Representative Lindsay Sabadosa, co-founder of Medicare for All caucus

Hi, this is Anna Callahan and you’re listening to Incorruptible Massachusetts.  Our goal is to help people understand state politics: we’re investigating why it’s so broken, imagining what we could have here in MA if we fixed it, and reporting on how you can get involved.  

Today I’m interviewing Representative Lindsay Sabadosa.   

Lindsay Sabadosa is the State Representative from the 1st Hampshire district (Northampton, Southampton, Westhampton, Hatfield, and Montgomery). She was elected for the first time in 2018 and is the first woman to ever hold her seat. She is most active in health care policy and is the lead sponsor of the Medicare for All legislation in the MA House. She is passionate about equity, government transparency, health care as a right, affordable housing, reproductive justice, criminal justice reform, and truly addressing the climate emergency. She is proud to have co-founded the very first Medicare for All caucus in the MA State House. 

My talk with Lindsay was one of the last interviews I did, but I decided to rearrange the interviews because as I spoke to more people, each interview became more focused on the structural issues facing the State House.  By the time I interviewed Rep Sabadosa, I was better able to hone in on those systemic issues facing the house.  It was definitely not because behind the scenes, one of the people I talked to said that Lindsay was perhaps the most bad-ass of them all. 

Rep Sabadosa also brings up a topic that is very near and dear to my heart, and that I’ve developed entire candidate training programs around: that is the idea that every politician should spend time and energy reaching out to those people that might never come to a town hall, to people who don’t vote, to listen to them, to educate them, and to mobilize them.  I was thrilled to talk to a sitting state rep who embraces this practice. 

Rep Sabadosa says we need numbers — by that she means more progressives winning seats in the state house. I hope you’ll find this convincing enough that you will consider challenging the incumbent in your district. 

Without further delay, here is our interview.