Republican power in the Massachusetts Senate has become a bit more robust, increasing the minority party’s minimal local influence in a year expected to be dominated by Democratic wins nationally.
Fitchburg City Councillor Dean Tran was formally sworn in Wednesday, bringing the number of GOP senators in the 40-member chamber from six to seven. Tran defeated another local official, Democratic Leominster City Councilor Sue Chalifoux Zephir, to flip the seat vacated by former Sen. Jennifer Flanagan (D-Fitchburg) when she resigned to join the new Cannabis Control Commission.
“I don’t mind being part of the minority group,” Tran said in his first remarks in the temporary Senate chamber.
“I’m accustomed to that, because not everyone is a first generation immigrant from a communist country, who at the age of two, drifted in the ocean to seek freedom. Not everyone has lived in a refugee camp not knowing when and where the next meal will come,” Tran said.
Tran, 42, was born in Vietnam and fled the country with his parents before arriving in the U.S. He is the first Vietnamese-American elected to the state Legislature.
There are 34 Republicans in the 160-member Massachusetts House of Representatives.
Tran ran on a platform of controlling taxes and spending on Beacon Hill, the basics of the moderate GOP playbook championed by Gov. Charlie Baker, the state’s only major Republican elected official. Baker was asked after Tran’s swearing-in why his party can win a traditionally Democratic seat in some areas of the state yet often fails to even field candidates in others.
“Look, there are some districts in Massachusetts where Republicans have a shot and there are some where they don’t. I think in this particular district where City Councilor Tran ran, he already had a pretty strong base of support in the local community, people knew him,” Baker said.
Wednesday Senate session saw the departures of Flanagan and newly-elected Lynn Mayor Tom McGee. McGee’s open seat will most likely be filled by Democratic Rep. Brendan Crighton, McGee’s former aide, who is running unopposed in the Democratic primary and will not face a Republican in the general election.
