After being forced to run for re-election on a sticker campaign, Massachusetts Rep. Carl Sciortino won his Democratic primary last night by a wide margin. Sciortino defeated Somerville Alderman Bob Trane, who conceded last night.

Sciortino, a Victory Fund endorsee, launched the write-in campaign after his nomination papers disappeared from his State House office in the spring. Despite legal challenges to get his name on the ballot, Trane’s name was the only one that appeared.

To cope with the disadvantage, Sciortino enlisted a “massive army of volunteers to bring out his supporters on yesterday’s primary.

“When I first ran four years ago I was told it couldn’t be done. This year I was told you can’t win on stickers. Well, we proved the naysayers wrong four years ago and today voters in Medford and Somerville rejected the campaign tactics of divisiveness and chose to vote on the issues,” Sciortino told his supporters last night.

Sciortino first won election to the Massachusetts legislature in 2004, unseating eight-year incumbent Vincent Ciampa. Ciampa voted for a law that would define marriage as between a man and a woman.

According to the Somerville News, Sciortino’s is the first successful write-in campaign at the state level since Sal Albano 1984.

Four years after Victory endorsee unseated incumbent Vincent Ciampa in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, the openly gay candidate faces a tough challenge in defending his job from Somerville Alderman Bob Trane. However, gay paper The Bay Windows has endorsed Sciortino over his opponent, who also supports marriage equality.

The Bay Windows writes:

This is an easy one. The LGBT community needs to make sure Rep. Carl Sciortino wins his re-election fight to hold onto his 34th Middlesex District seat, which includes portions of Somerville and Medford. When Sciortino was first elected in 2004 his victory was seen as a David-and-Goliath story symbolic of the strength of the marriage equality movement; he was a young openly gay man running a grassroots campaign who unexpectedly and narrowly defeated Vincent Ciampa, a 16-year incumbent who strongly opposed marriage equality. But once Sciortino took office he soon showed the LGBT community that he was more than just a symbol.

Sciortino made history in the Bay State when he worked with transgender activists to file the first statewide transgender civil rights legislation this session. He cosponsored the bill, which would add trans-inclusive language to the state’s anti-discrimination and hate crimes laws, with Rep. Byron Rushing, and last March he helped organize testimony for the Judiciary Committee hearing on the bill, the first legislative hearing focused on trans issues in the state’s history. Sciortino also helped win funding increases for LGBT youth and HIV/AIDS programs in the state budget this year, and as a freshman legislator in 2005 he addressed his colleagues from the floor of the constitutional convention and urged them to protect the right of same-sex couples to marry. In just four years Sciortino has become one of the House’s most dedicated champions of LGBT rights.

Sciortino faces an uphill fight against Somerville Alderman Bob Trane, who is challenging him for his seat. On primary day Trane’s name will be the only one on the ballot, since Sciortino did not turn in the required number of certified signatures to appear on the ballot to the secretary of state’s office by the deadline. Sciortino claims the signatures were stolen from his State House office. He has been forced to run as a sticker candidate to hold onto his seat. Whether the signatures were stolen or simply lost, the campaign’s failure to keep better track of such crucial paperwork was an unfortunate slip-up. But since then the Sciortino has picked himself up and run an impressive campaign, reaching out to voters in the district, managing a powerhouse fundraising operation, and even scoring a rare primary endorsement from Gov. Deval Patrick. Trane may be good on LGBT isssues, but the bottom line is the LGBT community needs Sciortino back on Beacon Hill, and he deserves our support.

On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Senate voted to repeal a 1913 state law that prohibits couples from obtaining marriage licenses if marriage in the couple’s home state is prohibited. Now, openly gay State Rep. Carl Sciortino says the bill is poised to pass the House.

According to the Victory endorsed incumbent, before the recent California marriage ruling the Massachusetts bill had been left “on the backburner.” Sciortino said that conservative legislators feared that allowing out-of-state marriages would flood the state with eager same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses.

“The timing was appropriate and we now have solid support in the House and Senate,” Sciortino said. “MassEquality has also been front and center in pushing for the repeal.”

Now that California has become the first state to allow out-of-state gay couples to marry, there is less opposition in Massachusetts. The repeal is supported by Democratic leadership in the House and the Senate, as well as by Gov. Deval Patrick.

Arguments for the repeal claim that opening equal marriage to out-of-state couples would draw thousands of couples to Massachusetts, boosting the economy by $111 million, creating 330 jobs and generating $5 million in taxes and fees over three years.

Originally created to prevent interracial marriages in the state, the law was brought back to life in 2004 by then-Gov. Mitt Romney, who ordered town clerks to enforce the law to deny out-of-state gay couples from marrying.

“It is absolutely essential that we repeal this measure,” said Sciortino. “This is a measure that has been historically discriminatory, first used to attack interracial marriage and now being used against the LGBT community.”

The House is expected to vote on the repeal in the coming week.

A new bill sponsored by openly gay Massachusetts state Rep. Carl Sciortino would extend state benefits to gay and lesbian servicemen and women who have been discharged under the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy.

The bill would provide the soldiers with the same tax breaks, welcome home and education benefits granted to their straight counterparts. According to The Somerville Journal, the legislation would not cover any federal benefits.

While some onlookers have raised concerns over whether the bill would jeopardize federal benefits, Navy veteran Barbara Greene testified in support of the bill.

“All service personnel, regardless of their sexual orientation, need to receive equal treatment under state law,” she said. “I would say that it’s not the money that we would lose, but the lack of honor for all the people that have been in service.”

To contribute to Carl’s re-election campaign, click here.