Local Activism Makes A Better Legislator | Karen Spilka, State Senator
Photo/Ron Bouley
A wide variety of life experiences makes for better politicians, says state Sen. Karen Spkilka, D-Ashland.
Karen Spilka's first career was as a counselor working with children and families in the Boston area. She later became a lawyer, representing employees, unions, employers and the state, and eventually opened a private practice focused on labor arbitration and mediation.
Now, as a state senator representing seven MetroWest communities, she says she has come full circle, working on laws and government strategies that help children and other vulnerable people. But her position also incorporates aspects of all the work she's done in between.
For example, in 2006, Spilka led the successful fight for legislative changes that helped create the MetroWest Regional Transit Authority. She sees the improvement to public transportation since that time as a boon for teenagers, people with disabilities, employees and employers.
"It was long overdue," she says. "But it's a wonderful feeling to have been able to be a part of it and help people and businesses so much."
Economic Engine
Originally from Yonkers, N.Y., Spilka graduated from Cornell before moving to Massachusetts. She and her husband bought their first house in Ashland in 1985 because of the high quality of life in the area.
In 1999, as chairwoman of the Ashland School Committee, she founded The Chapter 70 Roundtable Coalition to fight for improvements in the state's education funding formula. The activism led her to the House of Representatives and then the Senate.
For her first four years in the senate, Spilka chaired the Joint Committee on Children, Family and Persons with Disabilities. In that role, she helped to overhaul the state's system handling child abuse and neglect issues and foster care.
The position was a natural fit for her since she has a sister with Down Syndrome.
"Disability issues are part of my life, and they always will be," she says.
These days, Spilka chairs the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technology, a position she says makes particular sense since MetroWest is full of high tech and fast-growing companies.
"It's a hotbed," she says. "It's an economic engine for the state."
Spilka is now deeply engaged in an effort to streamline businesses' access to various state services. She's been talking with businesses all around the state about how the government can adjust to serve their needs better, and she's helping to plan a "gateway" that would let businesses find out about services available at 35 different state departments and quasi-public organizations.
Spilka also has some interests that are far from the world of public policy. Her family has also raised chocolate Labrador retrievers for years, and they own three of them now.
"I can't imagine my family without them," she says.
Spilka says her work is informed by her children's and small-business-owner husband's lives just as it is by the work she's done in the past.
"This job pulls together all the pieces of my life, both personal and professional, to make me a better legislator," she says.
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