Jennifer L. Flanagan is a former member of the

Massachusetts General Court The Massachusetts General Court (formally styled the General Court of Massachusetts) is the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name "General Court" is a hold-over from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, ...

and the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission.

Education

Leominster High School;

University of Massachusetts Boston The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a Public university, public research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus Un ...

, B.A. Political Science;

Fitchburg State College Fitchburg State University (Fitchburg State) is a public university in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. It has 3,421 undergraduate and 1,238 graduate/continuing education students, for a total student body enrollment of 4,659. The university offers und ...

, M.S. Mental Health Counseling.

Political career

Flanagan served as a legislative aide and then chief of staff to then-Leominster State Rep. Mary Jane Simmons. In 2004 Simmons announced she would not seek re-election to the 4th Worcester district due to health concerns, and Flanagan ran for the open seat. Flanagan won the primary and general election, and served two terms as a

Massachusetts State Representative The Massachusetts House of Representatives is the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court, the State legislature (United States), state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is composed of 160 members elected from 14 countie ...

. Flanagan served as a

Massachusetts State Senator The Massachusetts Senate is the upper house of the Massachusetts General Court, the bicameral state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Senate comprises 40 elected members from 40 single-member senatorial districts in the st ...

for the Worcester and Middlesex district, which includes her hometown of

Leominster Leominster ( ) is a market town in Herefordshire, England, at the confluence of the River Lugg and its tributary the River Kenwater. The town is north of Hereford and south of Ludlow in Shropshire. With a population of 11,700, Leominster is t ...

. She is a

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

who served from 2009, to 2017. She first won the State Senate seat in 2008, winning a contested Democratic primary and facing no general election opponent. When running for re-election in 2014 the nomination forms to get Flanagan on the primary ballot were filed with an incomplete address, forcing her to run a write-in campaign during the primary in order to be on the general election ballot. There was no candidate for the seat on either the Republican or Democratic primary ballots. Her general election opponent, Richard Bastien, also got on the general election ballot with a write-in campaign in the primary. In 2017, Flanagan was chosen by Massachusetts Governor

Charlie Baker Charles Duane Baker Jr. (born November 13, 1956) is an American politician and businessman serving as the 72nd governor of Massachusetts since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, Baker was a cabinet official under two governors of Massach ...

as his pick for the newly formed Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission. The appointment was notable because she opposed cannabis legalization and is from a different party than the governor. She stepped down in 2021 to become the director of regulatory policy at Vicente Sederberg.

References

External links

www.jenflanagan.com
Massachusetts state senators Members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Women state legislators in Massachusetts People from Leominster, Massachusetts University of Massachusetts Boston alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Fitchburg State University alumni 21st-century American politicians 21st-century American women politicians {{Massachusetts-MASenate-stub