Petruccelli gets MassEquality endorsementGiven Travaglini's high-profile opposition to marriage equality, electing a pro-equality legislator to succeed him has symbolic value, says MassEquality Political Director Matt McTighe. Despite having supported the Travaglini-Lees marriage amendment back in 2004 — with urging from the senate president himself — Petruccelli had a change of heart on the issue after the implementation of the Supreme Judicial Court's Goodridge ruling later that year. In 2005 he voted with the majority to kill the amendment and hasn't looked back. As pro-equality forces continue their efforts to defeat a second anti-gay constitutional amendment, Petruccelli is among a group of legislators who have been lobbying their moderate and conservative colleagues to vote it down. During the last legislative session, he also supported efforts to kill the amendment procedurally and cast a substantive vote against it at the Jan. 2 constitutional convention (the amendment passed, with 62 votes; it needed just 50). "We've seen how committed he is to this and we were able to get behind him and endorse him because we know his track record," said McTighe. "We know that he is somebody who's going to fight for us at every turn."
