Stephen F Lynch

American politician, Massachusetts State Senator from South Boston. Lynch is a third-term Democrat who is considering a run for lieutenant governor next year, 2002. Instead, he became a Congressman, succeeding his mentor and lifelong friend, Congressman Joseph Moakley. A longtime member and past president of Iron-workers Union, Lynch quit a hard-drinking lifestyle and earned his bachelor's degree from Wentworth Institute in 1988, 15 years after graduating from South Boston High School. Three years later, he earned his law degree from Boston Law College and began his practice in labor law. He entered politics in 1994, knocking off incumbent state Rep Paul J. Gannon in the primary. A tenacious campaigner, he stunned the political world less than two years later by defeating William M. Bulger Jr. in a special primary to succeed Bulger's dad, a former Senator. Raised in a family with five sisters, Lynch made news when he donated more than half his liver to save the life of his brother-in-law, Joseph P. O'Leary, in a successful surgery on 3/21/2001. O'Leary, married to Lynch's sister Karen, had been diagnosed with liver cancer. They have three kids. During the 5 1/2 hour surgery, the medical teams worked in adjoining surgical theaters. The organ in both men should regrow to their normal size within six to eight weeks. The surgery came three days after Lynch hosted the annual St. Patrick's day breakfast, his fifth year as M.C. of the event. Lynch downplayed his heroism by saying he had faced more danger, sometimes in a single afternoon, in his 18 years as an ironworker. He was raised in a close family and he and his five sisters all live within five blocks of each other in South Boston. There are family gatherings every Sunday. Lynch and his wife Margaret have a 19-month old daughter, Victoria. Link to Wikipedia biography