Politics & Government

Candidate For Congress Jesse Mermell: Civic Engagement Runs Deep

Former Brookline Selectwoman Jesse Mermell on how she got involved with politics and why she's running for the Fourth District seat.

BROOKLINE, MA — On the day she announced her candidacy for Congress, former Brookline Selectwoman Jesse Mermell made the trip to Fall River where she met with elected officials and then voters in a diner and talked with them about everything from immigration to the opioid crisis. She talked with elected officials to see what was top of mind for them. Then she came home to Brookline where a small crowd of folks- some she knew and some she was meeting for the first time - congratulated her and asked her questions and promised her their votes.

It was such a steady stream of folks coming to talk to her, that when a reporter came to ask her a few questions, they had to duck into the bathroom for a quick moment to avoid interruption.

"I'm running because the people progress and places in this district that we love are under attack," Mermell said, launching into her pitch. "I've spent the past 20 years not just talking about the progressive issues that we love, but fighting those fights and winning them. I'm going to spend the next 11 months talking a lot about economic inequality and social mobility. "

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If you start in the northern part of this district and go south, you go from communities with average incomes well into the six figures and then you land in communities where average household incomes are under $40,000 a year.

"I want to talk about how the policies that we know work to tackle those things - investing in transportation, investing in affordable housing, paid family and medical leave, closing the wage gap - are good for families, tackle income inequality and also create long term stability for the economy," she said.

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In the next few months she plans to roll out positions supplementing her own ideas based off what she hears from voters.

Mermell said public service and engagement runs deep for her and started as she grew up in Middletown, N.Y. Before she was 10, her grandmother made it her mission to talk to her about civic engagement. And then, her grandmother saw something in young Mermell that prompted her to ask the then-mayor to let her granddaughter shadow her for a day.

Mermell who was about 11 at the time, remembers spending the day with Gertrude Mokotoff, the first woman to become mayor of the town.

"Just watching a woman lead the conversation, come up with the big ideas, and help solve the problems," made an impression on young Mermell, who went on to major in political science and run and win a spot in Brookline's Town Meeting and as a library trustee.

Then in 2006, Mermell was running the Massachusetts Political Caucus to help get pro-choice pro civil rights women appointed to office in the state.

There was an opening on the then Board of Selectmen and she was among a group of residents trying to figure out just who should run. They listed out the qualities in an ideal candidate and that's when PAX member Marty Rosenthal looked at her and said "you know we're talking about you, right?" Mermell recalls.

"I felt my own hypocrisy. I'd been running around telling all these women, 'if there's an opening in your own back yard, you gotta go for it. You can't wait, the boys don't wait!' And here I was, there was an opening in my own back yard and I needed Marty Rosenthal to sort of splash some water in my face, figuratively, and point out the opportunity. I just felt like well, I gotta walk the walk," said Mermell.

She ran and lost that year, then ran and won the following year when she was 27, the youngest in the town's history. She spent six years on the board. She then stepped down in 2013 to work in Gov. Deval Patrick's administration as communications director.

Something she learned very early on in that position was the very real impact of her actions.

During the first two weeks on the Brookline Board of Selectmen she got a call from a man who had a peddler's license, she said. He sold things at different festivals around town to make a couple extra thousand dollars a month, which he needed to make ends meet. But, because of some parking tickets the town was set to reject his license. He asked her if there was anything she could do. She called the police chief and had him put on a payment plan; they renewed his license as he was set to make regular payment, and she crossed it off her list and didn't give it much more thought.

But shortly after, he brought her a plant as a thank you gift. She realized she'd just thought of the call and her response as a task. But the fact that on his limited income he would buy the plant and take the time to thank her stood out to her.

"[I learned] about how what feels like a minimal investment of time can have a huge impact on people's lives and what feels like an item on my to-do list is actually incredibly important on the other end," she said.

Today, her political involvement feels like an extension of a conversation she started with her grandmother, she told Patch.

Mermell was the third Brookline resident and fourth person to announce they intend to take the seat that Joe Kennedy is set to leave as he challenges Sen. Ed Markey for his seat in Senate.

Democratic Socialist Ihssane Leckey of Brookline declared she was running in May, expecting to challenge Kennedy himself. Brookline resident Alan Khazei, who co-founded City Year announced his candidacy last month. Newton City Councilors Becky Walker Grossman and Jake Auchincloss both jumped in the race. And several more appear to be circling from Brookline and beyond.

The Fourth Congressional District includes parts of Bristol, Middlesex, Norfolk, Plymouth and Worcester counties. Before Kennedy was elected in 2012, Barney Frank held the seat from 1981 until Kennedy took over.

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Patch reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).


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