More in the race for governor

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin

Green party gubernatorial candidate Jill Stein has released her 2009 taxes so that every voter in Massachusetts can know her business, and she’s calling on the other candidates to do the same (from a press release sent this morning):

As candidates, we owe it to the people to give them as much information as possible to help them make an informed choice. That means developing well-articulated policies, offering honest answers to difficult questions, and participating in debates and community forums. This should also include the release of key financial information, such as tax returns. This is the sort of transparency that I think the voters want from the person who will be their next Governor.”

But let’s get to the good stuff (more from the press release, all [sic]‘ed out):

Steins returns, which are a joint filing with her husband, showed that the bulk of the family income was in the form of wages earned by Steins husband who is a surgeon. Stein is herself a physician, but most of her work in recent years as a public health researcher and environmental health physician has been done pro-bono, or in uncompensated support of grants given to non-profit public interest organizations. The familys gross income for 2009 was $324,000.

Grace Ross to make “big announcement”

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin

Worcester’s own gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross will make a “big announcement” on the State House steps today at 10:00. We’ve been unable to reach her so far this morning, but our best guess is that she’ll announce that she’s gotten the number of signatures needed to be a candidate at the state Democratic convention and face Deval Patrick in a primary.

Update: The Boston Herald reports that Ross failed to get the 10,000 signatures she needed to get on the ballot.

Update II: We just got off the phone with Ross, who said that gathering the signatures was easy because of “the anger on the ground” regarding the economy and the lack of a “regular person” in the race, but it was just that her campaign couldn’t find enough volunteers to gather all the names necessary. “The story really needs to be are any of the other candidates going to step up and address that anger on the ground?”

Ross says that she’ll “stay in the dialogue” and some of her supporters are discussing a write-in campaign, but she’s focused on her new book coming out called Main Street Smarts, which deals with the foreclosure crisis.