THE QUESTION of whether state Rep. Chris Flanagan’s campaign finance shenanigans – which state regulators said “delayed and obstructed” their investigation into spending on his 2022 race – will cost him his seat won’t be answered until November. But the sketchy antics of the freshman Democrat have apparently led to him drawing a challenger.
Flanagan earlier this year appeared to be sailing to an uncontested reelection in a district that includes Dennis, Yarmouth, and Brewster. Now he may face a Republican challenger in a purple Cape Cod district that has flip-flopped between the two parties. Flanagan’s predecessor, Republican Tim Whelan, held the seat for eight years before leaving to unsuccessfully run for Barnstable County sheriff in 2022.
State regulators earlier this year accused Flanagan of repeatedly misleading them as they tried to find out who was behind a phony mailer sent to voters in 2022, before he confessed it was him. In May, he resigned from his second job as executive officer of the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Cape Cod, but has stayed in his House seat.
The April letter from regulators, laying out the sordid saga, was released just before a deadline for potential candidates to get on the ballot. That meant that a Republican challenger must get 150 write-in votes in September’s GOP primary in order to appear on the November ballot against Flanagan.
Gerald O’Connell, a Marine who grew up in Yarmouth, this week filed with the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance to set up a Republican campaign committee and start fundraising. He did not respond to requests for comment.
It’s unclear whether Tracy Post, who ran against Flanagan in 2022 and was elected to Yarmouth’s select board in May, will also mount a write-in campaign for the GOP nomination. She did not respond to a message left Thursday.
In the meantime, Flanagan, who emptied much of his campaign kitty to resolve the campaign finance violations, has struggled to fundraise since the violations were first revealed in April. He had just over $2,000 in cash on hand at the end of June, a far cry from the $23,000 he had at the same point in the 2022 election cycle. At the beginning of July, Flanagan donated $5,100 to himself.
Like O’Connell and Post, Flanagan is keeping quiet, too. He did not return a request for comment this week, but his predecessor, Whelan, who recently moved out of the district, said he was glad to see someone stepping up to challenge him.
“He is a disgrace and he has absolutely no business running for reelection,” Whelan said.
Transpo task force buckling down
The task force charged with coming up with a long-term sustainable financing plan for the state’s transportation system is starting to show a little sense of urgency.
The task force held its first meeting in late February and has been meeting roughly once a month ever since. The one exception on the schedule has always been August – the task force was taking that month off.
Now the task force is meeting in August, too. The announcement was made at the task force meeting earlier this week. Questions about the change directed to the office of Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt, the co-chair of the task force, were instead referred to the office of Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz, her co-chair.
“It doesn’t really change the full schedule,” said Gorzkowicz’s spokesman Matt Murphy. “It’s mostly reflective of people being available and eager to be engaged.”
Members of the panel say the added meeting is also reflective of the fact that the task force has a long way to go, got off to what some view as a very slow start, and has very little time left to hash out a financing plan by the deadline of December 31. The politics are also challenging, Comments Tibbits-Nutt made in April about tolls and other revenues prompted Gov. Maura Healey to declare border tolls off limits.
