Jamie Eldridge: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 20:05, 22 February 2008
Jamie Eldridge | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1974 |
| Occupation(s) | Elected Official, Lawyer |
| Title | State Representative of 37th Middlesex district |
| Term | January, 2003 - present |
| Predecessor | None (District Created 2003) |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Website | http://www.jamieforcongress.com/ |
Jamie Eldridge (1974 - ) is the Massachusetts state representative from the Thirty-seventh Middlesex district, and is running to succeed State Senator Pamela Resor.[1] He was a candidate in Massachusetts's 5th congressional district special election, 2007, finishing in third of a five way race. Jamie is currently serving his third term in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and sits on the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Business, the Joint Committee on Election Laws, and the Joint Committee on Public Service. He was one of the first elected officials to endorse Deval Patrick for Governor. Jamie is an Acton native and the son of a public school kindergarten teacher and electrical engineer.
Education
Jamie attended the Acton public schools and graduated from Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in 1991. He was one of the original founders of the school’s community service group, Acton Boxborough Community Outreach. Jamie attended college at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, majoring in Political Science. He was a member of Sigma Alpha Mu. While studying at Johns Hopkins he volunteered in the '92 Presidential election and he was elected student body President. During Jamie's time at Johns Hopkins he interned for Congressman Marty Meehan (D-Lowell). He started studies at Boston College Law School in 1997 and graduated in 2000.
Career
In his second year of law school Jamie managed then-State Representative Pam Resor’s 1998 successful re-election campaign. During this campaign he worked on the historic Clean Elections bill, which provides public financing to political candidates willing to accept campaign spending limits and the prohibition of accepting of special interest and large financial contributions. After the bill passed by voter referendum Jamie was appointed as the Middlesex-Worcester Senate District Coordinator.
In the same year he also became Vice-president of the re-energized Acton Conservation Trust. He completed a summer internship as a student Prosecutor for the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office. He worked as a prosecutor in the towns of Natick and Framingham, and assisted on the District Attorney’s Community-Based Justice (CBJ) program in the city of Lowell. In his final year of Law School Jamie was elected chair of the Acton Democratic Town Committee.
Jamie worked for the Merrimack Valley Legal Services in Lowell, a non-profit organization that provides free legal services to the poor and the elderly. He worked as a public interest lawyer in the fields of housing, Social Security disability, and unemployment law.
He received the National Association for Public Interest Law (NAPIL) Equal Justice Fellowship; a national two-year fellowship that allows recent law graduates to create their dream public interest project to help the less fortunate. The fellowship allowed Jamie to create the Community Development Justice Project (CDJP), which allowed him to practice Community Economic Development (CED) law in Lowell, to help build affordable housing, start new businesses, and create non-profits to address local problems. Unfortunately, Jamie had to leave his fellowship early to devote his full energies to run for the 37th Middlesex District open seat.
Eldridge was elected to serve as State Representative on November 5th, 2002. He was first sworn in as State Representative on January 1, 2003, when he cast his first vote in the Speaker of the House election for Byron Rushing over Thomas Finneran. The district includes the towns of Acton (precincts 3, 4, & 5), Boxborough, Harvard, Lancaster (precinct 1), Lunenburg, and Shirley. As a result of the represented towns in this new district, Rep. Eldridge represents many of the residents of the Devens community, a former U.S. military base now run by the state. Jamie was a democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives in the Massachusetts 5th congressional district when Marty Meehan vacated the seat. He lost the 5-way Democratic primary to Niki Tsongas, whom he has since endorsed. The Lowell Sun called Eldridge's 3rd place finish a "sign of a bright future"¹.
Eldridge has endorsed Barrack Obama for president.[2]
References
¹Lowell Sun, "Third-pace finish a sign of a 'bright future' for Eldridge". September 5th, 2007. [1]