Sheila Curran Harrington (born September 8, 1960) is an American politician and attorney. She represented the 1st Middlesex district in the

Massachusetts House of Representatives The Massachusetts House of Representatives is the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court, the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is composed of 160 members elected from 14 counties each divided into single-member ...

from 2011 until February 2022, when she resigned to take up the position of Clerk Magistrate of the Gardner District Court. She is a member of the Republican party. Her district included the towns of Groton,

Dunstable Dunstable ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, east of the Chiltern Hills, north of London. There are several steep chalk escarpments, most noticeable when approaching Dunstable from the ...

, Pepperell,

Townsend Townsend (pronounced tounʹ-zənd) or Townshend may refer to: Places United States *Camp Townsend, National Guard training base in Peekskill, New York *Townsend, Delaware *Townsend, Georgia *Townsend, Massachusetts, a New England town ** Townsend ...

Ashby Ashby may refer to: People * Ashby (surname) * Alan la Zouche, 1st Baron la Zouche of Ashby (1267–1314), governor of Rockingham Castle and steward of Rockingham Forest, England * Walter Ashby Plecker (1861–1947), American physician and publi ...

and a precinct in

Ayer Ayer may refer to: Places * Ayer, Massachusetts, United States ** Ayer (CDP), Massachusetts, the central village in the town of Ayer ** Ayer (MBTA station), commuter rail station * Aller, Asturias, a municipality in Spain known in Asturian as A ...

and Devens. She served as Ranking Member on the Judiciary Committee and as a member of both the Committee on Rules and the House Committee on Personnel and Administration. She had previously served as the Ranking Member on the House Post Audit and Oversight Committee and as a Member of the Veterans and Federal Affairs Committee.

Early life and education

Sheila Harrington was born in

Salem, Massachusetts Salem ( ) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, located on the North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem would become one of the most significant seaports tr ...

and grew up in

Danvers, Massachusetts Danvers is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located on the Danvers River near the northeastern coast of Massachusetts. The suburb is a fairly short ride from Boston and is also in close proximity to the renowned beaches of Glo ...

. She attended high school in Peabody at Bishop Fenwick High School She then attended

Providence College Providence College is a Private university, private Catholic Church, Catholic university in Providence, Rhode Island. Founded in 1917 by the Dominican Order and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, local diocese, it offers 47 undergradua ...

and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work in 1982. Following college, she attended the

New England School of Law New England Law , Boston (formerly New England School of Law) is a private law school in Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded as Portia School of Law in 1908 and is located in downtown Boston near the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Fina ...

and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1986.

Career

Sheila has been a practicing attorney in Massachusetts for over 30 years. She continues to have a law practice in Groton, Massachusetts along with two other attorneys. One of Harrington's most notable positions is her stance on

Transgender rights A transgender person is someone whose gender identity is inconsistent or not culturally associated with the sex they were assigned at birth and also with the gender role that is associated with that sex. They may have, or may intend to establi ...

. In an

op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...

from the

Lowell Sun ''The Sun'', also known as ''The Lowell Sun'', is a daily newspaper based in Lowell, Massachusetts, United States, serving towns in Massachusetts around the Greater Lowell area and beyond. As of 2011, its average daily circulation was about 42,9 ...

she documented how she came to change her position from opposition to support of transgender rights., how after "passionately protesting a bill on the Massachusetts House Floor", she came to realize, that was wrong in her own mind. In an

from the

, Harrington described how she came to change her position from opposition to support of

transgender rights A transgender person is someone whose gender identity is inconsistent or not culturally associated with the sex they were assigned at birth and also with the gender role that is associated with that sex. They may have, or may intend to establi ...

Electoral history

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrington, Sheila Living people Providence College alumni New England Law Boston alumni Republican Party members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Women state legislators in Massachusetts 21st-century American politicians 21st-century American women politicians Politicians from Salem, Massachusetts People from Danvers, Massachusetts People from Groton, Massachusetts Bishop Fenwick High School (Peabody, Massachusetts) alumni 1960 births

Early life and education

Career

Electoral history

See also

References

External links