Mom, Grandma, Senator? Cindy Friedman Getting Used To New Role

ARLINGTON, MA — It's been about two weeks since Cindy Friedman, Arlington resident and former Arlington Town Meeting member, took the oath of office to represent not just the 4th Middlesex District, which includes, Arlington Billerica, Burlington, Woburn and six Lexington precincts.

And Friedman, who's been called a lot of things, including "mom" and "grandma," is still getting used to the sound of "senator."

"It's still pretty weird when friends say, 'Hi, Senator,'" she tells Patch in a recent interview.

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And when she raised her hand and took an oath to protect the constitution at the state house on July 26, a day after she beat out Green-Rainbow Party Candidate Ian Jackson by 89 percent of the vote, the experience was a little surreal.

"It was a little out of body. You’re watching yourself [and you] go, 'Woah is this really happening?'" she said. "It was exciting and it was heartbreaking."

When Democratic Senator (and also an Arlington resident) Ken Donnelly died unexpectedly of brain cancer in April, his team was floored. He was widely admired. Friedman and the rest of his staff were questioning what to do next with the mission they'd all taken on.

As happens in these cases, the state called a special election. And Friedman, the former school teacher and Town Meeting member who said she'd never had any desire to take high office herself, realized something: She loved the mission she'd been working with Donnelly to accomplish and was passionate about it continuing.

"I was telling everyone we all have two days to be sad but then you have to get up and fight and be part of the solution. I was telling all these people, and then I thought to myself, 'Oh honey it’s time for you to walk the walk,'"she said. She needed to think about her own next steps. She'd loved working for Donnelly and when she started working with him she always imagined she'd just do that as long as he was in office.

She'd seen an interview of Katherine Clark. Someone asked her about women running for office. Her response? "Do it,"she remembers.

Clark went on to say something that really resonated with Friedman.

“I see women saying, ‘I don’t have the qualifications,’ ‘I’m not sure I have the résumé,’ ‘I’m not sure I went to the right schools,’ ” she said. “Just do it. What’s important is your values, your voice . . . especially now that we have a president who doesn’t seem to value women and doesn’t seem to respect them and work for those things that we need; we need women to run.”

So, Friedman turned to her husband and said "Ok, no more excuses. If you don't swing the bat you can’t hit the ball."

Friedman threw her hat in the ring for state Senate with the support of Donnelley's staff, family and her own circle, and then took to door-knocking. Lots of door-knocking, across all the districts.

And if there was one thing that stood out about that experience?

"I was really impressed with that 99 percent of the people I talked to were incredibly nice. Even people who weren’t voting for me, those who said they were supporting someone else, they were just incredibly friendly. And they were really happy that someone went to the trouble of knocking on their door," said Friedman.

Their main concerns, she learned, for all of the communities' differences, was similar across the board.

People are worried about the cost of housing, especially when it comes to aging in place and being able to stay in the communities where they raised children. Traffic was a huge concern, as was healthcare.

While she's first to admit she doesn't have all the answers, she said she's working on understanding the issues so she can help find solutions.

"I think the healthcare issue is huge and something we all need to be paying attention to. I plan to get a deeper understanding of it it all. It’s not just cost, it’s how we deliver health care. I think if we focus on the delivery piece we might solve some of the cost issues," she said.

And on that front, she hasn't been resting. That very day she was sworn in - joining 12 other women and 27 men in current Massachusetts Senate - she turned around about an hour later to take part in her first vote on the governor's proposal to amend the state's $40 billion budget.

"I voted to reject the governor's proposal to kick hundreds of people off Mass Health. The changes of eligibility standards would have caused hundreds to lose Mass Health and and I voted no," she said.

Friedman is no rookie to politics: She'd been working arm in arm with Donnelly as his chief of staff since 2009. Before that she worked in tech and as a teacher.

She remembers loving music as she grew up. "I wanted to be the first female conductor of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra." She laughs explaining that she only recently took up piano. And didn't play an instrument as a child. "A minor detail," she says laughing.

Speaking of gender, she said, yes, she's noticed the relative low number of women to men in the Senate and she expects on some level her experience to influence her decisions different than, say, a male counterpart.

"You do notice the gender issues. It’s hard not to now they’re so pervasive in what’s going on in the world, especially right now with what’s going on in health care," she said.

But being in what has traditionally been a male-dominated profession isn't what makes her most nervous about the rest of her time in the state Senate.

"I’m mostly worried about letting people down; of people having an expectation of what I can and will do. I know how the sausage is made and I worry about letting people down and making mistakes," she said.

But she wants her constituents to know she's grateful to be where she is and will strive to be available. "It’s a really important time and everybody needs to be paying attention. And if we listen to each other we can find a lot of common ground and get things done," she said.

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