Jen Benson represents the people of the 37th Middlesex District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Jen was elected on November 4th, 2008 to replace Representative Jamie Eldridge who was elected to the State Senate. She took office on January 7th, 2009.
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June 26, 2009 — Press Release
BOSTON — Thursday night, Representative Jennifer Benson (D-Lunenburg) joined her colleagues in passing landmark legislation that strengthens current ethics, lobbying and campaign finance laws, enhancing the integrity of the political process and helping to restore public trust. This completes an historic cycle of legislative reform, which includes recent approval of landmark pension and transportation reforms. The consensus bill not only bans gifts to public officials, but also increases the authority of the Ethics Commission to investigate and prosecute alleged ethics violations.
"I am proud to have contributed to these landmark reform bills in my first session," said Benson. "The public needs to know that we are serious about ethics in the legislature, and this bill goes a long way in restoring public trust in our state government."
June 19, 2009 — Press Release
BOSTON — Friday night, Representative Jennifer Benson (D-Lunenburg) joined 45 of her colleagues in voting against the House and Senate Conference Committee's budget for fiscal year 2010. Due to falling state revenue projections, the $27.4 billion budget represented a $1.5 billion decrease from the House budget passed earlier in the year. The budget included a number of new revenue sources, including raising the state's sales tax to 6.25%, removing the sales tax exemption on alcoholic beverages and allowing towns to increase meals taxes by 0.75%.
Despite this new revenue, the towns in Benson's 37th Middlesex District would still see a 41% decrease in non-Chapter 70 local aid. "While I commend the Conference Committee for presenting a reasonable budget in this difficult economic time, the local aid decreases would mean deep cuts to important town services," said Benson. "Creating a budget is a matter of setting priorities, and I feel that local aid was not prioritized highly enough in this budget."
On Thursday, June 25th the House passed the following ethics reform legislation.
On Friday, June 19th the House passed the following budget bill.
On Thursday, June 18th the House passed the following transportation reform legislation.
June 3, 2009 — Press Release
BOSTON — Representative Jennifer Benson (D-Lunenburg) rose before her colleagues in the House today to give her maiden speech in favor of "An Act regarding accountability of public utility companies." The bill, which passed unanimously, came in response to the December 11th ice storm that devastated much of Benson's district. "Unitil's inadequate response to the December ice storm highlighted the need for more regulation" said Benson. "My constituents lived through a nightmare, and I don't want to see this happen to anyone in Massachusetts again."
The bill strengthens oversight of public utilities, requiring companies to seek approval of their emergency management plans and mutual aid agreements from the Department of Public Utilities. Privately owned utility companies must also undergo annual reviews of their service quality by the DPU, and are subject to penalties if they do not meet industry standards. Finally, the bill increases fines to act as a disincentive for failure to follow emergency plans, and as the maximum penalty, allows the DPU, in conjunction with the Attorney General, to replace failing management by putting the company in receivership.
June 4, 2009 — Press Release
BOSTON — Wednesday night, Representative Jennifer Benson (D-Lunenburg) joined her colleagues in passing a supplemental budget for the 2009 fiscal year. Benson and other local colleagues successfully lobbied to have critical funding for ice storm relief included in the budget.
"I am glad that my colleagues recognized the importance of providing storm cleanup relief to towns that are struggling to provide basic services like public safety, schools, and road maintenance in this difficult economic climate," said Benson. "I will continue to advocate for the remaining 12.5% in next year's budget."
May 20, 2009
BOSTON, MA &mdash Rep. Jennifer Benson, 37th Middlesex, has filed a bill exempting child car seats from the sales tax. The current sales tax law includes many exemptions for necessities such as food, clothing, and home heating oil. As state law also requires proper restraints for children under five in automobiles, Benson wanted to make sure families would not have to pay extra for a legally required item.
"These hard economic times have driven everyone to look for savings wherever they can," said Benson. "I want to make sure that families can still afford necessary equipment, like car seats, and hopefully this exemption will help."
May 4, 2009 — Press Release
BOSTON, MA — Jennifer Benson, State Representative of the 37th Middlesex District, today urged final passage of the House pension-reform bill which disallows enhanced early pensions that have been taken by some retired lawmakers. The enhanced pensions described in a recent Boston Globe article and criticized by the Governor today have used a loophole in a 1950 law meant to protect career civil servants who are fired during administration changes.
"While there are many reforms in our pension bill that will save the Commonwealth and its taxpayers more money, this enhanced early pension reform is critical to restoring legislative integrity," said Benson. "Legislators do not deserve an enhanced pension when they lose an election."
April 15, 2009 — Today the House Ways and Means Committee released the following preliminary budget.
Quote from the Executive Summary:
Faced with a rapid and substantial decrease in tax collections, the Committee chose to balance the budget through a careful analysis of the Commonwealth’s core programs and services. This document outlines a balanced budget reliant on existing tax revenue streams and will not further encumber the citizens of the Commonwealth with increased spending levels.
Although the loss of revenue has led to many difficult choices, the Committee felt it fiscally prudent to refrain from utilizing reserve funds. Although the state projects to close out Fiscal Year 2009 with a relatively strong Stabilization Fund balance of $1.3B, there is still reason for concern. To finish Fiscal Year 2009 in balance, the Commonwealth is likely to draw on close to $1 billion from the state’s “rainy day fund.” This fact, coupled with the state’s projected reliance on funding made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will lead to a structurally imbalanced state budget. To account for this, the Committee has resisted the “quick fix” solution of tapping reserves, and has realigned spending to more sustainable levels, consistent with the amount of revenue the state expects to collect. The balance of the state’s “rainy day” fund will be useful to minimize further budget cuts in Fiscal Years 2011 and 2012.
March 23, 2009 — Press Release
BOSTON, MA - In order to best represent their constituents, Rep. Jennifer Benson, 37th Middlesex (D-Lunenburg) and Rep. Kate Hogan, 3rd Middlesex (D-Stow), met with Governor Patrick this week, to discuss their concerns with his proposed transportation reform plan. The representatives discussed the unique transportation challenges, such as regional equity and proposals to increase the state gas tax, facing North Central Massachusetts.
"I am very happy and impressed that the Governor was willing to hear directly my concerns with the transportation plan," said Rep. Benson. "He expressed his willingness in going forward to work on these issues and address the concerns of the people in the 37th Middlesex district."
February 24, 2009 — Press Release
BOSTON, MA - Rep. Jen Benson, State Representative for the 37th Middlesex District, has been named to serve on three committees for the 2009-2010 legislative session. Benson will serve on the Committee on Education, the Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, and the Committee on Personnel and Administration. Benson was also elected by her peers as Vice President of the incoming class of freshmen representatives.
Rep. Benson will use her experience as former member and Chair of the Lunenburg School Committee to work for stronger schools on the Education Committee. She has already introduced a special education reform bill for this legislative session. "I proposed a system for tying funding to students rather than school districts during my campaign and this legislation is the first step toward achieving that goal," said Benson.
Governor Patrick has made the following budget recommendations:
The Governor will also be filing several pieces of companion legislation as part of the Fiscal Recovery Package. This will include an Article 87 Reorganization, Emergency Recovery Bill, Municipal Partnership Act II and others.
January 16, 2009 — Press Release
BOSTON, MA - Jen Benson, State Representative for the 37th Middlesex, has filed two major pieces of legislation for the 2009-2010 legislative session, a special education reform bill, and an environmental protection bill.
Benson has introduced a special education reform bill that works towards identifying administrative efficiencies and cost savings for schools districts, while providing more consistency for special education students with high needs. The bill proposes tying funding to students rather than school districts. "Our current special education funding system is overly complicated and is problematic to both school districts and children," said Benson. "I proposed a system for tying funding to students rather than school districts during my campaign and this legislation is the first step toward achieving that goal."
Benson's environmental protection bill will require customers to pay a surcharge of five cents for each plastic bag used at grocery stores. Customers would pay no surcharge for paper bags, reusable bags, or plastic bags brought from home. The surcharge would go to the Clean Environment Fund to be used for environmental projects. "Plastic bag surcharges have been shown to produce real benefits to the environment, reducing plastic waste and greenhouse gas emissions," said Benson.
January 9, 2009 — Press Release
BOSTON, MA - Rep. Jennifer Benson, 37th Middlesex, has decided to donate her 5.5% pay raise to local charities throughout the district. On January 8th, Governor Deval Patrick announced that the base pay of legislators would increase $3,203 to $61,440. The raise came as part of a Constitutional amendment approved a decade ago which disconnected the legislative pay decisions and the political process.
Recognizing the difficult fiscal situation across the state, Rep. Benson decided to donate her raise to charities in the district. "Our Nation is going through a very difficult time and there are those who need help," said Benson. "This is why I've decided to support charitable organizations which serve our communities. These organizations are struggling as well, even though their services are needed now more than ever."
January 5th, 2009 — Sentinel and Enterprise
LUNENBURG — The ice storm that battered the region on Dec. 11 also wound up influencing one of State Rep.-elect Jennifer Benson's committee requests at the Statehouse.
"The storm and the response to the storm has helped me think about some legislation I haven't thought about before as far as how utilities operate in the state," Benson said during a recent interview.
"I'm very interested in helping investigate exactly what happened and what went wrong with Unitil's response to this storm. I want to take it head on."
Benson has requested a seat on the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, where she hopes to play a lead role in overseeing the state's public utilities. Many residents and state officials are blaming utility provider Unitil for not responding quickly enough to the ice storm, which left thousands of residents in the dark for nearly two weeks.
Letter to the Editor — January 5th, 2009 — Sentinel and Enterprise
I had a birds-eye view of Lunenburg's response to the prolonged power outage crisis after the ice storm, and I am profoundly grateful for the dedication of our town leaders.
The Board of Selectmen, fire and police chiefs, CAFO, DPW director and superintendent of schools coordinated their response, and were tireless in their efforts to restore service and protect residents throughout. Their entire staffs were exceptional in execution of their duties, while apart from their own families for long shifts.
Jen Benson, not yet even sworn in as our representative, took our need to the governor in person when it became apparent that Unitil's response needed his help. She and Jen Flanagan were on the job every day, making sure the resources we needed were delivered. And the many local volunteers who left their unpowered homes to create and staff an emergency shelter for 11 days demonstrated the best human qualities.
In particular, Sue Glenny, Sue Deming and Jerri Sampson made a safe haven for our most vulnerable, with heart and soul in it. Even in the darkest storm, Lunenburg was lit from within.
Milree Keeling
Vice-Chair, Lunenburg School Committee