Dana Bullister, running for City Council, hadn’t planned on getting into politics until a friend who used to serve on the Cambridge City Council encouraged her to run. Since she’s new to the political scene, her campaign focuses heavily on making political influence fairer for everyone.
By profession, Bullister is a data scientist. She has a background in computer science, economics, and development policy. She believes that her skills with data could bring fresh ideas and perspectives to the council.
“Fundamentally, I think that a really successful city council is a diverse city council, both in terms of the demographic backgrounds of the city councilors, but also in terms of the skill sets of the city councilors,” Bullister said.
She also pointed out how her graduate studies at Northeastern University would help her contribute effectively.
“I basically launched this initiative on how to effectively use data gathered from community insights, and really effectively form them into better local policy,” Bullister said. “That’s kind of been my life’s work for the past few years.”
Bullister mentioned that her research experience makes her well-prepared to understand what the city actually needs.
“How do you get all voices at the table in a way that accurately informs the real needs of everybody in our city?” Bullister said, explaining the main focus of her work.
A native of Boston and graduate from Wellesley College, Bullister probably would have stuck with research if she hadn’t settled deeply into life here – she’s lived in Cambridge for seven years now.
Her experiences living here and meeting people sparked her passion for fairness when it comes to political power – which is at the heart of her campaign.
Bullister says that fairness in who holds political power “directly underpins” many things she cares about – like affordable housing, better public transit options, and investing more in young people.
She feels this issue affects everything “across the board.” But one clear example is money’s role in politics – which she says creates big problems around influence.
“Someone who’s a millionaire or a billionaire can contribute anything that they want into this local election, if they’re, say, the CEO, or a top executive at one of these companies, and they can absolutely put it into the campaign and try and buy the election,” Bullister said. “So nothing at all is stopping these people from doing it.”
Bullister pointed out how easy it is for big money interests to sway local elections. She mentioned Amazon’s recent attempt to influence Seattle’s City Council as an example-and warned this could happen anywhere else too.
“Elections are to be sold at this very moment,” Bullister continued. “Cambridge is up for sale.”
Despite all that, Bullister thinks Cambridge has what it takes to lead by example when it comes to fixing these problems around fair political influence.
“I think that Cambridge can not only address its own problem with equity and political influence, it can inspire and lead the way for other cities, and other governments, to address this problem in a deliberate and hopefully, new and fresh way,” Bullister said.
Bullister hopes she’s just starting something bigger-a chance for more new faces like hers stepping into politics.
“I hope to inspire more people like me, generally never thinking about going into politics-as I never did-to actually take an interest,” Bullister said.
Source link
