FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCTOBER 1, 2019
Progressive Fighter Jesse Mermell Formally Launches Campaign for Historic Fourth Congressional District
Youngest-ever Brookline Selectwoman, former Planned Parenthood & Progressive Business Leader Brings Front-Line Experience, Meaningful Results
FALL RIVER – Democrat Jesse Mermell will launch her campaign for Congress tomorrow, pledging to carry her frontline experience as a progressive fighter from kitchen tables throughout the Fourth Congressional District to the halls of Congress.
Mermell, 39, will start her campaign in Fall River in the southern heart of the historic district, promising to be a voice for every corner of the diverse region as she has in leadership roles on the Brookline Select Board, at Planned Parenthood, with Governor Deval Patrick and as head of the state’s progressive business group.
“I’m running for Congress because the people, places and progress we love are under attack,” said Mermell. “They and every person in every corner of the Fourth Congressional District need a Congresswoman who will step up and fight for them, every day. I’ve spent my career stepping up on the fights that matter and have a track record of making bold, progressive ideas a reality.”
Mermell knows what it takes to fight for bold progressive causes and win. In both the non-profit and public sectors, she advanced policies and practices that have improved the lives of Massachusetts residents – from expanding access to women’s reproductive health care and making desperately-needed improvements to our failing transportation system to ensuring equal pay and paid family and medical leave for everyone and wages and benefits that ensure every worker can live in dignity.
Mermell’s campaign will refuse all corporate PAC funding and will be fueled by a grassroots network she has been building for decades around the district and state.
Driven by the small town values of her working class family, Mermell will run aggressively on core progressive priorities such as increasing health care access and reducing costs, ensuring equality and economic justice and enacting common-sense gun reforms nationwide. But she will also bring a brighter spotlight to issues too often ignored or far from the headlines, from crumbling transportation infrastructure to housing affordability to keeping young families who don’t come from wealth and seniors on fixed incomes in their homes.
Elected to the Brookline Select Board at the age of 27, Mermell was the youngest person to ever serve on the board and ushered the town’s first-ever majority female board. In local elected office, Mermell led efforts to bring bike sharing to Brookline, to create a food truck pilot program, and to make Brookline one of the early adopters of bans on plastic bags and Styrofoam containers. She partnered with local activists to create and launch Brookline Climate Week to shine a spotlight on our growing environmental crisis and motivate local leaders to act on policy.
“Brookline residents have been the beneficiaries of Jesse’s trailblazing leadership for nearly 20 years,” said Hsiu-Lan Chang, a retired small business owner and activist from Brookline. “I know she will make immigrants, low-income families and other frequently marginalized groups feel represented and heard in the halls of the Capitol because that is exactly what she has done in our community.”
Mermell stepped down as President of the Alliance for Business Leadership, the state’s progressive business organization, to launch her campaign – though she will continue on as an advisor during the transition.
Leading ABL, Mermell fought for equal pay, paid family and medical leave, investments in transportation and clean energy, an increase in the minimum wage and for the wealthiest among us to pay their fair share in taxes.
“I can’t think of anyone who combines both competence and character in quite the way Jesse does,” said Jeffrey J. Bussgang, past Chairman of the ABL and co-founder of Flybridge Capital Partners. “Jesse uniquely understands that social justice, sustainability and economic development can all be aligned in just the right way to lead the Fourth District and our country forward.”
As a leader at Planned Parenthood, Mermell fought to make sure that women’s reproductive health services weren’t just protected – but expanded. While there, she launched a Spanish-speaking community program for peer-to-peer education about sexual health, she worked to restore funding for low-income women to cover their birth control and to bring Title X family planning money to Planned Parenthood patients in Central Massachusetts.
“At a time when Roe v. Wade and Title X are under attack, we need to send fierce advocates like Jesse to Congress,” said Melanie Lown of Newton, who served as Director of Communications and Public Awareness during Jesse’s tenure at the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. “Jesse has experience on the front lines and can lead the rest of the country forward. She has been a longtime advocate of reproductive health by supporting smart, scientifically-backed policies and creating access to preventive, mainstream health care services for working families.”
Mermell served as Governor Patrick’s senior communications advisor for two critical years of his terms, including during and after the Boston Marathon bombings. While in this senior role, Mermell proposed, crafted and implemented the Governor’s “Successful Women, Successful Families Task Force,” including a partnership with Bentley University, the launch of a Women’s Leadership Fellowship and a corporate challenge for companies to advance women in the workplace supported by more than 100 companies.
“Working together in the Patrick Administration, I saw Jesse’s innovative leadership up close every day,” said Maeve Bartlett, Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs for Governor Patrick. “From the Patrick Administration, to Planned Parenthood, to the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, Jesse has worked tirelessly to elevate other women to leadership roles. More recently, I’ve worked with Jesse in her role as President of the Alliance for Business Leadership to tackle our state’s transportation crisis. Jesse is a true Progressive, and most importantly to me, she is a Progressive who truly listens to all points of view.”
Mermell said her first trip to the southern heart of the Fourth District was on purpose – showcasing her desire to build on the work done there and throughout the district by Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy III and Congressman Barney Frank. “The Fourth has been home to legendary members of Congress who have engaged with the issues unique to each community and the work I’ve done far from my hometown show clearly I understand and will deliver on that,” Mermell said.
With the nation at a clear crossroads, Mermell said the 2020 election must be about more than just beating Donald Trump.
“In ways that are sweeping and systemic and that are practical and pragmatic, the challenges facing the country are manifesting themselves from Fall River and Hopkinton to Attleboro and my home town of Brookline,” she said. “Those challenges – and these times – require not just a leader or an advocate but someone with the experience, energy and ability to fight for these issues — and keep them at the forefront of our national debate.”