Representative Jennifer Boylan​

Member, House Environment and Natural Resources Committee

Member, House Health and Human Services Committee

Member, House Oversight Committee

Representative Jennifer Boylan, a Democrat, was first elected to represent District 66 in Barrington and Riverside in November 2022. She serves as a member of the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee, the House Health and Human Services Committee, and the House Oversight Committee. She is the vice chair of the Legislative Study Commission on Climate Change Impacts and Solutions.

A legislative leader on environmental issues, Representative Boylan has successfully passed laws to ban the sale of invasive plants in Rhode Island, require that climate change and its effects are considered in Rhode Island's economic development plans, and to regulate the legal use of electric bikes. She has drafted and championed numerous bills that would reduce and hold polluters responsible for their pollution, expand access to renewable energy, and protect our coasts from erosion and our waters from degradation.

She also successfully lobbied for a pilot rebate program for electric leaf blowers for commercial landscapers to be included in the 2025 fiscal year budget, and continues to advocate for legislation to make it easier for Rhode Islanders to install home solar systems.

Representative Boylan has worked to help improve access to healthcare, sponsoring a law to help homebound patients access routine foot care at home that addressed a critical unmet need for many elderly or disabled patients, cosponsoring legislation to expand abortion access, and updating the state alcoholism statute. She has cosponsored and championed a number of bills that improve access to health care, expand health insurance coverage, control prescription drug prices, and help retain health care providers in Rhode Island.

Representative Boylan is committed to the safety of Rhode Islanders, sponsoring new laws to help law enforcement solve gun crimes using a national ballistics database and to protect elected officials without spending taxpayer dollars by allowing campaign funds to be used for home security systems.

She also chaired a study commission that brought together experts and stakeholders to study school lockdowns, safety drills, and responses to threats. This study commission met repeatedly in the fall of 2023 and the winter of 2024 and included public safety officials, teachers, students, mental health professionals, and legislators. It was tasked with answering complex questions such as whether and when students should be encouraged to evacuate during lockdown events, whether advanced notice should be provided to students or parents prior to a lockdown drill, and whether the frequency of drills should be changed.

As a result of the findings of this commission, Representative Boylan successfully passed a law in 2024 to modernize school safety drills.

In 2023 and 2024, Representative Boylan represented the Rhode Island House of Representatives at two convenings of state legislative leaders on gun violence prevention hosted and organized by the White House's first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris.

Representative Boylan has pushed to make the state more livable by removing administrative burdens from Rhode Island businesses and individuals, sponsoring new laws waiving VIN check fees for veterans and military members and reducing the tangible tax on small businesses. The new exemption wipes out the tangible tax — viewed as an administrative burden for small businesses and for the municipalities that collect it — for 75% of Rhode Island businesses.

Representative Boylan has worked to improve election integrity and civic participation by sponsoring legislation extending the deadline for candidates to request a recount until after all overseas ballots are counted, and allowing 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if they will be 18 by the general election.

In March 2025, Representative Boylan was chosen to be a 2025-2026 Rhode Island State Lead for the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators (NCEL). In the caucus, State Leads work to make progress on environmental issues and facilitate collaboration between state legislators. Representative Boylan is focused on policies to reduce carbon emissions, plastics,​​ and microplastic pollution, and hold big oil accountable for their pollution.

Also in 2025, Representative Boylan was appointed to serve on the House Special Legislative Commission to Study and Provide Recommendations for the Creation of a Statewide Whole-Home Repairs Program. She continues to serve on the commission in 2026. 

Representative Boylan grew up in upstate New York. She is a graduate of New Hartford Senior High School in New Hartford, NY. She is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, majoring in geology, and earned her master's degree in earth and planetary science from Washington University.

With a background in science and geology, the first 14 years of Representative Boylan's career were spent as an environmental professional. She worked as a government contractor, doing environmental investigations and as litigation consultant helping clients access funding for hazardous waste cleanups. She left that business in 2004 to become the Director of Operations for PacketLogix.

Prior to being elected to the RI House of Representatives, Representative Boylan spent 10 years advocating for common sense gun laws. In 2018, Gov. Gina Raimondo appointed her as a member of the Working Group for Gun Safety. She has served as an environmental champion in her community for many years, promoting initiatives like composting, waste minimization, banning plastic bags, safe athletic fields, and protecting local farmland and public open space.

Representative Boylan lives in Barrington with her husband. They have two sons.