Joanne M. Comerford is an

American politician In the United States, politics functions within a framework of a constitutional federal democratic republic with a presidential system. The three distinct branches share powers: Congress, which forms the legislative branch, a bicameral legis ...

who currently serves in the

Massachusetts Senate 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 ...

. She is the first woman to hold the seat. Before being elected senator she had worked for the National Priorities Project, the Center for Human Development, the American Friends Service Committee, The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and MoveOn. Comerford won her first race, a primary election for state senate, entirely on write-in votes. The long-time incumbent senator for her district resigned abruptly in May 2018 in the face of an ethics scandal, after the filing deadline for potential challengers. After an energized grassroots campaign that mobilized over 650 registered volunteers and adopted the rallying cry "Go With Jo," 14,196 voters wrote in Comerford as their preferred candidate, defeating the only candidate whose name was printed on the ballot and two other write-in candidates. The Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus endorsed Comerford as an incumbent candidate in the

2020 Massachusetts general election The 2020 Massachusetts general election was held on November 3, 2020, throughout Massachusetts. Partisan primary, Primary elections were held on September 1, 2020. At the federal level, all nine seats in the United States House of Representat ...

. In 2021, Comerford was appointed as the Massachusetts state senate's leader of a COVID-19 working group, helping to provide oversight of the state’s pandemic response. She has advocated for full funding for public schools, turning Massachusetts into a zero emissions state, health care reform, revenue equity, a police reform bill that passed the Legislature in 2020, and work on bringing rail to the western part of the state, among other priorities. In 2021, she filed a bill to establish a five-year moratorium on the construction of new prisons and jails in the commonwealth, in partnership with Representative Chynah Tyler. She is married to Ann Hennessey, a public school teacher who represented Ward 5 on the

Northampton Northampton ( ) is a town and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is the county town of Northamptonshire and the administrative centre of the Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority of West Northamptonshire. The town is sit ...

School Committee.

References

External links

Legislative website

State House website

Campaign website
Living people Massachusetts Democrats 21st-century American women politicians Politicians from Northampton, Massachusetts American lesbian politicians LGBTQ state legislators in Massachusetts 1963 births 21st-century members of the Massachusetts General Court {{Massachusetts-MASenate-stub

See also

References

External links