Jennifer L. Flanagan is a former member of the

Massachusetts General Court The Massachusetts General Court, formally the General Court of Massachusetts, is the State legislature (United States), state legislature of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts located in the state capital of Boston. Th ...

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 US-based research university. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus University of Ma ...

, 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

2005 Jennifer Flanagan Massachusetts House of Representatives

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. Flanagan served as a Massachusetts State Senator for the Worcester and Middlesex district, which includes her hometown of

Leominster Leominster ( ) is a market town in Herefordshire, England; it is located 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 almos ...

. 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 (Cyprus) (DCY) **Democratic Part ...

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 serving as the sixth president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 72nd governor of Massa ...

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 Politicians from Worcester County, Massachusetts University of Massachusetts Boston alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Fitchburg State University alumni 21st-century American women politicians 21st-century members of the Massachusetts General Court {{Massachusetts-MASenate-stub