US Rep. Omar endorses Massachusetts 4th District candidate Ihssane Leckey
Last month, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) endorsed progressive Ihssane Leckey, one of 11 candidates vying in the September primary for the Massachusetts 4th Congressional District seat being vacated by Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III.
The endorsement was the first Omar, one of the first two Muslim women elected to the House of Representatives, made through her political action committee, the Inspiring Leadership Has A Name PAC (ILHAN PAC).
Leckey, a Brookline, Mass. resident and Moroccan native who is a former Wall Street regulator and an immigrant Muslim woman, was the first to declare her candidacy -- months before Kennedy announced his own run for Senate.
Before deciding to challenge Kennedy, Leckey organized neighbors and volunteers from groups such as the National Nurses Campaign to Heal America, Our Revolution and the Democratic Socialists of America, as well as from Kennedy’s constituents, to call on him to take action on three causes: Medicare For All, The Green New Deal, and the impeachment of President Trump.
Leckey focused on Kennedy because, first of all, she lives in his district, and felt he was out of touch with the needs of his constituents.
"It's a historically progressive Congressional district of 34 towns, and it's also a district that has been underrepresented for a long time," she said recently in Brookline.
Leckey said she's running to be a voice for people who were not born into privilege, and those who have suffered trauma of any type can relate to her personal story of surviving and getting ahead by relying on her own resources and will to succeed.
"We want to end the trauma cycle for all," she continued, "whether the affected might be students, parents, victims of abuse, the elderly, immigrants, women, LGBTQ individuals, people of color."
Brookline, she feels, has not been wholly represented in all ways. For example, she cited documented mold and other hazards in the town's public housing buildings, local schools becoming increasingly crowded as well as underfunded, Brookline seniors being priced out of their homes, parents struggling with skyrocketing childcare costs, and that young professionals are often unable to remain in the town they grew up in because of exorbitant student loan debt, high rents and other basic costs of living.
Leckey can relate to every one of these challenges, as well as to other struggles that are unique to her personal experience. Her mother, a farmer who only had a fifth grade education, raised none children. Her father, who died of a stroke when she was 13, taught in remote public schools and advocated for girls' education. His death, she later learned, was due to the inaccessibility of specialists, and the family's lack of money for medical care.
In 2005, families were not separated, border walls were not a hotbed issue. Nevertheless, Leckey, who was then 20, needed to overcome insurmountable obstacles in order to arrive in this country. "First of all, my family was not wealthy, And in order to obtain a visitor visa, you needed to prove that you had money in the bank so that if you needed to come back you could," she explained. (Residential visas were out of the question, because those entailed a lottery.) Under the Diversity Visa program, the US government allocates different percentages of quotas to varied countries. Morocco had 7 percent, which was skewed toward the privileged.
To enable Ihssane to obtain her visitor visa, her family borrowed money to show that they had the necessary means. Leckey was then able to escape a forced marriage that had already been arranged. "We were young and poor, and neither of us were ready for marriage," she said. But it was decided for them, because people had seen them on the street. Her mother was however able to negotiate two years for her to finish college.
She believed that in the US, she would be free, safe, and enjoy opportunities that Morocco did not offer women. Nonetheless, she soon found herself poor again, moving repeatedly within New York City. She did meet her husband, a physicist who works in energy markets, but at that time he was a former student living in his parents' basement. She herself was a babysitter of twins, making $5 per hour, as well as at tips-only restaurant jobs. Opportunity again did not manifest for those of less means.
Eventually, Leckey attended the Borough of Manhattan Community College and then, Boston University. She became a special examiner at the Federal Reserve in Boston and Philadelphia, where she worked on regulating the banks that were deemed "too big to fail" during the Great Recession.
But some of her fellow regulators, who were unbound by noncompete style agreements, wound up working at big banks. "That wasn't going to be me," she said. Further, she saw how new administrations would install their own Fed picks, who would actually deregulate. Seeing the will of the people thereby diminished, she decided to leave her job and continue her mission of public service.
It was the 2018 Cavanaugh hearings that inspired her to run for Congress. "As a female survivor of abuse, I witnessed how Dr. Ford was being questioned by all these men of power who clearly did not want to believe her. And I have been there."
The Muslim ban had happened. The Women's March had happened. It was hoped that the people would rise.
"I’m a survivor, I’m an immigrant, I’m a Wall Street regulator, I’m a mother,” she said.
She had come to the US for safety. "But women realized that we have to take it into our own hands," she said. "We don't wait for people in power to give us the protection we need. We run to make that a reality for all Americans."
She attended an October, 2018 fundraiser at Hops N Scotch in Coolidge Corner for now-Select Board member Raul Fernandez that featured Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Leckey sat with other attendees, who after hearing of her experiences, suggested that she consider her own campaign for Congress.
"I spoke with AOC," Leckey recalled. "We recognized one another from college (they had both worked on a university project to benefit victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti), and she urged me to run."
Leckey said she is emotionally connected to her district. "From Fall River to Brookline, I feel that I understand and connect with the people and their concerns," she said.
Rep. Kennedy, she maintains, is a nice person who has sincerely aimed to represent his constituents well. "I think he has done the best he can," she said. "However, he has not lead -- on single-payer health care, on proactive environmental solutions such as the Green New Deal, he had to be pushed by citizen activities to do the right thing, and he is willing to make deals with Trump that fund ICE, CBP, and the wall."
Leckey, who is more in line with the policies of the "Squad," said that Kennedy has been the recipient of campaign funding from big corporations and banks.
"When you take money from Pharma and you let those big corporations legislate, you will not be a true advocate for the people you serve; you will not be representing 100 percent of their interests," she said. "You would be beholden to their lobbyists. And people need someone bold and unafraid to take this rigged system of corporate interests to task."
Leckey's campaign backs free, universal education -- including meals and summer programs -- all the way to higher ed.
"Education is a human right, and it shouldn't matter where you live in District 4," she said. "Students in Fall River and Taunton should receive the same level of quality as those in Brookline, Bewton and Wellesley."
As a mother of an 8-year-old daughter, she also backs universal childcare, and assistance for families with young children, including 36 weeks of paid parental leave with job retention.
These initiatives would be funded through a tax on the super-rich, while alleviating taxes on middle-and lower-income workers. Instead of money going to large corporations or to funding endless wars, she wants it invested in people. As for climate change, Leckey said she fears for her daughter, who will be 19 when the scientific community's projected 12-year limitation to reverse climate change expires.
Leckey has been endorsed by 3P, the People's Policy Project, a crowdfunded think tank founded by attorney and activist Matt Bruenig.
She stresses that she is not running to "throw her hat in the ring," but rather, to help the underprivileged in her district obtain truly progressive representation.
She has been building coalitions across the district by attending myriad community events. Prior to the current pandemic, she spoke at anti-gun violence and interfaith solidarity and immigration support events. She led an LGBTQ Muslim group at the annual Pride March in Boston, and organized with the Jewish community around anti-Semitism and Islamaphobia awareness.
"I plan to knock on 100,000 doors," she said. "I have done this extensively in my civic and professional life, she said, "and will do the same in the halls of Congress."
