James Bradley Eldridge[2] (born August 11, 1973) is an American politician and lawyer. He serves as a Democratic member of the Massachusetts Senate from the Middlesex and Worcester District. Eldridge previously served three terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he sat on the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Business, the Joint Committee on Election Laws, and the Joint Committee on Public Service.
In his second year of law school, Eldridge managed then-State Representative Pam Resor’s successful re-election campaign in 1998.[3][4] During this campaign, he worked on the historic Massachusetts Clean Elections bill, which provided public financing to political candidates willing to accept campaign spending limits and the prohibition of accepting of special interest and large financial contributions.[3][4] After the bill passed by voter referendum, Jamie was appointed as the Middlesex and Worcester Senate District Coordinator.[3][4] From 1995 to 1997 he was a paralegal litigation associate with Hale and Dorr (now WilmerHale).[8]
From 2001 to 2003 he served on the Acton Housing Authority and the Acton Planning Board.[3][4][9]
In the same year, he also became vice-president of the re-energized Acton Conservation Trust.[3][4] He completed a summer internship as a student prosecutor for the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office.[3][4] He worked as a prosecutor in the towns of Natick and Framingham, and assisted on the district attorney's community-based justice program in the City of Lowell.[3][4] In his final year of law school, Eldridge was elected chair of the Acton Democratic Town Committee.[3][4]
Eldridge worked for Merrimack Valley Legal Services in Lowell, a non-profit organization that provides free legal services to the poor and the elderly.[3][4] He worked as a public interest lawyer in the fields of housing, Social Security disability, and unemployment law.[3][4][9]
He received the National Association for Public Interest Law 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.[6] The fellowship allowed him to create the Community Development Justice Project, which allowed him to practice community economic development law in Lowell, to help build affordable housing, start new businesses, and create non-profits to address local problems.[6] Eldridge left his fellowship early to devote his full energies to running for the 37th Middlesex District open seat.[6]
Eldridge was elected to Massachusetts House of Representatives on November 5, 2002. Upon his election, Eldridge became the first elected official in the history of Massachusetts to be elected as a Clean Elections candidate. To date, he remains the only such elected official, as the Massachusetts Clean Elections law was repealed a little over a year later. He was subsequently sworn in on January 1, 2003. The district included the towns of Boxborough, Harvard, Lunenburg, Shirley, and portions of Acton and Lancaster.[6]
Eldrige won re-election to the state senate by 57% to 43% on November 2, 2010.[12]
Eldridge has proposed a variety of legislation on the environment, economic justice, and a variety of other issues in his legislative career.[9] He was the lead sponsor of bullying-prevention legislation, a version of which was passed by the legislature and signed into law in 2010.[13]
In his current term in the state senate, Senator Eldridge has promised to fight for single-payer healthcare.[14]
On August 9, 2017, Eldridge announced that he was considering running for congress in the 2018 election in Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district after Congresswoman Niki Tsongas announced that she would retire at the end of her current term.[18] He later decided not to run for congress and stay in the state senate.[19]
He won re-election on November 6, 2018 defeating Republican challenger Margaret Busse and Independent challenger Terra Friedrichs.[12]