Ruthzee Louijeune (born 1987) is an American politician and lawyer serving as president of the Boston City Council. She has been an at-large member of the Boston City Council since January 2022,and has served as the council's president since January 2024. She is the first Haitian-American to serve on the council.
Louijeune is the daughter of immigrants to the United States from Haiti.[1]
She was raised in the Hyde Park and Mattapan neighborhoods of Boston.[2] She attended Charles H. Taylor Elementary School,and graduated from Boston Latin School in 2004. During high school,she interned in the office of State Representative Marie St. Fleur as part of the Ward Fellowship Program.[1]
Loujuene founded Opening PLLC,a legal and advocacy firm.[11][12] The firm conducts consulting and works on affordable homeownership agreements in Boston.[1]
Louijeune has been involved as a volunteer with the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance,representing low-income individuals in the housing court.[13][1][14][15] In her work with them,she has fought against eviction and to promote homeownership.[1] She has worked with them in their efforts to increase homeownership opprountities in Boston for first-generation home buyers.[15] She is considered to be a housing advocate.[15]
Louijeune was elected to Boston City Council in November 2021. As a first-time candidate Louijeune had a strong showing in the 2021 election,finishing third in the at-large race behind incumbent council members Michael F. Flaherty and Julia Mejia.[16][17] She is the first Haitian-American to serve on the council.[16] Her election the city council was regarded as demonstrating their growing clout in the area's politics. According to U.S. Census Bureau data,Greater Boston is home to the third-largest Haitian diaspora population in the United States.[18] She took office in January 2022.
In her first term,Louijeuene served as chair of the Civil Rights Committee[19] and vice-chair of the Housing and Community Development Committee[20]
In late 2022,Louijeune proposed an amendment to have the city regulate beekeeping.[22] In late 2022,Louijeune played a key role in the passage of a 20% pay increase for members of the Boston Council,which was vetoed by Mayor Michelle Wu. Wu supported an 11% increase,which had been the recommendation of Boston’s compensation advisory board,but opposed a 20% increase.[23]
Louijeune and her City Council colleague Kendra Lara authored a resolution that was passed by the Boston City Council in late 2022 which urged Mayor Michelle Wu to raise the affordable housing unit requirements for new residential developments from 13% to 20% and to lower the threshold for which the requirements apply from buildings with nine or more units to buildings with five or more. The resolution also urged Wu to transition from utilizing HUD-designated area median income and to instead determine base affordability based upon the average income of a neighborhood.[24]
In late 2022,Louijeune gave her support to the idea of permitting immigrants who have legal immigration status to cast votes in elections for city offices.[25] More than 28% of Boston's city population are immigrants with legal immigration status. Fifteen other cities in the United States had already adopted similar measures. In December 2023,Louijeune voted to give City Council approval to a home rule petition that,if signed by the mayor,approved by the state legislature,and signed by the governor,would have granted such voting rights in local elections.[26]
After a judicial ruling required the city to adopt a new City Council district map to be used in the 2023 Boston City Council election,Ed Flynn,as president of the Boston City Council,tasked Louijeune with heading the process of drawing such a map in her capacity as the chair of the Civil Rights Committee. Flynn had assigned this task to Louijeune in order to avoid having Liz Breadon (as head of the Redistricting Committee) oversee it.[19] The adoption of a new map needed to be completed on an accelerated timeline in order to avoid a delay to the municipal elections. Over the course of two weeks weeks in which five lengthy hearings were held,a map was agreed upon by the Civil Rights Committee.[28] In late-May,the resulting map was adopted by the full council in a 10–2 vote[19] and signed into law by Mayor Wu.[29] Louijeune's leadership in resolving the contentious redistricting matter raised her profile in the city's politics and won her praise.[30] Emma Platoff of The Boston Globe called the passage of a new map,"a feat many feared would come too late if it happened at all," managing to adopt a new map in quick enough time to hold municipal elections on schedule.[28]
In August 2023,Boston Herald political columnist Joe Battenfeld characterized Louijeune as having quickly become a "rising star" on the city council. He wrote that she had become,"a fast-moving leader of the body in less than two years."[31] Other Boston political commentators had similarly called her a "rising star" on the council.[32]
Second term and council presidency
Louijeune (right) walks alongside Mayor Wu and State Auditor Diana DiZoglio during the 2024 South Boston St. Patrick's Day ParadeWhile attending the 2024 South Boston St. Patrick's Day Breakfast,Louijeune poses for a photograph with Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll (both dressed in costumes for a Dunkin'-related skit) and Mayor Michelle Wu
Louijeune received the most votes in the at-large race of the 2023 Boston City Council election,being re-elected to a second term.[33] Two days after the election,Louijeune claimed that she believed she had secured enough support from fellow individuals elected to the incoming city council to be elected the council's next president.[34] On January 1,2024,after the new council was sworn-in,it voted unanimously to elect her as its president.[35]
Bill Forry of the Dorchester Reporter observed of Louijeune’s path to being elected council president,
Louijeune didn’t just win the most votes [in the November 2022 at-large city council election,] she backed the right candidates in the election, made smart alliances with existing colleagues, lined up her votes, and locked them in publicly. She deftly and quickly filled the void, shutting down the dithering that critics often point to as a negative trait of city government. That skillset bodes well for keeping councillors focused on the stack of pressing matters that we elected them to attend to.[36]
Forry also noted that Louijeune's election as council president marked a notable moment for Boston’s Haitian diaspora community, and found it to be “poignant” that the vote coincided with Haitian Independence Day.[36]
In 2024, Boston magazine called Louijeuene "Boston's brightest rising political star", and ranked her at #75 on its 2024 list of the "Most Influential Bostonians".[41][42]
↑ "Meet the Candidate". Ruthzee Louijeune for Boston City Council At-Large. Archived from the original on February 11, 2022. Retrieved February 10, 2022.
↑ Zeder, Jeri (August 17, 2011). "Law on the Home Front". Harvard Law Today. Retrieved March 30, 2022.
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