors were going to run for Mayor, creating two open spots.
Now, this is Massachusetts, which has the least competitive state legislature in the country (much, much more on that as the campaign continues). Open seats don’t come around very often. I come from a policy background. I care about the community. So I thought to myself, I had to at least check it out.
Researching the job
There was one big problem with running I needed to tackle before I jumped in.
I didn’t actually know what the job of a City Councillor entailed.
I could have told you the formal powers of a councillor, or what they talked about at their biweekly meetings, or the issues they discussed. But as I considered actually putting my hand up and entering the race, I discovered that I didn’t know how many hours they worked, when they worked, or how they worked. Probably couldn’t have told you to what extent their work mattered either, other than a guess from watching the council as a citizen.
So I connected with a sitting councillor and asked for his thoughts on the job.
The first thing that I noticed was how candid they were. They was more than willing to share his complaints about how things worked. Like, much more than willing. Almost eager to have someone to listen about all the downsides of the job.
I then got in touch with another councillor who also shared their experiences with me. Again, surprisingly honest.
And, finally, I spoke with a local activist group who I aligned with, to get a sense of what issues they were pushing and to know if that was something I could help with.
Breaking down the job of a Councillor
I could have kept going, talking to more people and gathering the data, but after only three conversations, I had a pretty clear picture.
Running a campaign to be an at-large city councillor could be a tough job, especially if it was a crowded field for the two open seats. (Technically, all four at-large seats were up, but given the value of incumbency and name recognition, I had to think as though it were a race for only the open ones.)
I would have had to raise $20,000 or more, as a number of the candidates did, as can be seen in the below chart from the Office of Campaign and Political Finance of all city council candidates from last year.
I would also have had to, more importantly, spend most evenings knocking on doors and attending events. Because my son had just turned 3 years old, and my wife was working long hours as a doctor, that would have been a real difficulty for me. One person on the Council with children very openly told me that they didn’t think they could have run their first race with a three-year old.
What made my decision for me
Ultimately, though, the final variable was what the job entailed.
A city councillor is not a full-time job. It pays about $40,000, which sits in a weird in-between space where councillors are expected to have a day job, but also do 40 grand of taxpayer money of work every year, which is a lot. Plus, meetings are at night during weekdays and many events are on the weekends.
In essence, if I ran I would be asking my family to make really big sacrifices to allow me to run, juggling childcare, work responsibilities, and the stress of a campaign… only to be sworn in and have to keep doing that.
And, if I was honest with myself, I probably wasn’t as well suited to the issues of municipal government as some others.
Sure, I care about the issues affecting our city, and I knew I could get up to speed with the things that City Hall deals with. But my background was in the policy environments of state and federal governments. Our cities aren’t the ones setting regional zoning laws or passing laws to regulate frontier large language models. They are managing other issues, ones where there were already plenty of advocates and citizens working on them day after day?
Did I really want to spend time away from my family, so I could continue to spend time away from my family, and maybe not even be the best person for the job?
Deciding against
The question answered itself. A campaign would have been an act of selfishness. I easily made the decision to pass.
There was one lingering doubt in my mind.
What if I had been wrong, and I was the best person for the job? What if no one ran that I thought could offer what I could? Had I let my community down by choosing not to serve?
Luckily, this didn’t happen.
These four at-large seats attracted 12 candidates. As I went through their bios and platforms, I would have been happy to vote for a number of them. Even though it was an entirely self-imposed burden, it was nice to have it lifted.
Which is why, as I run now for a different seat, one that I feel much more suited for (and is also a full-time job that leaves my nights a little freer for spending time with my son), I am still a first-time candidate.
Next week, I’ll talk a bit about how that decision went the other way.
