2nd person announces primary challenge to US Sen. Markey

In this May 20, 2018 file photo, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., arrives at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum for the Profile in Courage Award ceremonies in Boston. Steve Pemberton, a business executive who lives in Framingham, Mass., announced Tuesday, July 23, 2019, that he will challenge Markey in the 2020 Democratic primary. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

BOSTON — A business executive who spent his childhood in what he calls unstable, cruel and at times violent foster homes announced a primary challenge Tuesday to Democratic Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Edward Markey.

Steve Pemberton, 52, whose memoir about his time as a foster child was turned into a movie, released a YouTube video highlighting his past and scheduled campaign events in New Bedford, Boston and Worcester.

“I am running to represent Massachusetts in the United States Senate because we need leaders who understand the human toll of failed policies and the cost of wilful indifference to our families,” Pemberton said in a statement.

He is the second person to challenge Markey in the September 2020 primary. Shannon Liss-Riordan, a Brookline-based workers’ rights lawyer, said in May she would run.

An email was left with a spokeswoman for Markey.

Markey, 72, served in the U.S. House for 37 years before winning election in 2013 to the Senate seat previously held by Democrat John Kerry.

Pemberton, a New Bedford native, Boston College graduate and married father of three, recently moved to Framingham. A former college admissions counsellor, he has been an executive at pharmacy company Walgreens and is currently chief human resources officer at Workhuman, a Framingham-based technology company.

In the statement announcing his run, he said he was born to a single alcoholic mother and an absent father lost to gun violence. His memoir, “A Chance in the World,” was published in 2012 and later made into a movie.

He also condemned the tactics of Republican President Donald Trump in his announcement.

“At a time when we have a president who wakes up each day more focused on who he can hurt rather than who he can help — from his racist attacks on congresswomen of colour to his destructive immigration policies — we need elected officials that can help restore trust and integrity to a society whose norms have been shattered.”

Trump has denied that his comments were racist.

Mark Pratt, The Associated Press