Candidate for
State Senator; Second Middlesex District

Senator Patricia D. Jehlen is a State Senator for the 2nd Middlesex District, representing the communities of Medford, Somerville, Winchester, & Woburn and is currently serving her second term in the Massachusetts State Senate. In her first year she served as Chairman of the Public Service Committee. In January 2007 she was appointed Senate Chairman of the Committee on Elder Affairs, Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government, and Vice-Chairman of the Committee on State Administration. She also serves on the Committees of Children, Families, and People with Disabilities; Health Care Financing; Labor and Workforce Development; and Public Safety and Homeland Security.

She is Chair of the Committee on Elder Affairs, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government and Vice-Chair of the Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight. She also serves on the Committee on Children and Families, Committee on Healthcare Financing, Committee on Labor and Workforce Development and the Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security.

Jehlen, as chair of Elder Affairs, increased the Personal Needs Allowance for people in rest homes and nursing homes for the first time since it was cut in 1990. She also got $6.2 million in additional funding for homecare, allowing 260 nursing home-eligible seniors to stay in their communities. Jehlen also successfully succeeded in bringing overdue adjustments to the needs of senior citizens, including an increase in their personal needs allowance, and to increase homemaker wages and the salary reserve for those who provide for the care of elders.

Her top legislative priorities are equitable and excellent education, universal and affordable health care, jobs with decent wages and benefits, and paid family leave.

Jehlen, a former history teacher and VISTA volunteer, graduated from Swarthmore College, received a Masters degree in teaching from Harvard University, and completed Master's course work in history at University of Massachusetts Boston. She currently teaches a course in Health Politics and Public Policy at the Boston University School of Public Health.

From 1976 to 1991, she served on the Somerville School Committee, as chairman in 1980 and 1988. She was among the founders of the CHOICE program, a public school alternative elementary program. On the state level, she helped found the Council for Fair School Finance, which brought the successful lawsuit which led to the education reform of 1993, and brought hundreds of millions of dollars in new state aid to communities.

Jehlen served from 1991 to 2005 in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where she served as Co-Chairman of the Progressive Legislator's Group (PLG), Co-Chairman of the Elder Caucus, and Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Elder Affairs. Among her successful legislation were bills to increase literacy for blind people, ensure the rights of people living with mental illness, and provide compensation for the wrongfully convicted.

As chair of the Progressive Legislators Group and member of the Working Families Agenda in the House, Jehlen helped raise the minimum wage and won tax cuts for working families like increasing the earned income tax credit and adopting the senior circuit breaker