Jason Rojas (born 1976) is an American politician who is a five term Democratic member of the

Connecticut House of Representatives The Connecticut State House of Representatives is the lower house in the Connecticut General Assembly, the state legislature (United States), state legislature of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The house is composed of 151 members representing an ...

, serving since 2008. He represents parts of

East Hartford East Hartford is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 51,045 at the 2020 census. The town is located on the east bank of the Connecticut River, directly across from Hartford, Connecticut. It is home to aerospac ...

and

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, composing Connecticut's 9th assembly district. He currently chairs the Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee.

Early life and family

Rojas is an East Hartford native, attending East Hartford Public schools, and becoming the first in his family to graduate from college. He received a degree in history from the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

and later received a master's degree in Public Policy from

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

. Jason married his high school sweetheart Sarah, and they have three children.

Political career

He began his public service career serving on the East Hartford Board of Education. After three years he was elected to the town council in East Hartford. Then, in 2008, he ran for State Representative in Connecticut's 9th Assembly District after the incumbent, Christopher Stone, stepped down. Jason Rojas won the election by 2,460 votes against his Republican opponent Clifton Thomson. In 2010, he was reelected, defeating Republican Dennis Brenner by 1056 votes. In 2012 he won by 4,505 votes, and in 2014 by 4,224 votes. In 2016 he ran unopposed.

Political views

Housing

In 2015, with representative Minnie Gonzalez, Rojas proposed a housing bill that would require 75 percent of all new

affordable housing Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affo ...

projects to be built in affluent neighborhoods to counter the current practice of building federally subsidized low-income housing in the poorest neighborhoods. The bill got out-of-state attention by for example the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

, but it died without receiving a vote.Thomas B. Edsall
Where Should a Poor Family Live?
New York Times, August 5, 2015.

References

External links

Biography , Connecticut House Democrats
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rojas, Jason 1976 births 21st-century American politicians Living people Democratic Party members of the Connecticut House of Representatives People from East Hartford, Connecticut Trinity College (Connecticut) alumni University of Connecticut alumni