About Pat

Senator Patricia Jehlen was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in 2005. She represents Medford, Somerville, and parts of Winchester and Cambridge.

Senator Jehlen serves as Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development, Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Elder Affairs, and as Vice Chair of the Joint Committee on Public Service. Senator Jehlen also serves on the Committees on Ways and Means, and Education.

Pat, a former history teacher and VISTA volunteer, graduated from Swarthmore College, received a Master’s degree in teaching from Harvard University, and completed Master’s course work in history at UMass Boston. From 1976 to 1991, she served on the Somerville School Committee, and served as chair in 1980 and 1988. She helped found the Council for Fair School Finance, which brought the successful lawsuit that led to Massachusetts' education reform of 1993 and brought hundreds of millions of dollars in new state aid to communities.

Jehlen Family

As a Legislator

  • Pat has filed several bills in the Senate that have been signed into law, namely her ground-breaking equal pay bill in 2016 and the recreational marijuana law in 2017.

  • In 2018, several of her criminal justice reform legislation bills - including medical parole, an update to the wrongful conviction compensation law, and limiting student arrests - were included in the omnibus criminal justice reform law.

  • Among other successful bills she sponsored are ones to update child labor and animal control laws, and to prevent fires by regulating floor finishing.

  • Pat served from 1991 to 2005 in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Among her successful legislation while in the House were bills to increase literacy for blind people, ensure the rights of people living with mental illness, and provide compensation for the wrongfully convicted.