Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz, the only woman of color currently serving in the Massachusetts Senate and the first Latina elected to the state’s Senate, announced via Twitter that she will be running for governor in 2022.
Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz wastes no time in doing good
Sonia Chang-Díaz, a former public school teacher, was first sworn into office in 2009 and represents the 2nd Suffolk District. From a young age, she was instilled with the values of justice and equity and taught the importance of taking action.
In her campaign announcement video, published on Twitter, Sonia shares her family background, saying her mother was a social worker and her father was an immigrant from Costa Rica who came to the U.S. with only $50 in his pocket and went on to become NASA’s first Latino astronaut, Franklin Chang-Díaz.
“If my mom can spend a lifetime helping kids escape poverty, surely Massachusetts can pass a Millionaires Tax to help more children get a better start in life,” she says in the video. “If America can send a poor kid from Costa Rica to space, surely Massachusetts can green our infrastructure and close the racial wealth divide.”
Since she was a child, Sonia’s family taught her there is no time to waste in doing good. And she has proven that since her election into office in 2008; she has wasted no time in leading a movement to make bold, transformational change for working families in Massachusetts.
In her career thus far, Sonia has made a name for herself surrounding the issues of education funding and criminal justice reform. One landmark win in education funding reform was her work in securing $1.5 billion in new aid to K-12 districts across the state. She wrote and championed for this funding, ultimately securing the groundbreaking win. In the area of criminal justice, she has led the charge for criminal justice reform and repealing racist sentencing rules and serves as co-chair of the Joint Committee on Racial Equity, Civil Rights and Inclusion. Additionally she has helped negotiate an overhaul of policing oversight and accountability laws last year in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.
“I’m running for Governor because I’m tired of waiting”
As someone who has never wasted time in doing what needs to be done and fighting for the people’s rights, Sonia is taking the next step to ensure that Massachusetts working families are being cared for and getting what they need to thrive.
In her Tweet announcing her bid for Massachusetts Governor, she declares:
I’m running for Governor because I’m tired of waiting for our government to live up to our hopes and our families’ needs. Real change starts with us. Join our movement: https://t.co/ibVGXFVcnQ pic.twitter.com/3kVHF1Y1IW
— Sonia Chang-Díaz (@SoniaChangDiaz) June 23, 2021
“I’ve spent my life listening to powerful people tell me to slow down. To think smaller. To wait,” Sonia says in her campaign video. “Voters didn’t send me to the State Senate to wait….Every day it gets harder for working families to live here. Health care and housing costs get higher, Black and brown kids face yawning opportunity gaps. If we don’t act now, we’ll be having the same conversation about the same problems in another 10 years.”
In her video, she continues by vowing to push back against “Beacon Hill insiders” who have “dragged their feet every step of the way, saying, ‘Think smaller.’”
But Sonia has never been one to think small or hold back. “Instead, we fought unapologetically for the things working families actually need,” she says. “The trouble is, that kind of urgency in our state government is still the exception rather than the rule. Too many leaders are more interested in keeping power than doing something with it. I’m running to change that.”
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In addition to education and criminal justice reform, Sonia has been a leading champion for fair taxation, affordable housing, reliable and green public transportation, protections for immigrants, increased assistance for small and local entrepreneurs, capped fare increases for public transportation, advanced environmental justice reforms, and expanded voting rights.
With her bid for Governor, Sonia Chang-Díaz joins Harvard University professor Danielle Allen–the first Black woman to run for governor in a major political party in the state’s history, and former state Sen. Ben Downing in the race for the Democratic nomination.
