Tito Jackson

Tito Jackson (born April 11, 1975) is an American politician who was a member of the Boston City Council. He represented council District 7, representing parts of the Roxbury neighborhood and parts of Dorchester, South End, and Fenway. In 2017, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Boston against incumbent mayor Marty Walsh. After leaving the Boston City Council, Jackson worked in the cannabis industry. In 2022, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu appointed Jackson to the city's Commission on Black Men and Boys.

Jackson is considered to be a political progressive.

Early life, family, and education Jackson was born to a teenage mother who had been impregnated in a sexual assault. Jackson is African American. In his activism, Jackson's father supported the election of political candidates of color through voter registration campaigns and applied pressure to construction companies in the city to employ more local workers and minorities. Jackson's father died in 2002.

Jackson grew up in the Grove Hall neighborhood of the city. As of 2017, he was living in the same Grove Hall home that he had grown up in. The home is located in the border-area of the larger neighborhood of Roxbury and Dorchester. Jackson has identified himself with the Roxbury neighborhood, and his city council district was centered around Roxbury. At university, Jackson founded a "Black Student Union" group which urged the university to work to diversify the makeup of its student body. Jackson was also elected the student body president.

In 2018, Jackson reunited with his biological mother. His biological mother is one of the subjects of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas, which focused on desegregation busing in Boston.

In 2007, Jackson served as the industry director for information technology in Governor Deval Patrick’s Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development. Later, Jackson worked as the political director of Governor Patrick's successful 2010 reelection campaign.

Boston City Council Jackson served on the Boston City Council from 2011 until 2018.

Committee assignements During his time on the council, he served as the chair of the Committee on Education, and the chair of the Special Committee on the Status of Black and Latino Men and Boys. Councillor Jackson also served as vice chair of the Committee on Healthy Women, Families and Communities. In addition, he was a member of six other Committees: City, Neighborhood Services and Veteran Affairs; Homelessness, Mental Health and Recovery; Housing and Community Development, Jobs, Wages and Workforce Development; Public Safety and Criminal Justice; and together with all other Councillors, the Committee of the Whole.

2011 Jackson ran in the 2011 special election for the 7th district Boston City Council seat to succeed Chuck Turner, who had been expelled from the City Council after a public corruption investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Jackson finished first out of seven candidates in the nonpartisan primary election and defeated Cornell Mills (the son of former State Senator Dianne Wilkerson)

2012–2013

In the regularly-scheduled election in late-2011, Jackson was re-elected to a full term

Redistricting process In 2012, after Mayor Thomas Menino opted to veto the City Council's first two proposals for its redistricted map, Jackson made his own proposal amending the previously proposed map. The City Council passed Jackson's map, which was then approved by Mayor Menino.

Consideration of a 2013 mayoral run Jackson was speculated as a potential candidate to run in the 2013 Boston mayoral election, in which Menino was widely expected to seek re-election. In November 2012, Jackson stated that while he planned to instead run for re-election to the council, he "would consider" running for mayor if Menino decided to retire. Massachusetts First Lady Diane Patrick (wife of Governor Patrick) offered public encouragement for Jackson to consider a mayoral run if Menino were to retire, saying that he would make a great candidate. While Menino ultimately announced in March 2013 that he would retire rather than seek another term, Jackson did not run for mayor, announcing in early April that he would run for re-election to the council instead of mayor.

2014–2015 Unsuccessful campaign for council president After being re-elected in November 2013, Jackson sought to secure the support of other councilors to choose him as the next council president. Also angling for the position was Bill Linehan (a conservative councilor) and Matt O'Malley. Both Jackson and O'Malley were considered to be members of the council's liberal wing (which had five returning members, including the two of them). An open agreement existed between O'Malley and Jackson that if one of them faltered in their effort to secure support, they would bow out in favor of the other in order to ensure that one of them could receive the votes of all five returning liberal members.

O'Malley had appeared close to prevailing for a period of time, having secured pledges of support from all returning liberal members (including Jackson), as well a pledge of support from McCarthy. O'Malley quickly lost ground after McCarthy withdrew his backing from him and instead gave his support to Linehan. This put Linehan in a position to receive the vote of a council majority to make him the next council president. Soon after this, Linehan received Wu's backing as well. Her backing came despite Linehan's and Wu's ideological differences. After O'Malley had failed to cobble together the support of a majority and Linehan had, Jackson attempted again in earnest to secure himself backing, but failed to peel away supporters from Linehan.

Proposal for a commission on black men and boys

In 2014, the City Council passed an ordinance by Jackson to create a commission on Black men and boys. Mayor Marty Walsh vetoed the ordinance, arguing that such a commission would, "duplicate and complicate efforts that my administration is already engaged in", and that the ordinance was written in such a way that he believed it would violate the Boston City Charter. Such a commission would eventually be formed in 2021; with the City Council passing a resolution to form a similar commission that was signed into effect by the acting mayor, Kim Janey, in September 2021.

Scrutiny of Boston's Olympic bid In 2015, Jackson applied pressure to the non-governmental committee behind Boston's bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics for them to release the non-redacted copy of its original bid for the games. After the collapse of Boston's bid for the Olympics, the organization No Boston Olympics (which had opposed the bid) endorsed Jackson and three other incumbent Boston City Council members for re-election, praising them as "demonstrat leadership by asking tough questions" to the leaders behind Boston's Olympic bid.

Other matters Jackson partnered with Suffolk County Sheriff Steven W. Tompkins to organize a city council committee hearing at the South Bay House of Correction. The hearing, held in September 2015, focused on soliciting input on strategies to decrease recidivism, and was the first hearing in the history of the Boston City Council to be held in a prison.

2016–2017 Jackson was again re-elected in 2015.

Opposition to Question 21 Jackson was a prominent opponent of 2016 Massachusetts Question 2, which would have authorized an expansion of the number of charter schools in the state. In August 2016, the City Council voted 11–2 to adopt a resolution by Jackson and Matt O'Malley that voiced the council's opposition to the ballot measure.

2017 mayoral campaign

In January 2017 Jackson announced he would run for Mayor of Boston in the 2017 mayoral election against the incumbent, Marty Walsh. In launching his candidacy, Jackson positioned himself as the "progressive" candidate in the race, and cited issues such as income inequality and housing as being central to his candidacy.

In the nonpartisan primary election held on September 26, 2017, Jackson received 29 percent of the votes to Walsh's 63 percent. Jackson moved onto the general election on November 7, 2017. Only 14 percent of the city's voting population cast votes compared to 31 percent in the previous preliminary mayoral contest.

Jackson focused much of his efforts on aiming to win the city's Black vote.

Jackson lost the general election race with 34 percent of the votes to Walsh's 65 percent. Jackson has served as the chief executive of Verdant Medical, a Massachusetts medical and recreational marijuana company. He has also worked as the chief executive officer of the Apex Noire marijuana company.

Jackson tested positive for COVID-19 in March 2020, early into the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

In the 2021 Boston mayoral election, Jackson endorsed the unsuccessful primary election campaign of Acting Mayor Kim Janey. After Janey was eliminated in the primary, he endorsed the successful general election campaign of Michelle Wu.

On March 16, 2022, Jackson was one of fourteen names put forth by the Boston City Council as nominees serve on the newly established Boston Commission on Black Men and Boys. Mayor Wu had the authority to select seven of those nominees to appoint to the commission. The commission has 21 members, seven of which are selected by the mayor after being first recommended from the Boston City Council, while the remainder are selected by the mayor independently from a pool of applicants. On May 19, 2022, Mayor Wu announced that she would appoint Jackson to the commission.

In October 2022, Jackson spoke before the Boston City Council in support of a proposal by the City Council to raise the pay of city councilors by 20%. He claimed in his remarks that after his election to the city council, he nearly lost his house to foreclosure. While the amendment was passed by the council, Mayor Wu vetoed it. Wu supported an 11% increase, which had been the recommendation of Boston's compensation advisory board, but opposed a 20% increase.

Electoral history City Council 2009 Boston City Council at-large electionCandidatesPreliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% John R. Connolly (incumbent) 35,182 18.08 51,362 18.35 Stephen J. Murphy (incumbent) 30,365 15.61 51,008 18.22 Felix G. Arroyo 25,859 13.29 45,144 16.13 Ayanna Pressley 16,866 8.67 41,879 14.96 Tito Jackson 12,535 6.44 30,203 10.79 Andrew Kenneally 12,653 6.50 24,249 8.66 Tomás González 10,122 5.20 18,310 6.54 Doug Bennett 10,529 5.41 16,842 6.02 Ego Ezedi 9,260 4.76 Hiep Quoc Nguyen 7,691 3.95 Sean H. Ryan 6,665 3.43 Jean-Claude Sanon 5,386 2.77 Robert Fortes 5,071 2.61 Bill Trabucco 3,132 1.61 Scotland Willis 2,639 1.36 all others 595 0.31 951 0.34

2011 Boston City Council district 7 electionCandidatesPreliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Tito Jackson (incumbent) 1,876 76.07 4,818 84.35 Sheneal Parker 273 11.07 799 13.99 Althea Garrison 216 8.76 47 0.82 Roy Owens 85 3.45 all others 16 0.65 48 0.84 Total 2,466 100 5,712 100 write-in votes

2015 Boston City Council district 7 electionCandidatesPreliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Tito Jackson (incumbent) 1,409 66.40 2,983 66.64 Charles L. Clemons Jr. 381 17.95 1,444 32.26 Haywood Fennell Sr. 104 4.90 16 0.36 Althea Garrison 98 4.62 0 0.00 Roy Owens 74 3.49 Kevin A. Dwire 34 1.60 all others 22 1.04 33 0.74 Total 2,122 100 4,476 100 write-in votes

Mayor 2017 Boston mayoral electionCandidatesPreliminary election General election Votes%Votes% Marty Walsh (incumbent) 34,882 62.52% 70,197 65.37% Tito Jackson 16,216 29.07% 36,472 33.97% Robert Cappucci 3,736 6.70% Joseph Wiley 529 0.95% all others 428 0.77 708 0.66 Total 55,791 100 107,377 100