Coakley seeks Kennedy's Senate seat

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley announced September 3 that she will be running in the special election to be held later this year to fill the late Senator Ted Kennedy's seat.

"We face a crisis of confidence. We have lost our distinguished and tenacious senator, Ted Kennedy," Coakley said at an event September 3. "We have depended upon him in the commonwealth and in Washington, and we will miss his strength, his leadership and his sense of humor. As some have noted, no one can fill his shoes, but we must strive to follow in his footsteps."

A Coakley representative picked up nomination papers from the Secretary of State's office the morning of September 1. The Attorney General is the first Democrat to announce her candidacy for the Senate seat.

Coakley's candidacy does not necessarily come as a surprise. News broke in February the Attorney General had already purchased the domain name "CoakleyForSenate.com." It has been surmised that she was keeping a Senate seat in mind when she filed a formal lawsuit on behalf of the state of Massachusetts against the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in July.

"Our families, our communities, and even our economy have seen the many important benefits that have come from recognizing equal marriage rights and, frankly, no downside," Coakley said during a July 8 news conference. "However, we have also seen how many of our married residents and their families are being hurt by a discriminatory, unprecedented, and, we believe, unconstitutional law."

Her filing of the lawsuit certainly garnered her a substantial amount of support within the LGBT community. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) commended Coakley and the Bay State for taking formal action against the discriminatory law. "We applaud the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for stepping forward on behalf of these families and saying, in essence, 'enough is enough.'" HRC president Joe Solmonese said in a statement July 8. "Now it is time for the federal government to take affirmative steps to challenge and repeal this discriminatory law that causes real harm to loving, married couples and their children."

Attorney General Coakley also supports House Bill 1722, which would provide protections based on gender identity and expression. Marc Solomon, formerly of MassEquality, applauded Coakley's tenacity. "When Martha Coakley stands up for something, she fights for it and we are so proud and gratified to have her fighting for equality for transgender people in Massachusetts," he told Bay Windows' Laura Kiritsy in March of 2008. "It's a sea change from where we've been in the past. It's so great to have the attorney general -- the lead civil rights spokesperson in Massachusetts -- fighting on behalf of our community."

During Coakley's 2006 campaign for Attorney General, she repeatedly expressed her support for marriage equality for same-sex couples and identified same-sex domestic violence as an issue that bore further scrutiny by the Attorney General's office.

Prior to a 2007 vote by the Massachusetts legislature on an anti-gay marriage amendment, Coakley announced her alignment with the LGBT community during a speech before the Mass. Lesbian and Gay Bar Association. "I think we can easily anticipate that if the proposed amendment was successful, there would be protracted, hard-fought litigation about the constitutionality of such a provision," she said. "If that battle is necessary, you have my support."

Coakley must gather and present 10,000 signatures to the state by November 3 to be considered for candidacy. A special election will be held to fill Kennedy's Senate seat January 19, 2010. The primary will be held December 8.