‘We’re at a Time of Change’.
For more than 16 years as a Massachusetts State Representative, Jeffrey Sánchez successfully championed public health policies and legislation centered on improving the health and well-being of his constituents in the 15th Suffolk district, as well as residents throughout the Commonwealth. As the former chair of the Joint Committee on Healthcare Financing, the Joint Committee on Public Health, and the House Committee on Ways and Means, Sánchez amassed bipartisan support for a $42 million budget and presided over legislation that addressed healthcare quality and access for residents. Despite his defeat in the 2018 primary election to Representative Nika Elugardo, Sánchez concluded his tenure at the State House as a leader in health care and criminal justice reform, affordable housing, violence prevention, and more.
On Thursday, April 11, Sánchez will visit the School of Public Health to speak about leading and enacting change in state government during the Dean’s Seminar, “Politics and Policy to Create a Healthier World: Lessons Learned from Two Decades of Legislative Experience.” Sánchez, who now serves as a Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, is no stranger to SPH, having spoken to students in class and at the State House.
“In all of my time in the legislature, I’ve hired more public health students than anybody else, because not only were students getting the theory, but they were all learning about practice and how to engage people,” Sánchez says. “I got students who were prepared to jump into the world of research and policy and budget.”
Ahead of the event, Sánchez spoke about today’s political culture, as well as his commitment to public health issues and his proudest moment as a representative.
You were instrumental in passing Massachusetts’ 2006 landmark healthcare reform law, as well as a state budget that invested in issues such as housing, homelessness, and the environment. Why were these public health issues so important to you?
Public health principles resolve issues in communities that need attention. As a kid growing up in Boston in the ’70s and ’80s, the city was a very different place. All of the things that people hold dear to them in terms of tackling issues with prevention and wellness strategies, is something that I experienced firsthand. When I was growing up, there was a lot of broken glass, thee streets were dirty, and there was very little government intervention to improve the quality of life for us. With a mother who was an activist, I saw people taking on leadership roles in their communities. She would do the simple things first, and say “let’s get together as a community, let’s clean up the community, and let’s challenge those people who are in power to help us.” I saw her get involved with things I didn’t fully understand at the time, such as starting a teen pregnancy initiative. That wasn’t something people talked about, especially in a Catholic community. So I saw a lot of problems, but I also saw a lot of people taking on positions in the community.
As chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means, you passed a $42 million budget that received almost unanimous support. What strategies did you implement throughout the years to work across the aisle and gain bipartisan support for the issues you care about?
Public health issues allowed me to engage with all members—not only those at the State House, but also with stakeholders such as community-based organizations, hospitals, construction companies, and finance companies. When we advocated for the universal coverage initiative, we had to talk to people with a lot of different perspectives, and I carried that throughout my entire career. “Public health” is a short title, but there’s so much that falls under it, and it allows you to engage in so many areas. It’s how I sharpened my teeth in health care, since 43 percent of the state’s budget is focused on health care. As chairman of the healthcare finance and public health committees, I had a substantial number of bills, budget line items, and commitments that were under my purview, and that helped me lay the base when Speaker DeLeo asked me to chair Ways and Means. It gave me the opportunity to write a $42 billion budget that included criminal justice and gun reform, a $2 billion housing bond bill, and a $2 billion environmental bill.
How can public health professionals capture the attention of politicians on issues that matter to them?
To address all of the upstream approaches, you have to know the people in the community you serve. You have to know who the leaders are and who is trying to effect change. You should understand the greatest needs of a community—whether it’s the grassroots community or broader in sphere, such as health care—and then align your goals with the people who are taking on those issues.
What do you say to people who are frustrated with politics and the current polarization that permeates political discourse today?
Everyone’s saying we’re at a time of change. There’s so much energy out there right now—frankly, we saw it in my own election. You saw people engaging leaders and coming out to vote, and people deciding they want to be active and run for office, and that’s something great for the public discourse.
For people who feel that they don’t have a voice in things—I always tried to engage in areas where nobody else went. I’m a product of the housing projects of the city, so it was natural for me to go to the projects to know what was going on. It’s about consistent engagement. I would go door-to-door with BU and Harvard graduate students, or go to back-to-school events to talk to people. I always made sure I had an open ear to all sides, because you can only yell so much at whoever’s across from you. You have to be able to arrive at an agreement, so that you can move forward. We don’t live in a monolithic society where everybody thinks the same way. You have to figure out how to work with other people, and I think that was a great part of my success.
My greatest concern is the way we communicate with each other—it has changed completely. We have an insatiable appetite for immediate news, and an immediate response to news, by virtue of social media, and the world doesn’t work like that. People have complicated problems that you can’t deal with in a tweet or Instagram post. That’s the challenge—how do we effectively utilize technology to communicate with each other so that we can achieve success for the benefit of everyone in the community?
What is your proudest accomplishment as a state representative?
I got to work on all of the broken pieces of glass that I saw when I was a kid—people not getting health care when they needed it, a criminal justice system that looked at people as a broad-based policy and not as an individual. The wheels are in motion right now with the courts, the prosecutors, the sheriffs—everyone in the system knows the world has changed, and I think that is monumental.
My first votes were for the passing of universal health coverage. I’m proud that I was able to focus my efforts on Medicaid and make sure that the working poor are still covered through Mass Health. Protecting women’s rights and providing copay-free birth control was a big deal to me. I also got to protect same-sex marriages, a right that people may take for granted now, but I feel like I was part of that movement in time, and it drove me for the past 16 years. I had a great ride as a representative. I enjoyed it every single day. It was an incredible opportunity, and I got to do a lot of good.
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