(used until 1969)
Previous City Council Prior to 1909, Boston's legislative body was
bicameral, with an eight-member Board of
Aldermen as well as a Common Council made up of three representatives from each of the 25
wards in the city. When the
Boston City Charter was rewritten in 1909, the Board of Aldermen and the Common Council were replaced by a nine-member
unicameral City Council. All nine councillors were elected at-large for terms lasting two years. The new charter also gave the Mayor the power to veto all acts of the City Council. The first council meeting as a unicameral body occurred on February 7, 1910. The procedure for electing city councillors was changed by Chapter 479 of the Acts of 1924, which provided for the election of 22 city councillors, one from each ward, beginning with the biennial election in 1925. The procedure was changed again by Chapter 356 of the Acts of 1951, which provided for the election of nine city councillors, all at large, for two-year terms. In November 1981, Boston voters approved again changing the composition of the council, to 13 members: 9 district representatives and 4 at-large members.
District representation The 1981 referendum establishing the current 13-member composition of the Council did not indicate how the district lines would be drawn, only that the districts be of approximately equal population Both Langone and O'Neil would be returning to the Council in 1982, but Sansone did not run for re-election in 1981 and would not be able to vote on the district boundaries if the committee did not work quickly to present a plan to the council before the end of the year. Contention centered around
Dorchester and the
South End. Dorchester, Boston's largest neighborhood, needed to be split into at least two districts. A simple split in half would create either a north and a south district or an east and a west district. Today's district boundaries are only slightly different from those adopted in 1982, with the South End and South Boston forming one district, and Dorchester roughly split into an east and a west district. The Council faced more challenges after finalizing the new districts, such as whether or not district councillors should receive a lower salary than at-large councillors and where office space for four additional councillors could be found in
City Hall.
Party affiliation By law, Boston municipal elections are nonpartisan in that candidates do not represent a specific political party. However, most city councillors have been members of the
Democratic Party.
John W. Sears was the first
Republican elected to the Boston City Council, in 1980.
Chuck Turner, who served during 1999–2010, was a member of the
Green-Rainbow Party.
Althea Garrison, who served during 2019, has identified as an
independent since 2012, but formerly served in the
Massachusetts House of Representatives as a Republican.
Acting mayors When the Mayor of Boston is absent from the city, or vacates the office, the City Council president serves as acting mayor. The city charter places some restrictions on an acting mayor's authority: an acting mayor "shall possess the powers of mayor only in matters not admitting of delay, but shall have no power to make permanent appointments." to January 1946, after mayor
Maurice J. Tobin was elected
Governor of Massachusetts. The
Massachusetts legislature granted Kerrigan full mayoral authority. He sought election to a full term, but lost the
November 1945 mayoral election to
James Michael Curley. • In 1947, upon mayor Curley being sentenced to prison for mail fraud, the Massachusetts legislature passed emergency legislation to bypass council president
John B. Kelly, who had recently been acquitted on bribery charges and was in ill health, and granted full mayoral powers to city clerk
John Hynes until Curley's release. •
Thomas Menino became acting mayor in July 1993 upon mayor
Raymond Flynn taking the position of
United States Ambassador to the Holy See. Menino served as acting mayor until he was elected to his first full term in
November 1993. •
Kim Janey became acting mayor in March 2021 upon mayor
Marty Walsh taking the position of
United States Secretary of Labor. Janey was an unsuccessful candidate in the
November 2021 mayoral election. In June 2021, the city council granted itself the authority to remove its president by a two-thirds majority vote. In 2022, the rule was removed.
Membership milestones • First female member:
Mildred M. Harris (elected in 1937 special election) • First black member:
Laurence H. Banks (elected 1949, not seated until 1951 due to legal disputes) • First black female member:
Ayanna Pressley (elected 2009) • First Latino member:
Felix D. Arroyo (filled vacancy in 2003, elected 2003) • First Latina member:
Julia Mejia (elected 2019) • First openly gay member:
David Scondras (elected 1983) • First Asian-American member:
Sam Yoon (elected 2005) • First Asian-American female member:
Michelle Wu (elected 2013) • First transgender member:
Althea Garrison (filled vacancy in 2019) • First female president:
Louise Day Hicks (elected president 1976) • First black president:
Bruce Bolling (elected president 1986) • First Asian-American president:
Michelle Wu (elected president 2016) • First black female president:
Andrea Campbell (elected president 2018) • First Muslim member:
Tania Fernandes Anderson (elected 2021) • First Haitian-American member:
Ruthzee Louijeune (elected 2021) ==Districts and current council==