Representative Jennifer Boylan
Member, House Environment and Natural Resources Committee
Member, House Innovation, Internet and Technology Committee
Representative Jennifer Boylan, a Democrat, was first elected to represent
District 66 in Barrington and Riverside in November 2022. She serves as a
member of the House Environment & Natural Resources Committee and the House
Innovation, Internet & Technology Committee.
During
the 2024 legislative session she made important progress on environmental
issues. She successfully passed a law requiring that climate change and its
effects are considered in Rhode Island’s economic
development plans, along with a law to regulate the legal
use of electric bikes.
She
also successfully lobbied for a pilot
rebate program
for electric leaf blowers for commercial landscapers to be included in the 2025
fiscal year budget. Representative Boylan’s bill to update
the alcoholism statute also passed in 2024.
Beginning
in the 2023 legislative session, Representative Boylan chaired a study
commission to bring together experts and stakeholders to study school
lockdowns,
safety drills and responses to threats. This study commission met repeatedly in
the fall of 2023 and the winter of 2024 and included public safety officials,
teachers, students, mental health professionals and legislators. It was tasked
with answering complex questions such as whether and when students should be
encouraged to evacuate during lockdown events, whether advanced notice should
be provided to students or parents prior to a lockdown drill and whether the
frequency of drills should be changed.
As
a result of the findings of this commission, Representative Boylan successfully
passed a law in 2024 to modernize
school safety drills.
In
2023 and 2024, Representative Boylan represented the Rhode Island House of
Representatives at two convenings of state legislative leaders on gun violence
prevention hosted and organized by the White House’s first-ever White House
Office of Gun Violence Prevention, overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris.
During
her first year in office, Representative Boylan supported efforts to improve
housing affordability, public education, environmental protection and gun
safety. She successfully passed a law that allows 17-year-olds to vote
in primaries if
they will be 18 by the general election. She cosponsored legislation to expand
abortion access and
supported a package
of new laws to
address the state's housing crisis. She also introduced a tangible tax
reduction bill to help small businesses and supported the tangible tax
reduction bill
that ultimately became law. The new exemption wipes out the tangible tax —
viewed as an administrative burden for small businesses and for the
municipalities that collect it — for 75% of Rhode Island businesses.
Representative Boylan grew up in upstate New York.
She is a graduate of New Hartford Senior High School in New Hartford, NY. She is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, majoring in geology, and
earned her master's degree in earth and planetary science from Washington
University.
With a background in science and geology, the first 14
years of Representative Boylan's career were spent as an environmental
professional. She worked as a government contractor, doing environmental
investigations and as litigation consultant helping clients access funding
for hazardous waste cleanups. She left that business in 2004 to become the
Dire ctor of Operations for PacketLogix.
Prior to being elected to the
RI House of Representatives, Representative Boylan spent 10 years advocating
for common sense gun laws. In 2018, Gov. Gina Raimondo appointed her as a
member of the Working Group for Gun Safety. She has served as an
environmental champion in her community for many years, promoting
initiatives like composting, waste minimization, banning plastic bags, safe
athletic fields, and protecting local farmland and public open space.
Representative Boylan lives in Barrington with her husband. They have two
sons.