Mark Alliegro, professor of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry, announced his candidacy for Massachusetts’ 9th congressional district last month, one of four declared Republican challengers to incumbent Rep. William Keating, D-Mass.
Alliegro must win the Sept. 9 closed primary, in which only independents and registered Republicans may vote, to run against Keating in the Nov. 4 general election. If he wins the primary, he will likely face an uphill battle against Keating, who was elected to his first term in 2012 by a margin of 25 percentage points.
Denouncing the “huge, bloated and intrusive reach that the federal government has on our daily lives,” Alliegro said he believes in downsizing inefficient bureaucracy.
The United States has strayed from its “constitutional form of government,” Alliegro said, adding that restoring the government’s constitutional basis ranks atop his list of priorities and would solve many issues facing the American public.
A history buff, Alliegro said he consistently refers back to the Founding Fathers and others who had a profound impact on shaping the country. “Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘We are the rightful masters of our Congress and courts,’ but that doesn’t seem to be the case these days,” he said.
“People tend to forget that the United States is not just a land mass — it’s an idea, a destination and a land of laws created by some genius founding doctrines,” Alliegro added. By significantly altering the country’s guiding ideology, as he said the federal government has done recently, “you’ve erased the United States. What you have is just any other country in the world.”
Touting himself as a proponent of small businesses, Alliegro said he believes the federal government has gone “way overboard and created a sea of red tape” that is a “prohibitive damper of growth.” Excessive regulation imposes overly burdensome costs on small businesses, he said.
Alliegro said he strongly opposes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, arguing that the law has failed to insure the estimated 30-50 million uninsured people in the United States and to reduce medical costs. The Affordable Care Act’s reliance on youth participation is a key weakness of the law, Alliegro said, adding that enrollment for this demographic has fallen short of expectations.
“The idea that we’re going to reduce the cost of medical care always is and always was a sham,” he said. Premiums have increased and are projected to keep rising, and PolitiFact ranked the White House’s promise that people would be able to keep their current health plans as the 2013 “Lie of the Year” in December, he said.
As a Massachusetts resident, Alliegro said, he has seen the “little model version” of the Affordable Care Act in effect. Since Massachusetts enacted its health care reform law in 2006, the state has had the most expensive health premiums in the nation, he said. Though Massachusetts does not rank first in every health spending category, the state tops the nation in many cost measures, according to multiple reports.
Though Alliegro has public service experience serving as a Falmouth Town Meeting member, he has not worked extensively in politics or law. But being a legislator “doesn’t require that you be a lawyer,” he said.
Alliegro said he likes to “hail back to the old model that this country was created out of citizen representatives,” referring to John Adams, Patrick Henry and Davey Crockett. “When they had to go to Congress, they dropped their hunting muskets and their hoes and their quill pens and got on their horses and rode to Philadelphia, or later Washington, and they did their people’s business,” he said.
But “a class of political elites” now dominates Washington, he said.
Representatives are “detached from reality and the people they are supposed to represent,” Alliegro said. “We need to turn D.C. back over to the citizens.”
Alliegro said he believes his career in the biological sciences would help him apply an objective, analytical mindset to the task of evaluating legislation.
“It doesn’t make a difference what your vocation is. What you need is life experience, and I’m no spring chicken,” he said.
Michael Chapman ’84, who has worked with Alliegro as a visiting scientist in his lab at the Marine Biological Laboratory, praised his colleague’s potential ability to transfer medical experience into Capitol Hill service. “As a legislator, he would never put party politics above doing the right thing,” he said.
But before he books his ticket to Washington or even advances to the general election, Alliegro must face several Republicans with more political experience. John Chapman, a former White House aide under President Reagan and the state industrial accidents commissioner for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, launched his campaign for the seat last month. Alliegro will also be up against Plymouth County GOP Chair Vincent Cogliano Jr. and attorney Dan Shores in the Republican primary.
Alliegro said he is “not focused on other candidates,” but instead on his own campaign, highlighting his strong staff and the support he has already garnered. “I’m what a lot of people would call a small fish,” he said, acknowledging his outsider status. But “our professional and powerful team is pushing us to the forefront of this campaign,” he said.
Since Alliegro filed a declaration of candidacy in October, his campaign has raised just over $13,500, according to the Federal Election Commission, only about $500 of which is made up of loans.
But Alliegro has significantly less cash on hand than Chapman, who has $105,802 on hand compared to Alliegro’s $11,986, according to FEC filings.
Keating’s campaign declined to comment.
If Alliegro does not win the election, he will teach a course at Brown in spring 2015, he said.
Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article incorrectly stated that John Chapman had raised $105,802, significantly more than Mark Alliegro. Though Chapman's campaign has that amount of cash on hand, he lent the majority of it from his personal savings and has raised slightly under $6,000, less than Alliegro. The Herald regrets the error.
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