Boston , June 13, 2006 – The three Democratic candidates for Governor – Chris Gabrieli, Deval Patrick and Attorney General Tom Reilly – will meet on June 29th for a debate focused on health care and education in Massachusetts. The debate, which will be held at the NECN studio in Newton, will air on NECN and WBUR 90.9 at 8pm and be moderated by NECN’s R.D. Sahl. The debate will be taped the same day at 1:30pm

The debate consortium includes The Boston Globe, The Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth (MassINC), New England Cable News and WBUR. The panel of journalists will be: Martha Bebinger of WBUR 90.9, Robert Keough, editor of CommonWealth magazine, Alison King of NECN, and Frank Phillips of The Boston Globe.

“NECN is proud to bring its second debate of the political season to our viewers,” said NECN Executive Editor Iris Adler. “We are committed to providing the most substantive and extensive coverage of the campaign, and by focusing on two key issues in this debate, we hope the voters get a clearer idea of where each candidate stands.”

“The Bay State has led the nation in major initiatives on health care this year and education reform a decade ago. Both topics have huge ramifications for the future of our state. We thought it was important to hear from the candidates about this critical set of issues early in the political season,” said Ian Bowles, President of MassINC, a nonpartisan think tank that publishes CommonWealth magazine.

The same consortium co-sponsored the first live broadcast debate of the campaign season on May 18th at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. That debate focused on jobs, the economy and cost of living.

The debate will be embargoed until time of broadcast at 8pm. Media is invited to attend and should contact Doreen Vigue at NECN at (617) 630-5014 to make arrangements..