Elected into the Mass Senate in 2005, Senator Patricia Jehlen represents the Second Middlesex district, which includes Somerville, Cambridge, Medford, and Winchester. She is Vice Chair of the Committee on Education, Chair of the Special Senate Committee on Innovative and Alternative Education, co-chair of the LGBT Aging Commission and the Elder Economic Security Commission. She is also a member of the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Commission, and the Criminal Justice Commission.(There are a few more she is involved in aswell.) Her main legislative focus has been on improving education, affordable healthcare, and decent job benefits and wages, although she engages herself in all presented issues. Long story short, the senator is always trying to be involved in the State Government, specifically where people’s rights are concerned.
Senator Jehlen first worked as a history teacher and VISTA Volunteer(a super cool program that works to bring individuals and communities out of poverty). She also served on the Somerville School Committee for 16 years, tackling finance issues to create higher quality education. She explained to me that this was what really sparked her passion for politics. After discovering that “somerville public schools didn't offer the kind of education that we needed” because of the “changing community and expectations” the senator felt as though it was her duty to run for the school committee and make some real change.
Senator Jehlen and Representative Ellen Story were named some of the "Bostonians of the Year" by the Boston Globe due to the passing of their legislation aimed at reducing gender based pay discrimination.