Rep. Linda Forry lands growing support from Boston-Irish community

State Rep. Linda Forry is mounting a strong campaign for the Massachusetts State Senate representing Dorchester, Mattapan, South Boston and parts of Hyde Park. Rep. Forry is seeking to replace her colleague and friend, former Senator Jack Hart, who resigned in January.

 

A familiar face in Boston’s neighborhoods, Linda Forry is the daughter-in-law of Ed Forry, a well-known and respected business leader who founded and publishes the Boston Irish Reporter.

 

“Linda receives wide support from Boston’s Irish American community,’ said Ed Forry. “She has received the enthusiastic support of local Irish leaders including pioneering computer software entrepeneur John Cullinane, attorney Aidan Browne, South Boston’s great philanthopist Jack Shaugnessy, Irish American Partnership honchos Joe Leary and Bill Reilly, noted Boston immigration attorney John Philip Foley, and Dick Flavin, the voice of the Red Sox at Fenway Park.”

 

This week, former State Senator Paul White, who served in the Senate seat for more than a decade joined the campaign and publicly endorsed her candidacy. “Linda Forry is a leading voice for working families, small businesses and city neighborhoods in the state Legislature,” Senator White said in his endorsement statement.

 

The daughter of immigrants from Haiti, Rep. Forry, 39, was born and raised in Dorchester and has lived within the Senate seat's boundaries her entire life— first as a youngster growing up in Uphams Corner and today as a mother and homeowner in Lower Mills. She and her husband Bill Forry are the parents of four children, ages 9 years to 8 months. Rep. Forry is a graduate of St. Kevin Grammar School, Monsignor Ryan Memorial High School, and Boston College, and is currently a candidate for a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (2013).

Rep. Forry serves in the legislative leadership as the House chairman of the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Business. She is the architect of several key legislative achievement, including new laws aimed at reducing health care costs for small businesses, protecting temporary workers from unfair hiring practices and funding community-based projects aimed at stimulating new jobs across the state. Rep. Forry has been at the forefront of progressive advances in our state— from her support for equal marriage at a critical time in her early career in the House to more recent efforts to close the equity gap in pay for working women.