It looks like state Sen. Steven Baddour could have an opponent in the fall election.
Stephen Cole, a retired electrical engineer who lives in Newburyport, has taken out papers to run for state senator as a Republican.
Cole, 75, ran for mayor of Newburyport in 2005. He waged a low-budget campaign during which he opposed the construction of a parking garage in the downtown. He placed last in the preliminary election, drawing 30 votes, less than 1 percent of the total cast.
"I've been thinking about this for a while," he said. Because he is retired, he said he has plenty of time to put into serving as a state senator.
Baddour, D-Methuen, has represented the 1st Essex District since 2002. He hasn't faced strong opposition since then, but said he isn't taking anything for granted this time around.
"I welcome Mr. Cole to the race. It's not my seat. It's the people's seat," he said, echoing comments made by Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown in his campaign against Democrat Martha Coakley earlier this year.
Baddour, Senate chairman of the Legislature's Transportation Committee, said he offers an "independent" record after eight years as a state senator.
For example, he said that while Gov. Deval Patrick supports issuing driver's licenses to illegal aliens and charging them in-state tuition at state colleges and universities, he opposes both ideas.
And when Patrick asked the Legislature to raise the sales tax from 5 percent to 6.25 percent, Baddour voted against the measure, which passed. He also opposed Patrick's unsuccessful efforts to increase the income and gasoline taxes.
Baddour, 40, a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Massachusetts School of Law, is a lawyer. He served on the staff of then-state Sen. James Jajuga, whom he succeeded in the Senate after Jajuga was named secretary of public safety by acting Gov. Jane Swift. Baddour is also a former assistant state attorney general.
Cole is now gathering signatures for his run against Baddour. He needs 300 signatures, validated by town and city clerks in the district, to have his name listed on the September Republican primary ballot.
If elected, Cole said he wants to reduce the power of labor unions and "get rid of lobbyists.
"Big unions have killed this country," he said. He said he would support legislation that would protect workers from being forced to join a union as a condition of employment.
He also wants to bar lobbyists from the Statehouse. They are "getting in the pockets of representatives," he said.
Cole earned an electrical engineering degree from Lowell Technical Institute, now the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He has lived in Newburyport for most of his life, and earned a liberal arts degree from Northern Essex Community College. Before retiring, he worked at Western Electric in North Andover, which eventually became known as AT&T.
He is a veteran, having served a total of 21 years in the National Guard and Army Reserve. He was scoutmaster of Troop 8 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Newburyport.
The last time Baddour faced an opponent was in 2004, when Leo Martin, a Haverhill machinist, ran against him as a Republican. Baddour was re-elected with 69 percent of the vote.
But Haverhill City Councilor William Ryan, a longtime GOP politician, said no officeholder should take re-election for granted, especially in the wake of Brown's victory over Coakley on Jan. 19.
"Everything is on the table," Ryan said. He noted that Brown carried almost every community in the 1st Essex District and won Haverhill by about 60 percent.
The last time a Republican won the 1st Essex District Senate seat was when James "Jake" Rurak, the father of former Haverhill Mayor James Rurak, was elected back in 1958. The closest a Republican has come to winning it since then was in the 1983 special election, when former Newburyport Mayor Byron Matthews, the Republican nominee, lost to Nicholas Costello by just 320 votes.
The district is made up of Methuen, Haverhill, Merrimac, Amesbury, Salisbury, Newburyport and precincts 1, 4, 6, and 8 in North Andover.
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