Maura Healey

Maura Tracy Healey (born February 8, 1971) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 73rd governor of Massachusetts since 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as Massachusetts Attorney General from 2015 to 2023 and was elected governor in 2022.

Hired by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley in 2007, Healey served as chief of the Civil Rights Division, where she led the state's challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act. She was then appointed chief of the Public Protection and Advocacy Bureau and then chief of the Business and Labor Bureau, before resigning, in 2013, to run for attorney general in 2014. She defeated former State Senator Warren Tolman in the Democratic primary and Republican attorney John Miller in the general election. Healey was reelected in 2018. She was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2022.

In 2014, Healey became the first openly lesbian woman elected attorney general of a U.S. state and the first openly LGBTQ person elected to statewide office in Massachusetts. In 2022, she became one of the first two openly lesbian women (alongside Tina Kotek) and the joint-third openly LGBT person (alongside Kotek and after Kate Brown and Jared Polis) elected governor of a U.S. state, as well as the first woman elected governor of Massachusetts.

Early life and education

Born at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, Healey grew up as the oldest of five brothers and sisters. When she was nine months old, her family moved to Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, where she was raised. Her mother was a nurse at Lincoln Akerman School in Hampton Falls; her father was a captain in the United States Public Health Service and an engineer. After divorcing, her mother sold her wedding ring to pay for a backyard basketball court. Healey's stepfather, Edward Beattie, taught history and coached girls' sports at Winnacunnet High School. Several of her grandparents and great-grandparents were born in Ireland.

Healey attended Winnacunnet High School, and majored in government at Harvard College, graduating ''cum laude'' in 1992. She was co-captain of the Harvard Crimson women's basketball team. After graduation, Healey spent two years playing as a starting point guard for a professional basketball team in Austria, UBBC Wüstenrot Salzburg, now called BBU Salzburg. Upon returning to the United States, she earned a Juris Doctor from Northeastern University School of Law in 1998.

Career

Healey began her legal career by clerking for Judge A. David Mazzone of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, where she prepared monthly compliance reports on the cleanup of the Boston Harbor and assisted the judge with trials, hearings, and case conferences. Healey subsequently spent more than seven years at the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where she worked as an associate and then junior partner and focused on commercial and securities litigation.

She also served as a special assistant district attorney in Middlesex County, where she tried drug, assault, domestic violence, and motor vehicle cases in bench and jury sessions and argued bail hearings, motions to suppress, and probation violations and surrenders.

Hired by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley in 2007, Healey served as chief of the Civil Rights Division, where she spearheaded the state's challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act. She led the winning arguments for Massachusetts in the country's first lawsuit striking down the law.

In 2012, Healey was promoted to chief of the Public Protection and Advocacy Bureau. She was then appointed chief of the Business and Labor Bureau.

As a division chief and bureau head in the Attorney General's Office, Healey oversaw 250 lawyers and staff members and supervised the areas of consumer protection, fair labor, ratepayer advocacy, environmental protection, health care, insurance and financial services, civil rights, antitrust, Medicaid fraud, nonprofit organizations and charities, and business, technology, and economic development.

During a Zoom conference call on June 3, 2020, before 300 members of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Healey asked for a call to action from business leaders to work to end racial inequalities and systemic racism. She ended her speech by saying, "Yes, America is burning, but that's how forests grow."

Attorney General of Massachusetts (2015–2023)

Elections

2014

In October 2013, Healey announced her candidacy for attorney general. Coakley was retiring from the office to run for governor. On September 9, 2014, Healey won the Democratic primary by 126,420 votes, defeating former State Senator Warren Tolman, 62.4% to 37.6%.

Healey's campaign was endorsed by State Senators Stan Rosenberg, Dan Wolf, Jamie Eldridge and America's largest resource for pro-choice women in politics, EMILY's List. It was also endorsed by Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan, Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse, Fitchburg Mayor Lisa Wong, and Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz. Organizations that endorsed the campaign include the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts, MassEquality, and the Victory Fund. Healey wrote an op-ed in the ''Worcester Telegram and Gazette'' on upholding the Massachusetts buffer zone law, which she worked on at the Attorney General's Office. She also authored an op-ed in ''The Boston Globe'' outlining her plan to combat student loan predators.

Healey defeated Republican nominee John Miller, an attorney, in the general election, 62.5% to 37.5%. Upon taking office, she became the United States' first openly lesbian state attorney general.

2018

On November 6, 2018, Healey was reelected Massachusetts Attorney General, defeating Republican nominee James McMahon with 69.9% of the vote.

Tenure

Healey's plan to reduce gun violence addresses what she perceives as its root causes. The program includes enhancing the background check system to include information regarding recent restraining orders, pending indictments, and any relations to domestic violence, parole, and probation information. The plan also seeks to track better stolen and missing guns. Healey advocates fingerprint trigger locks and firearm micro-stamping on all guns sold in Massachusetts.

Healey's plan for criminal justice reform includes ending mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and focusing on treatment rather than incarceration.

Healey plans to combat prescription drug abuse and Massachusetts's heroin epidemic by implementing a "lock-in" program. The program will be carried out in pharmacies to identify and track prescription drug abusers and distributors. Her plan includes deployment of new resources to drug trafficking hotspots, improvement of treatment accessibility, and expanding access to Narcan.

Abortion

Healey's women's rights platform focuses on sex education, expanding access to abortion services in Massachusetts, and ensuring that every woman in Massachusetts has access to abortion, regardless of where she lives, her occupation, or her income.

Gun control

On July 20, 2016, Healey announced her intention to ban the manufacturing of most assault rifles in Massachusetts. In 2021, as a result of this and other "arbitrary and damaging legislation", Smith & Wesson announced plans to relocate its headquarters and much of its manufacturing from Massachusetts to Tennessee. The new factory opened in Maryville in 2023.

Trump administration

On January 31, 2017, Healey announced that her office was joining a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's Executive Order 13769, commonly known as a "Muslim ban." Healey condemned the order as "motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment and Islamophobia, not by a desire to further national security." A federal court eventually struck the order down on similar grounds.

On March 9, 2017, Healey announced that her office was joining a lawsuit challenging Trump's Executive Order 13780.''International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump'' (4th Cir. 2017) http://coop.ca4.uscourts.gov/171351.P.pdf She said the new order, a revised version of the one that had been struck down, "remains a discriminatory and unconstitutional attempt to make good on rump'scampaign promise to implement a Muslim ban." The order has been blocked in various federal courts on similar grounds.

On May 11, 2017, after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, Healey led efforts calling for a special counsel to investigate Russia's meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Her office sent a letter to that effect, signed by 20 Attorneys General across the nation, to Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. On May 17, Rosenstein appointed a special counsel, former FBI director Robert Mueller.

Purdue Pharma

In 2021, Healey announced a resolution against the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma. The resolution requires a payment of more than $4.3 billion for prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts in communities across the country. It will also require Purdue Pharma to be wound down or sold by 2024 and ensure that the Sacklers are banned from the opioid business and required to turn over control of family foundations to an independent trustee to be used to address the opioid epidemic.

Governor of Massachusetts

Elections

2022

On January 20, 2022, Healey announced her candidacy in the 2022 Massachusetts gubernatorial election. Her announcement came after the incumbent governor, Charlie Baker, a Republican, announced he would not seek reelection. On September 6, 2022, Healey won the Democratic primary election. She defeated Sonia Chang-Díaz, who withdrew from the primary. Healey was endorsed by Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey.

On November 8, 2022, she defeated Geoff Diehl, the Republican nominee, in the general election, which made her the nation's first openly lesbian governor. She was inaugurated on January 5, 2023.

Tenure

The day after being sworn in, Healey signed an Executive Order establishing the Office of Climate Innovation and Resilience and creating a cabinet-level position of Climate Chief to head the office. According to Healey, the office will be tasked with working with state and local leaders to help the Commonwealth reach its climate goals and help coordinate the efforts. The Climate Chief will also be the governor's primary advisor on climate issues. Healey appointed Melissa Hoffer to the role.

In February 2023, the Healey administration announced a $742 million tax cut package to be filed, as an addition to its proposed fiscal year 2024 budget. Among the proposals included was an increase in the child and family tax credit from $240 to $600 per child or dependent. The plans would also increase the rental deduction cap from 50% of rent up to $3,000 to 50% of $4,000. Under the proposal, the state's short-term capital gains tax would be reduced from 12% to 5% and the estate tax threshold would be raised from $1 million to $3 million. The state legislature passed a scaled-back version of this proposal that increased the child and dependent tax credit to $310 for the 2023 tax year and $440 for following years. The short-term capital gains tax was reduced to 8.5%, and the estate tax was eliminated for all estates under $2 million. Healey signed these changes into law on October 4, 2023.

At a news conference held at Bunker Hill Community College in March 2023, Healey announced a $20 million appropriation to her 2024 fiscal year state budget proposal to create a free community college program, "MassReconnect", for Massachusetts residents 25 or older with a secondary school degree or post-secondary course credits, to address the skills gap in the state workforce. The state legislature approved the plan, as part of the 2024 fiscal year state budget, which Healey signed into law in August. In May 2023, Healey's administration announced $24.4 million in job creation tax incentives for 43 life sciences companies in the state to create 1,600 jobs.

In August 2023, Healey declared a state of emergency, due to an increase in migrants seeking shelter in the state. Massachusetts is the only U.S. state that must provide emergency housing to families who qualify. At the time of the emergency declaration, the shelter system was housing over 20,000 people. Healey set a limit of 7,500 on the number of families that could be housed in the state's emergency shelter system. The state exceeded this limit in November 2023. On November 9, Healey announced that families would be placed on a waiting list and would enter the shelter system as housing units became available. In December, she signed a $3.1 billion supplemental budget bill that added another $250 million in funding for the state's shelter system and created an overflow location for migrants who were unable to enter the state's shelter system. Later that month, the administration designated five locations as overflow sites. On April 30, 2024, Healey signed a bill that directed another $251 million into the shelter system for the rest of fiscal year 2024 and limited how long families can stay in the shelter system to nine months.

In February 2024, Healey nominated her former romantic partner, appellate court judge Gabrielle Wolohojian, to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Facing criticism for this decision, especially from Massachusetts Republican Party chair Amy Carnevale, who called on her to withdraw the nomination, Healey defended the choice. "I don't want the fact that she had a personal relationship with me to deprive the commonwealth of a person who's most qualified for the position", she told reporters. The Governor's Council approved the nomination on February 28 and Wolohojian was sworn in on April 22.

Personal life

In July 2022, Healey moved from Boston to Cambridge, Massachusetts. She plays basketball recreationally. On January 9, 2023, shortly after being inaugurated as governor, Healey announced that she is in a relationship with attorney Joanna Lydgate, her former chief deputy. She clarified that their relationship did not begin until Lydgate had departed the role to co-found the States United Democracy Center, a voting rights advocacy organization.

Healey is Catholic.

Electoral history

Attorney General of Massachusetts

Governor of Massachusetts

See also

* List of female state attorneys general in the United States
* List of female governors in the United States
* List of first openly LGBT politicians in the United States

Notes

References

External links

Governor Maura Healey and Lt. Governor Kim Driscoll
official government website

Maura Healey for Governor
campaign website
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