| Tania Fernandes Anderson | |
| Office: | Member of the Boston City Council from the 7th district |
| Predecessor2: | Kim Janey |
| Term Start: | January 4, 2024 |
| Term Start1: | January 3, 2022 |
| Term End1: | January 1, 2024 |
| Party: | Democratic |
| Birth Date: | 4 January 1979 |
| Birth Place: | Praia, Santiago, Cape Verde |
| Residence: | Roxbury, Boston |
| Website: | Campaign website |
| Predecessor: | Vacant |
| Successor1: | Vacant |
Tania Fernandes Anderson (born January 4, 1979)[1] is a Cape Verdean-born American politician and non-profit executive who is a member of the Boston City Council for the 7th district. A Democrat, she was elected in 2021 to succeed Kim Janey and represents Roxbury, Dorchester, and part of the South End. She is the first practicing Muslim elected to the Council.[2]
Fernandes Anderson was born in Praia, Cape Verde, and moved to Roxbury when she was 10.[1] She graduated from John D. O'Bryant High School. The first formally undocumented African-born immigrant elected in Boston, MA, she is the executive director of Bowdoin Geneva Main Streets, a non-profit supporting small businesses.[3]
Elected in November 2021, Fernandes Anderson took office in January 2022.
In June 2022, the Boston City Council unanimously adopted a resolution introduced by Fernandes Anderson and Councilors Kendra Lara and Ruthzee Louijeune which apologized for the city's historical role in the Atlantic slave trade.[4]
In her first term, Fernandes Anderson chaired the Ways and Means Committee, which has a purview centered on budget-related legislation. In June 2023, the city council voted 7–5 to approve an operating budget for the following fiscal year as it had been amended by the committee. Many of the amendments that the committee had made to the budget faced heavy criticism from dissenting council members.[5] Mayor Michelle Wu soon vetoed a majority of the budget amendments, including amendments which would have resulted in decreased funding to the city's Office of Veterans Services and its police department, an amendment aimed at increasing citizen input in budgeting, as well as decreases of funding for the city's Transportation Department, Public Works Department, and the Boston Public Library.[6] After Wu's vetoes, the city council held votes on overriding six of the vetoes, but were only secured the necessary threshold to override a single veto.[7]
In October 2022, Fernandes Anderson offered a resolution calling for “Boston's Hijab Day”, in recognition of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died while in the custody of Iranian authorities. Amini had been arrested for improperly wearing the hijab. The city council agreed to mark September 23, Amini's birthday, as the “Day of Woman, Life and Freedom” in connection with human rights protests in Iran, but declined to recognize it as “Boston's Hijab Day”.[8]
Fernandes Anderson was vocal on the Israel–Hamas war. At an October 18, 2023 city council hearing where resolutions were presented about the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel and subsequent war, Fernandes Anderson made comments calling for a return of hostages taken by Hamas and an immediate ceasefire by both sides and introduced a resolution calling for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire.[9] She was criticized for characterizing the Hamas-led October 7 attack in her resolution as a "military operation" rather than an act of terrorism.[10] Councilors Frank Baker and Sharon Durkan opposed holding an immediate vote on Fernandes Anderson's ordinance, and it was referred to the committee of the whole.[11] In December 2023, Fernandes Anderson presented a citation purportedly from the entire city council to two Boston Public Schools students praising them for a pro-Palestine student walkout that they had organized in Boston schools. The students were then, at the invite of Fernandes Anderson, given time to make a presentation and proceeded to make remarks that were characterized as being "divisive". Numerous councilors reported having felt "blindsided" by the citation and presentation, including Council President Ed Flynn. Flynn claimed that he had not been accurately informed by Fernandes Anderson as to what the citation and presentation related to, and that he would not have consented to either had he been familiar. Flynn claimed that the presentation went against council practice of disallowing presentations by outside individuals on controversial topics.[12]
In July 2023, Fernandes Anderson admitted guilt and agreed to pay a $5,000 civil penalty after violating conflict of interest laws by hiring her sister and son to paid positions on her Boston City Council staff, according to the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission. After her 2021 election to the Boston City Council, Fernandes Anderson appointed her sister as her full-time Director of Constituent Services. She initially set her sister’s salary at $65,000 and then approved an increased to $70,000 in 2022, while also giving her sister a $7,000 bonus, according to the disposition agreement signed by Fernandes Anderson. In 2022, she also appointed her son as her office manager at an annual salary of $52,000 and then less than two weeks later, gave her son a pay raise to $70,000.[13] [14] In a statement released to the public, State Ethics Commission executive director David Wilson said, "Fernandes Anderson's actions as a Boston City Councilor concerning the appointment and compensation of her sister and son violated the conflict of interest law's prohibition against municipal employees participating in their official capacity in matters in which they know members of their immediate family have a financial interest." Both her sister and her son's employment were terminated in August 2022.[15]
Fernandes Anderson was reelected in November 2023, defeating a challenge by Althea Garrison, a perennial candidate and former officeholder. When the oath of office was being administered collectively to city councilors by Mayor Michelle Wu at the January 1, 2024 inaugural meeting of new council term, Fernandes Anderson failed both to raise her hand and verbally recite the oath. A video showing Fernandes Anderson's failure to perform her oath of office went viral after being posted to the Libs of TikTok account on X, with the account's post including commentary accusing Fernandes of hating the United States. She responded that she had "internalized" the oath with a private prayer, and called commentary on it "anti-immigrant racist vitriol."[16] However, because the Boston City Charter requires that city councilors recite their oath of office in order to serve, Mayor Wu and the city government declared that Anderson's tenure on the council had lapsed and ordered that city council records be amended to discount Fernandes Anderson's vote on the selection of Ruthzee Louijeune as council president, since Fernandes Anderson had not been eligible to cast any council votes (the choice of Louijeune as council president had been unanimous, therefore this had no material impact). Fernandes Anderson was allowed to re-assume her office as a city councilor after taking her oath on January 4, 2024.[17]
In February 2024, Fernandes Anderson introduced a request to hold a hearing to explore the possibility of Boston adopting congestion pricing for access to the city by motor vehicles. Fernandes Anderson touted congestion pricing as a possible solution to allieviation traffic woes on the city's roadways.[18]
Fernandes Anderson has been a foster mom of 17 children. In a 2023 council meeting, Fernandes Anderson mentioned that one of her sons has served in the United States Marine Corps.[5] Fernandes Anderson is a practicing Sunni Muslim.
Fernandes Anderson is married to Tanzerious Anderson,[19] who is currently incarcerated for murder.[20]
On August 2, 2023, Fernandes Anderson was a robbery victim in Boston. While she was surveying an area populated by homeless people, a man grabbed her cell phone and ran away. After summoning the police, officers conducted a search of the homeless encampment, recovered the phone and returned to her. Fernandes Anderson subsequently criticized the Boston Police for allowing details of the crime to be made public. She also criticized the media for reporting the incident, calling it “propaganda.”[21] [22]
| 2021 Boston City Council 7th district election | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Primary election[23] | General election[24] | |||
| Votes | % | Votes | % | ||
| Tania Anderson | 2,014 | 26.7 | 7,062 | 73.0 | |
| Roy Owens Sr. | 1,284 | 17.0 | 2,562 | 26.5 | |
| Angelina Comacho | 1,256 | 16.6 | |||
| Brandy Brooks | 741 | 9.8 | |||
| Lorraine Wheeler | 697 | 9.2 | |||
| Santiago Rivera | 568 | 7.5 | |||
| Marisa Luse | 550 | 7.3 | |||
| Joao DePina | 407 | 5.4 | |||
| Write-ins | 34 | 0.5 | 45 | 0.5 | |
| Total | 7,551 | 100 | 10,661 | 100 | |