Mission Hill is in Ways and Means chairman’s DNA
Touts progressive pragmatism
I have known Jeff Sanchez for all of the 15 years he’s been up at the State House, representing Jamaica Plain, a bit of Brookline and his home turf of Mission Hill.
So, as the brand new chair of the House Ways and Means committee — and heir apparent to Speaker Bobby DeLeo — Sanchez knew what my first question was going to be.
“Taxes, right?” he asked. “You guessed it,” I replied. “As far as I’m concerned,” Jeff said, “taxes are always a last resort. They’ve been a last resort for Speaker DeLeo and I don’t imagine it will be any different for me. It will always be about the impact (taxes) have on individuals.
“There will be impending storms, no doubt,” he said, “but I am confident that whatever they may be, we, here in this state, have the ability to handle it. It’s in our DNA.
“When you stop to think about, this is the group of people who’ve helped to change history in this country, with the support of ground-breaking issues like civil unions and transgender rights.”
Also embedded in Jeff Sanchez’s DNA is Mission Hill and the Mission Main housing project where he grew up. It was the neighborhood that pulled him back from Ca l i fornia and a job in the financial industry.
He also gives full credit to his mother, Maria, the dynamic Mission Hill firebrand who routinely butted heads with Mayor Kevin White’s City Hall and became a force in her own right for the transformation of the projects.
“My mother is 82 and still going strong,” Sanchez said. “She’s as proud of this latest development as she was when I first got elected. She’s been a tremendous influence on me and the career I ultimately embarked on.”
But the Democratic lawmaker, who turns 48 today, says it was the experience of working for Tom Menino as liaison to the communities of Mission Hill and Jamaica Plain that helped to mold him into what he calls “a pragmatic progressive.”
“I believe I can talk to people no matter where they are,” he said, “and it’s what I have worked at doing whether it’s up here on Beacon Hill, or out there on Mission Hill, or Centre Street.
“I’ve worked hard to listen to people and tried my best to be receptive to their needs. You know, I’ve stopped watching the cable shows these days and devoted more time to just listening to my neighbors,” he said.
“We’re back to the Tuesday night barbecues and it never ceases to amaze me what a public servant can learn over hot dogs and hamburgers. People come out, they talk, they share, their kids compete in basketball tournaments and you get a different, almost bucolic feel, right there in the project.
“I am very proud and humbled to take this next step and embrace the challenge,” Jeff Sanchez said, “but the neighborhood is where my heart is and where it will continue to be.”