Linda Dorcena Forry will fun for First Suffolk seat

Hi everyone. I wanted to share the press release we sent out this morning. I’m personally very excited that she is running. She is a good friend and has been a great advocate for the 12th Suffolk as well as a solid progressive legislator. I’m helping out with communications until a staff is in place, hopefully later this week! Thanks. -Joyce (@ashmont)

REP. FORRY TO RUN FOR STATE SENATE IN SPECIAL ELECTION

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Joyce Linehan, joyce@ashmontmedia.com

(Dorchester, Mass. — Feb. 4, 2013) State Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry, a native Bostonian who has become a leading voice for working families, small businesses and city neighborhoods in the state Legislature, will be a candidate for State Senate this spring. Rep. Forry will seek the Democratic nomination for the First Suffolk Senate seat, which was left vacant when Sen. Jack Hart resigned last week.

“Our Senate district needs a strong, experienced leader to step in right away to carry on the work of Senator Hart and to build a new partnership among the constituencies of the district’s neighborhoods. I am ready and willing to be that leader for the whole First Suffolk district on Day One,” said Rep. Forry. “I look forward to a vigorous campaign that will highlight my vision for the district, but that will also seek to incorporate the priorities and innovative ideas of civic and business leaders across our neighborhoods.”

The daughter of immigrants from Haiti, Rep. Forry, 39, was born and raised in the First Suffolk district and has lived within the Senate seat’s boundaries her entire life— first as a youngster growing up in Uphams Corner and today as a mom and homeowner in Lower Mills. She and her husband Bill Forry, the publisher of the Reporter Newspapers, are raising their four children in Dorchester. Rep. Forry is a graduate of St. Kevin Grammar School, Monsignor Ryan Memorial High School, and Boston College. She is presently a candidate for a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (2013).

“I have a range of life experiences that will inform my work in the Senate,” Rep. Forry said. “As a working mom, I understand the pressures of balancing career and family. My daily focus as a lawmaker is on finding common-sense ways to make life better for people in our neighborhoods, especially those who are living in poverty or struggling to keep their hold on a middle-class life here in our city. I go to work every day with these things in mind and that’s the agenda I will bring to the State Senate as well.”

Rep. Forry is currently the House chairman of the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Business. She has been the architect of several key legislative achievements in recent years, including new laws aimed at reducing health care costs for small businesses, protecting temporary workers from unfair hiring practices and funding community-based projects aimed at stimulating new jobs across the state. Rep. Forry has been at the forefront of progressive advances in our state— from her support for equal marriage at a critical time in her early career in the House to more recent efforts to close the equity gap in pay for working women.

“My work in the Senate will be grounded in a unique understanding of the city neighborhoods that compose the First Suffolk district. I have spent my whole life in the First Suffolk communities and I have a ground-level understanding of the people, institutions and public spaces that make this such a special place to live. I am eager to bring my voice to the State Senate and I look forward to meeting the voters at their T station, coffee shops and at their front doors in the weeks to come.”

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