Stephen Lynch (politician)

Stephen Francis Lynch (born March 31, 1955) is an American businessman, attorney and politician who has served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts since 2001.

A Democrat, he represents Massachusetts's 8th congressional district, which includes the southern fourth of Boston and many of its southern suburbs.

Lynch was previously an ironworker and lawyer, and served in both chambers of the Massachusetts General Court.

Born and raised in South Boston, Lynch is the son of an ironworker.

He went into the trade after high school, working in an apprenticeship and later joining his father's union.

He became the union's youngest president, at age 30, while attending the Wentworth Institute of Technology.

The fourth of six children, Lynch was born on March 31, 1955, in the neighborhood of South Boston.

He was raised with his five sisters in the Old Colony Housing Project.

His father, Francis Lynch, was an ironworker who dropped out of school in eighth grade.

His mother, Anne (née Havlin), was a night-shift post office worker.

Both parents came from fourth-generation South Boston families.

He attended St. Augustine Elementary School and South Boston High School.

During high school vacations he began working in construction alongside his father.

After graduating from high school in 1973, Lynch became an apprentice ironworker.

For the next six years he worked on high-altitude structural ironwork throughout the country for various companies, including General Motors and U.S. Steel.

In 1977 Lynch was arrested for smoking marijuana at a Willie Nelson concert at the Illinois State Fair, leading to a $50 misdemeanor fine.

In 1979 he was arrested for assault and battery of six Iranian students attending an anti-American protest in Boston, a charge that was later dropped.

Around this time, he developed "a problem with alcohol", leading him to join Alcoholics Anonymous.

When a 1979 blizzard forced his project in Wisconsin to shut down, he spent the extra time taking courses at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Shortly thereafter, his father was diagnosed with cancer, and so Lynch returned to Boston.

In the early 1980s, he was elected to the executive board of the Iron Workers Local 7 union.

At age 30, he was elected president of the board, the youngest in the local's history.

During this time he spent his nights and weekends attending the Wentworth Institute of Technology, from which he graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in construction management in 1988.

That year Lynch led a three-week labor strike, refusing to sign a contract with the Associated General Contractors despite pressure from within his union.

The union international ultimately signed the contract without Lynch's approval, causing him to file suit against them.

He later remarked, "Nothing I ever do will be as volatile as being union president during those times."

This debacle forced him to miss the first three weeks of classes at Boston College Law School, where he had enrolled.

He received his J.D. from Boston College Law School in 1991.

For several years, he worked as a lawyer, primarily representing housing project residents and labor unions.

Nevertheless, he graduated with a J.D. in 1991.

After graduating he joined the law office of Gabriel O. Dumont, Jr., representing labor unions and unemployed workers.

Throughout law school and the following years, he often worked pro bono, representing housing project residents at Boston Housing Authority (BHA) hearings.

In 1994, Lynch was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

During his tenure, his progressive views and advocacy for South Boston helped propel him to the Massachusetts Senate in 1995, when he won a special election to succeed state senator William Bulger.

(He reportedly left AA after meeting his future wife several years later, but continued to attend occasional meetings through the 2000s. )

Having personal experience with worker safety concerns, Lynch developed aspirations beyond his trade.

Lynch won a special election to represent the state's 9th district in the United States House of Representatives in 2001, and has been reelected ever since.

His district was redrawn into the 8th district in 2013.

He sits on the Financial Services and Oversight and Government Reform Committees.

Lynch ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2013 special election for the U.S. Senate, losing to Ed Markey.