Rep. Paul Frost rises to challenge from rival in state primary

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported Rep. Paul Frost's hometown.

In his bid for a 29th and 30th year representing a portion of Worcester County, Paul Frost, R-Auburn, is out there doing his job as a candidate — meeting people, attending community events, raising funds, sending out mailers, knocking on doors and offering residents an honest conversation about what is happening in Massachusetts and the district.

Frost, one of 25 Republicans serving in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, is being challenged by fellow Millbury resident and Republican Michelle Frigon. It’s his first primary challenge for the position since he was elected in 1996.

Frost is unperturbed by the challenge and brings the same equanimity to the race as he does to his position in the House, where he serves as second assistant minority leader.

More: Early voting in Mass. state primary begins Saturday

“It is a lot of hard work, meeting the voters, getting a feel for the issues,” Frost said, explaining that as a candidate, he believes the electorate and the politician learn from each other. There’s no name calling in his campaign, no put-downs. “If we disagree, if we have different perspectives, we can have an honest conversation about it.”

A feminist by default, Frost has three grown daughters: two college graduates from Westfield State and Worcester State and one entering her junior year at Salem State, where she plays softball.

“Sometimes they agree with Dad, sometimes they don’t. They are all their own people, and we have great conversations without acrimony,” Frost said. “I tell people, it’s OK to disagree, but it's not OK to get personal.”

A history major and graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Frost first ran for office in 1996, inspired by former Pres. Ronald Reagan. But he first cut his political teeth as a fifth grader.

“My neighbor was a selectman running for representative when I was 10 years old,” Frost said, explaining that he helped the neighbor with the campaign, handing out literature and distributing flyers. But it was after he graduated that his interest in politics intensified, and when a seat opened up in 1996, he decided to run. “I’ve been successful ever since.”

As he makes the rounds of community events and meets with residents in his district, Frost is candid about his record and proposed objectives in the House.

One of his major past victories is the passage of a law making assault and battery, with bodily injury, of a police officer a felony. It was after the murder of Auburn police Officer Ronald Tarentino in 2016 that Frost filed the bill.

“I kept hearing from police who told me they needed a law to protect them,” Frost said, explaining that before the passage of the act, assault of an officer was considered a misdemeanor offense. “That was not right, they are not punching bags.”

The officer’s killer, Jorge Zambrano, had a history of assaulting officers before the shooting.

On the horizon for the legislator is the need to modify the state’s right-to-shelter law, enacted in 1983. The measure guaranteed homeless Massachusetts families with children and pregnant women temporary housing and state services.

Now it’s a flashpoint for Massachusetts legislators as migrants flood the system and fill hotels and state-established overflow shelters.

Frost, like Gov. Maura Healey, believes it’s a crisis of the federal government's making. However, he feels changes to the law would discourage federal immigration authorities from eyeing Massachusetts as a place to send refugees.

Republicans in both branches of state government wanted to impose a residency requirement to qualify for aid and prioritize established Massachusetts families and veterans, rather than extend a full gamut of state services to new arrivals.

“This is not what the program was meant for,” Frost said. It was in the back-and-forth over the fiscal 2025 budget that legislators pushed for residency requirements. While lawmakers in both branches rejected the measures, Healey has since prioritized established Massachusetts families, pregnant people and veterans. The governor also imposed a five-day stay limit in temporary overflow shelters.

“This is unsustainable,” Frost said, referring to both the numbers of people housed in emergency shelters and the cost of the program. The state has already spent more than $1 billion in providing shelter, food and emergency assistance to the families housed in emergency shelters.

“The program needs a big fix,” Frost said.

The high cost of living in the Bay State also worries Frost. He’s a big advocate for lowering taxes and ensuring measures proposed by the governor, like the push to switch to all-electric vehicles and to implement green technology and initiatives, do not negatively impact families.

The state must examine every mandate, Frost said, to ensure it does not increase the cost of living for residents. For example, electrical appliances may be more environmentally friendly but can also add to both the expense of rehabilitating or constructing new housing and the cost of renting or purchasing a home.

“We need to be mindful that Massachusetts cannot solve global climate change by itself,” Frost said. Innovation and technology, he said, should not be implemented at the expense of residents and small businesses.

As the state implements the governor’s new $5.1 billion bonding bill, the Affordable Housing Act, Frost wants to review existing housing incentives and mandates. Trailer park homes, a staple of affordable housing in communities in his district, should be included as part of a municipality’s 10% set aside for low-income residents.

And 40B developments, created to allow developers to override local zoning bylaws in order to increase the number of affordable homes in municipalities where less than 10% of the housing is defined as affordable, must be more regulated to ensure they don’t disrupt the established character of a neighborhood.

No one wants a 90-unit development next to their single-family home, Frost said.

The candidate believes there is a lot of dreaming going on in Massachusetts right now without a lot of attention to the practical applications of policy.

“There’s nothing wrong with dreaming, but it needs to be more practical,” Frost said.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Rep. Paul Frost rises to challenge from rival in state primary