The congressman from the 8th District is Michael Capuano, the winner of a 10-candidate brawl in the 1998 Democratic primary who has been safe ever since. Over the past 70 years, this district has been represented alternately by townies and Kennedys: James Michael Curley, the scampish five-term mayor of Boston and one-term governor was followed by John F. Kennedy in 1946. Then, from 1952, the seat belonged to Tip O’Neill of North Cambridge and Boston College, who rose to become speaker of the House. After he retired in 1986, the seat went to Joe Kennedy, son of Robert Kennedy. Then came Capuano, who was born and raised in Somerville. His paternal grandfather emigrated from Italy, and his father was the first Italian-American elected official in Somerville. His mother is the granddaughter of Irish immigrants. Capuano graduated from Dartmouth and Boston College Law School. Read More

The congressman from the 8th District is Michael Capuano, the winner of a 10-candidate brawl in the 1998 Democratic primary who has been safe ever since. Over the past 70 years, this district has been represented alternately by townies and Kennedys: James Michael Curley, the scampish five-term mayor of Boston and one-term governor was followed by John F. Kennedy in 1946. Then, from 1952, the seat belonged to Tip O’Neill of North Cambridge and Boston College, who rose to become speaker of the House. After he retired in 1986, the seat went to Joe Kennedy, son of Robert Kennedy. Then came Capuano, who was born and raised in Somerville. His paternal grandfather emigrated from Italy, and his father was the first Italian-American elected official in Somerville. His mother is the granddaughter of Irish immigrants. Capuano graduated from Dartmouth and Boston College Law School.

He returned to Somerville to raise his family, practice law, and enter politics. By day, he worked for the legislature’s Joint Committee on Taxation and practiced law. In off-hours, he served as alderman of the 5th Ward, as his father had. He then won election five times as Somerville mayor. For decades an Irish and Italian town, Somerville now has many graduate students and young couples. Capuano seems to have been the right politician for this mix, with deep Somerville roots and a penchant for innovation and reform. He had a solid base of support to run for the 8th District seat when Joe Kennedy declined to seek re-election. In a 10-candidate field, Capuano led with 23%, with former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn (1983-93) the runner-up at 17%.

In the House, Capuano is well to the left on the political spectrum. He has supported same-sex marriage and he harshly criticized the Bush administration’s handling of the war in Iraq. On the Financial Services Committee, he has worked closely with Massachusetts neighbor and fellow Democrat Barney Frank, pressing in 2010 for an amendment to the financial regulation bill requiring annual shareholder approval of corporate political spending. When some Catholic bishops said in 2004 that they would deny communion to presidential candidate John Kerry of Massachusetts because of his support for abortion rights, Capuano was out front with a public reply that Catholics should be able to vote their conscience.

Capuano is close to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who grew up in Baltimore as the daughter of a congressman and shares with Capuano an urban, ethnic political background. After Democrats won the majority in 2006, Pelosi put Capuano in charge of the transition. Tasked with helping to revise party caucus rules and ethics guidelines, Capuano emphasized inclusion and reform. In March 2008, the House passed his chief proposal, creating an Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent board that for the first time allowed non-lawmakers to review possible ethics violations by House members. Capuano also chaired the House Administration Committee’s Capitol Security Subcommittee, in charge of the Capitol Police force and other internal operations of Congress, and the Commission on Mailing Standards, which supervises franked mail, another sensitive insider task that requires the trust of House leaders. Republicans groused about possible free speech violations in a Capuano proposal to require House approval of members’ postings on outside websites, but he responded that the criticism was “laughably inaccurate.”

Despite his close proximity to the leadership, Capuano has a penchant for pugnacious commentary. In February 2009, he told the corporate titans of eight banks that took a government bailout: “All or most of you engaged in all or some of the activities that created this crisis. You come here today on your bicycles after buying Girl Scout cookies and helping out Mother Teresa. You’re saying, ‘We’re sorry. We didn’t mean it. We won’t do it again. Trust us.’ America doesn’t trust you any more.” In September 2010, before his party was swamped in the election that year, Capuano complained openly about President Barack Obama and his top advisers to The Daily Beast website: “They’re too disconnected from the grass roots and members of the House close to the grass roots,” he said. “If they don’t change, we’ll probably be stuck in the same situation in two years, and then they’ll be on the ballot.” After Democrats lost their House majority in the election, despite his alliance with Pelosi, he said that the entire leadership team should step down, and told Politico, “If the Red Sox came in and lost every game of the year and they kept the manager at the end of the year, that’s a problem. That’s what we seem to be on the verge of doing.” But he nonetheless supported Pelosi for minority leader when she announced she would seek the post.

After the death of Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, Capuano entered the special election race to fill the remainder of his term. Pelosi endorsed him and came to his defense when Democratic candidate Martha Coakley, the state attorney general, criticized his vote in 2009 for the health care overhaul that included an amendment banning coverage for abortions in insurance plans receiving federal funds. He emphasized his vote against the USA PATRIOT Act and its provision authorizing roving wiretaps. But Coakley had superior name recognition and won the Dec. 8, 2009, primary 47%-28%. Capuano carried Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea and Somerville in his district plus seven small towns in western Massachusetts; in two others he was tied with Coakley. But he lost just about everywhere else. Coakley went on to lose the general election to Republican Scott Brown.

Capuano has been re-elected by wide margins. He faces a potential problem in post 2010 census redistricting. Massachusetts will lose a House seat, which means that unless one of its 10-member Democratic delegation retires, at least two of them will be facing each other in a primary.