Lori Trahan’s 2023 Third District report card

LOWELL — It’s been a very good year for U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan, but it was probably an even better one for her mother, Linda Loureiro. Trahan invited her mom to the White House Holiday Ball in early December.

Despite Trahan being elected to Congress in 2019, this was Loureiro’s first trip to the nation’s capitol with her daughter. The Lowell resident is the primary caretaker for her husband, Tony, who has been living with multiple sclerosis for nearly 30 years, and she never leaves his side.

“The whole village came together to make sure that my mom could go,” Trahan said. “One of my sisters stayed with dad. My mom took her photo with President Biden under the original portrait of George Washington. It was incredible.”

That personal touch is just one of the many strengths Trahan brings to her responsibilities as representative for the residents of the 3rd Congressional District, which includes 34 other communities in Essex, Middlesex and Worcester counties.

Trahan said she works hard at community engagement, meeting residents where they are such as at senior centers, town halls, festivals, parades, Select Board and City Council meetings. In 2023, she attended more than 400 events, meetings, organizations and other visits in the district.

“All my work is informed by the community,” she said during a wide-ranging interview in her Boott Cotton Mills office Tuesday afternoon. “When I’m out in the community, that’s when people surface what they need to improve their community and their lives.”

Improving lives for 3rd District residents was the focus of Trahan’s 2023 Year in Review, a comprehensive report her office released Tuesday, that details the ways in which the congresswoman and her team have worked to deliver federal dollars and programs to town and municipalities across the district.

The yearly report card shows the breadth of the progress made on critical issues including ones that didn’t make the list such as the return of looted artifacts to the people of Cambodia.

Trahan’s relentless campaign to hold New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the largest and most prestigious art museums in the world, accountable for its collection of allegedly looted art from Cambodia paid off when the museum voluntarily agreed to the return of 13 Khmer antiquities to the Kingdom of Cambodia.

The congresswoman is the chair of the Congressional Cambodian Caucus, and the estimated 30,000 to 35,000 Southeast Asians, most of whom are Cambodians, comprises almost a quarter of Lowell’s population, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.

“I grew up with so many Cambodian Americans who literally came here fleeing violence and started a life and then started a business, then ran for office.” Trahan said. “Of course, I’m going to be tethered to my community.”

Roots, family and community drive the congresswoman’s priorities staring with constituent outreach. The Washington, D.C. and Lowell-based staff responded to more than 21,000 constituent phone calls and emails

During a reporter’s visit, a resident, who identified as a Trump supporter, came into Trahan’s Lowell office for help with his Medicare application, which he said hadn’t been processed since its submission in October.

“I have to have it before the end of this month,” he said, in rising tones to a staffer. “If I can’t get my medical insurance, I will be bankrupt by the end of January.”

Trahan said her office helps all constituents, regardless of party affiliation or political views.

“I work for everybody,” she said, tapping the table for emphasis. “Even the people who don’t vote for me need to know that I’m working on their behalf. When we go to work and win a claim, or get them the benefits they deserve, they start to think differently about government.”

Another big area of concentration by Trahan is federal funding. In 2023, her office delivered millions in federal benefits and relief to residents and small businesses. Thanks to the Invest in America Agenda, Fitchburg received almost $12 million in water infrastructure, nearly $10 million went to Billerica for upgrades to Boston Road, while Gardner saw $1.5 million for small businesses and Townsend $742,000 for community service programs.

In August, a federal delegation of Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren showed up at Lowell City Hall with Trahan bearing a check for $21.4 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law federal funding for four Mill City bridges that span canals fed by the mighty Merrimack.

She said having the support of both Massachusetts senators gets applications for major federal across the finish line, but her office provided the help on the front end of that support.

“You need federal help,” she said. “The federal government divested from infrastructure for decades, and cities like Lowell paid the price.”

But she’s not resting on her 2023 laurels, and is already thinking about economic development and investments in 2024. She wants to focus on turbocharging federal investments and pairing those monies with private partnerships. She pointed to UMass Lowell as an example of that kind of economic engine.

“The development on UMass Lowell’s East Campus is going to impact the entire downtown and the entire city,” she said, “It’s going to bring industry to the campus… and it’s going to create jobs and trickle down into the city of Lowell.”

In November, Trahan was elected by her colleagues to serve in House Democratic leadership as co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee.

The DPCC is the messaging arm of House Democratic leadership. Trahan will be able to channel her lived experience as a born-and-bred Lowellian and her political expertise as a three-term congresswoman into crafting messaging that she said will show the “difference between how Democrats govern and Republicans govern — about how we’ve delivered.”

“You do not do this job alone,” she said. “We’re (looking) through the prism of how are these things going to impact our communities and how do we uplift even our smaller communities. Accelerating those investment from government and the private sector. That’s where we’ll have our wins at the end of next year.”