Shaunna O’Connell leaves Legislature for mayor’s office in Taunton

Republican state Rep. Shaunna O’Connell is boxing up her Beacon Hill office for a move to Taunton City Hall, where she said she can make an “even bigger difference” for the people she serves.

“It’s a challenge,” O’Connell said of her work in the Legislature. “There’s a super majority in the State House who really control everything and my way of looking at things, my way of working around that was to really go to the people.”

O’Connell became the first woman to be elected mayor of Taunton earlier this month and will be sworn in to her position at the start of the new year. She leaves behind almost a decade of service as a state representative, championing issues like welfare reform, government transparency and child protection.

“I don’t intend to walk away from those issues. I think, even in my role as mayor, I can still have an impact on statewide issues that are important to people and still be involved in those and advocate for those,” O’Connell told the Herald. “It’s a way for me to make an even bigger difference in my community.”

O’Connell first became politically active about a decade ago when advocating for the Massachusetts version of Jessica’s Law, which set a mandatory minimum prison sentence for child rapists.

“As a mom of two young kids, it was an issue that was really important to me,” O’Connell said. “It really opened my eyes about government and how things work and how things sometimes don’t work for the people.”

In advocating for the bill, which was filed by now-Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito during her time in the House of Representatives, O’Connell said she learned about the semantics involved in the process of passing legislation.

“I think most people would say, ‘Look, we need to protect children and it’s kind of a no brainer to put people in jail for a long time that harm children,'” O’Connell said, “And yet the more I got involved in the issue, the more I found that it really was not that simple.”

O’Connell filed bills this session that she still hopes to see through, including legislation to prohibit sex offenders from changing their names and ensure they are held responsible if they don’t register appropriately as well as to allow the death penalty for anyone convicted of killing a cop.

In serving as a Republican woman in a blue state where the representation is dominated by men, O’Connell said she always tries to conduct herself professionally while fervently fighting for the issues she is passionate about.

“Sometimes I think it is a little more challenging because you’re a Republican and because you’re a woman, but I think I’ve kind of changed the way people think about party affiliation,” O’Connell said. “People, I think, don’t see me as a certain party or as a Republican. They see me as Shaunna, someone who really works hard for the community and is deeply involved in the community and puts them ahead of politics and that’s what I’ve always tried to do.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2rzq6RX