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/* Politics */
Republican State Senator [[Scott Brown]] pulled a major upset, defeating Democrat Attorney General [[Martha Coakley]] in the election. Brown rode on a wave of voter anger at President Obama and his [[health care]] overhaul and won by a 52%-47% margin.<ref> See [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/19/us/politics/massachusetts-election-map.html?hp statistical analysis of 2010 vote]</ref>
Although once a bastion of social conservatism (the term "Banned in Boston" is still in widespread use)<ref>http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Massachusetts/id/1896007</ref> Massachusetts is known as one of the most Catholic and most liberal states. It is the most populous state to have all-Democratic congressional representation (before Brown won in 2010). It was called "Taxachusetts" because of its high tax rate, which has since been lowered by a series of Republican governors in the 1990s and 2000s ([[William Weld]], [[Paul Cellucci]], [[Jane Swift]] and [[Mitt Romney]]); they were among the most liberal Republican governors in the country.<ref>http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Massachusetts/id/1896007</ref>. Long before these governors, local and state efforts succeeded in reducing taxes, such as Proposition 2 1/2 in 1980, which regulated the rate at which local property taxes could be assessed.
Its current [[United States Senate|U.S. Senators]] are [[John Kerry]] (who unsuccessfully ran for [[President]] in 2004) and [[Scott Brown]].
