Pat Jehlen represents the democratic wing of the Democratic Party in Medford, Somerville, Winchester, and Cambridge. We are are delighted to endorse her for re-election to the state Senate.
Jehlen gets results. Her equal pay bill made national news when Governor Baker signed it into law last month. “Equal pay for comparable work becomes law in Massachusetts,” said WBZ. She introduced this law in 1998 and has passionately advocated for it ever since. Anyone who knows people who work should vote for Jehlen.
She helped pass the Senate’s paid family and medical leave act last week. Anyone with a family should vote for her.
She helped lead a unanimous Senate vote against funding the Spectra pipeline, a misguided corporate welfare program that would have cost taxpayers money, done little to help energy costs, and boosted fossil fuels. It has been the target of recent progressive activism. Its fate remains uncertain. Anyone who cares about our environment should vote for Jehlen.
Jehlen was a prominent supporter of the transgender rights bill that recently passed the Senate and was signed into law. Anyone who supports civil rights and personal liberty should vote for her.
This candidate has spent a lifetime as a dedicated progressive activist and tireless representative of the best of Massachusetts. Voters who value working people, families, the environment, and liberty and justice for all, should enthusiastically vote for Pat Jehlen.
To donate to her campaign, click here. To volunteer, click here. Her Facebook page is here.
I agree, she’s earned reelection.
For the reasons the editors listed (and more), Cambridge’s Ward 11 Democratic Committee endorsed her in the primary.
She’s done so much, but she’s not tired at all. She will do more, always making progress.
I have known Senator Pat Jehlen for over 40 years. She and her husband used to attend Somerville citizen activist meetings at my late sister’s home as reform organizers.
She was a progressive Democrat before it became cool and doesn’t have a phony bone in her body.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
My friend on Cambridge Fire will still hold signs for her, despite the fact that his union went for her primary opponent. He says she’s done an outstanding job making sure their needs are met. Every Cambridge teacher I know, every city councilor I know, and every school committee member I know is with Pat.
She’s one of the few legislators with the courage to openly oppose chargers, support sensible marijuana reform, and shes stood up for the LGBT community long before it was popular. I don’t have the same animus towards her opponent some do, but I ask why replace a consistent progressive with a record of results with someone who has lived in the community less than a decade and has been inconsistent on the issues? It doesn’t make sense. Voting for Pat does.
…but I’m wondering if in the first line of your last paragraph you meant to write “openly oppose CHARTERS” (as in charter schools), because if she opposes chargers then I have to wonder how she keeps her mobile phone powered.:)
Though maybe she also hates the San Diego Chargers?
Is there any helpful comparison? Leland Chung is campaigning real hard, I happened to talk to him in person as he was going door-to-door. So, I feel like I should give the new guy a fair look. His pamphlets say some of the right things about issues I care about like Green Line Extension, Economic Justice, and Environmentalism. I also believe that Pat Jehlen is totally decent and we’d be fine continuing with her too. Embarrassment of riches? Too many good dems to choose from?
The two times I met him he was outgoing and knowledgeable about the issues. The city councilors I know speak highly of him as a collaborator and wonky leader. He is pushing three issues: pot legalization, green line extension, and charters.
On those first two issues he is right to push them, but Pat has a real record of actually advancing them. She was one of a handful of legislators openly endorsing the legalization effort on the ballot, and if you’re like Christopher and worried that’s too much too soon, she and Dave Rogers tried to push in a more tightly regulated and higher taxed alternative in the last session and worked really hard to get it done. I strongly suspect their approach will be embraced by the referendums opponents of the question passes, and be revisited if it doesn’t.
She has spent nearly two decades fighting for the GLE. With seniority mattering so much on the State Senate side, it is hard to argue she won’t do a better job or be a more effective advocate on those two issues. And on charters she is opposed to lifting the cap while Leland is for it. By pointing out where some his priorities don’t align with the district, while her record on the other priorities is stronger than his, she should be able to win. But, I’m glad she has to knock on doors and we have this debate. Every primary should be contested and I’m glad they have engaged in a civil campaign.
Check out this thread from his announcement. General consensus seemed to be he’s a serial candidate trying to knock out an established progressive rather than actually trying to help broaden progressivism in the state.
I don’t doubt that Mr. Chung is a nice guy. He picked the wrong district to make this move.
I hope that he is soundly defeated on September 8, and I hope he is more careful about his next choice of contests. If Mr. Chung is going to compete in a primary, he would do well to choose a race where he offers a genuine alternative to the incumbent.
Given the somewhat meat-handed approach to politics that characterizes the charter school movement so far, I wonder how much influence that movement had on Mr. Chung’s ill-fated decision. This district certainly does NOT need more charter schools.
Pat Jehlen is a MARVELOUS Senator, among the best in that esteemed body. She has a long record of serving her district well.
Unlike many parliamentary systems there are legal requirements to live in your district, so he can’t just pick a better district on a whim.
is it because of a quaint idea that representatives should come from those whom they would represent?
I know there have been some famous exceptions, but I think this is a good principle for local races. State Senate districts are small enough that geography matters, and Chung is no Kennedy.
A pity for Leland Chung, but i will not be shedding any tears.
…and I absolutely agree about residency requirements, though I would prefer eliminating the one year requirement for House districts which I think is a relic of a time when towns elected a number of representatives in proportion to their population. I believe the Senate requirement is residence in the district on election day and five years residency in the state.
I spent my career as a professional software developer. A consequence of that is that large swaths of North America were simply not an option for me, because there were no jobs there in my chosen profession. In my profession, I could live in SF area, NYC, Boston, and (in later years) Seattle and North Carolina (Raleigh-Durham). Those geographic restrictions came with my career choice.
Mr. Chung is a professional politician. He is, presumably, aware of the residency requirements for the various districts and offices available to him. I don’t know how long he has lived at his current location. I do know that Pat Jehlen has been in office a very long time.
While I agree that he can’t choose a better district on a whim, I think Mr Chung is just as able to adjust his residency to fit his career choice as I was.
As Trickle-up alludes to above people expect their politicians to come from among them. If you lived most of your life in the middle of the country then moved to one of the metro areas you mention to pursue a career in software development you probably wouldn’t have to worry about your colleagues thinking of you as a carpetbagger.
Still, the point remains that Mr. Cheung knew, or should have known, the political landscape when he moved to Cambridge. Pat Jehlen was already in office when Mr. Cheung chose to live in Cambridge.
He was, after all, already experienced in politics after losing a 2005 bid to become a GOP member of the Virginia House of Representatives. The Washington Post was unimpressed with Mr. Cheung in that race:
As I’ve said elsewhere here, there are communities in Massachusetts where anyone who isn’t a 3rd generation resident is a “tourist”. Ms. Clinton faced and overcame objections that she was a “carpetbagger” after her move to New York. Mitt Romney overcame such objections to become governor, even though he “mistakenly” listed Utah as his primary residence during that campaign.
According to her website, Pat Jehlen has lived in Massachusetts since the age of 6. Her three grown children graduated from Somerville High School.
More importantly, Mr. Cheung still has a long way to go in persuading me of his progressive bona-fides. I’m glad that he’s at least served as Cambridge City Councilor since 2009 — he’s at least addressing a glaring weakness of his failed 2005 campaign (“a novice with no substantial record of community involvement”).
According to his offical biography, Mr. Cheung is a venture capitalist with advanced degrees from Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.
Mr. Cheung has impressive technology and academic credentials. If he were running against a less effective incumbent, I might be more inclined to support him. As is, he is running against arguably the most effective and most senior progressive in the Senate. Since he is, in comparison to Ms. Jehlen, a relative newcomer to both Massachusetts and to politics, I think Mr. Cheung must make a FAR more persuasive case for himself than he has so far.
Pat Jehlen has my enthusiastic support and endorsement.
Places are becoming less parochial. Perhaps my two hometowns are outliers, but Cambridge has the majority of its school committee and city council as “non-natives” while Salem’s mayor and a good number of its city council came from elsewhere as well.
That said, Matt Connolly won’t beat Toomey in East Cambridge since he’ll run into a lot of “how long have you been here” and the answer is “not long”. I don’t always agree with his ward heeler approach to politics, but it is a dying art and he’s one of the best practitioners.
It is certainly true that at least some cities and towns are getting less parochial (first generation and thirty years residence will sometimes do 🙂 ).
Even in those places, though, I suspect that if you’re a newcomer in comparison to the incumbent, both to the city or town and to politics, then you’d better have a VERY compelling narrative about why you’re better for the office.
Related to that is the sad reality that it is still much harder for people who are renters rather than property owners to get very far in local politics. In a region where real estate prices are skyrocketing MUCH faster than rents, and much faster than incomes (especially for young people), the effect is to squeeze out all but the one percent.
It isn’t that any of these are absolute barriers, I suggest that these are instead “sales obstacles” that must be overcome in order to win a primary or general election.
If I stick around up here I can at least credibly say I’m the fifth generation of my family to call Salem home thanks to my dad. If I move back to Cambridge (a long term preference that’s increasingly a fantasy) it’ll be fourth. But it’s substantially difficult for renters to get involved in their local communities and to have the bandwidth to run for office. The amount of money to win a city council race is staggeringly high.
But Leland with his fortune could move in and two years later be on the council. Same with Nadeem Mazen, Dennis Carlone and Jan Devereuax. And I often find their local policy agenda which opposes affordable housing in the name of “green spaces” and “anti-development” to be a form of NIMBY liberalism that benefits the 1%. Not sure if Somerville has the same phenomenon, but it will as million dollar homes become the norm.
Yup,
At our summer BBQ yesterday, we noticed that a large percentage of our town committee members (and most active) are all transplants from other states. I am not a Massachusetts native. Like our president, I was not born on the mainland and was born on an offshore island, Long Island.
You have to live in the district on the day you are sworn in, IIRC, but not when you run. There is not the same expectation that a Senator would be as tied to the district as a Representative.
So Cheung could choose a district as suggested. Of course, if he doesn’t know that, perhaps he shouldn’t be elected
a marathon.
Running too often makes a lousy resume for a political candidate.