The names stretch out behind her, well-known in state political lore, like ghosts of elections past: Quinn, Harshbarger, Reilly, Coakley. They were all incumbent attorneys general who endeavored to become governor, only to fall short.
But Maura Healey’s not thinking about the past.
“Probably the shortest that’s ever run,” Healey said Thursday when asked why her bid for the top job in state government might be different from those of her predecessors.
The 5-foot-4-inch former point guard launched her campaign for governor this week, and for the first time in the year since the first Democrat entered the 2022 gubernatorial race it finally felt like the campaign had begun. Game on.
Healey put one question behind her hours after making her campaign official. She was willing to shake hands in the cold, dropping by East Boston’s Maverick Square to meet the press and greet commuters under a winter drizzle. She opened her campaign with a hopeful economic message, promising to tackle cost-of-living issues that have long dogged Massachusetts, but have only become worse during the COVID-19 pandemic: housing, health care and child care.
“I understand people are tired right now. I understand that people wonder if we’re ever going to get through this and out of this. And I’m just here to say we are, and we will and we will move forward in ways that are bigger and better than ever imagined,” Healey said.
It’s been written many times over the past few days that Healey enters the race as the prohibitive favorite. But just ask Tom Reilly how quickly that title can be snatched away. Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz and Danielle Allen both showed by their welcoming of Healey that neither are prepared to lay down, passively tagging the prosecutor with the establishment label they are looking to rip off of state government.
For now, Healey is riding the wave. Her campaign pulled in $207,376 in donations in the 24 hours after her launch video went live, a one-day sum equal to half of the personal record she set in December when she collected over $400,000 from donors eager to give her encouragement. Turns out running can be as lucrative as the tease.
Gov. Charlie Baker flew above the political fray this week, sticking with the focused-on-the-work message that he chose last month when he decided to watch campaign 2022 unfold from the sidelines.
The governor rolled out new COVID-19 testing strategies for schools and early education centers, deploying some of the 26 million rapid antigen tests his administration purchased from iHealth to keep classrooms open, and shifting some of the testing responsibilities to students and parents.
First, Baker said K-12 schools that wanted to could end their test-and-stay programs and begin to receive rapid tests for students and staff to take home weekly as part of a new virus surveillance program. Meanwhile, testing supplies to extend “test-and-stay” to center-based and family day care centers will start to ship by the end of the month in an effort to keep day cares open for children and working parents who rely on them.
Instead of shuttering classrooms when a COVID-19 case arises, Baker said, day care centers could test children and staff daily who are close contacts and allow them to stay in the classroom.
The Legislature also had school safety on their minds as leaders put together a $55 million package to expand testing capacity and distribute personal protective equipment. The bill that unanimously cleared the House contained $30 million to set up and expand COVID-19 testing sites and boost childhood vaccination rates, and another $25 million to purchase and distribute masks in public schools.
The Senate is expected to take up the COVID-19 response bill next week, according to Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues, and when it does it will have a new member.
Sen. Lydia Edwards, an East Boston Democrat, took her oath of office Thursday to join the Senate as “lucky number 13,” raising the number of women in the body to a baker’s dozen.
While the Senate was restored to full strength, the exodus from the House picked up steam, with news about five women who are moving on. Claire Cronin gave her farewell speech to colleagues after being sworn in as President Joe Biden’s ambassador to Ireland, while Rep. Lori Ehrlich got tapped to lead the New England office of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Rep. Maria Robinson had her confirmation hearing to join the U.S. Department of Energy scheduled before a Senate committee for Feb. 3, Rep. Sheila Harrington was tapped by Baker for the clerk magistrate job in Gardner District Court, and Methuen Rep. Linda Dean Campbell announced her plans to retire at the end of the term to spend more time with her family.
House Speaker Ron Mariano must now decide whether it makes sense to schedule special elections to replace some of these departing members or leave them empty until next year. If history is any guide, resignations that occur early in an election year often lead to extended vacancies.
When former Rep. Vincent Pedone resigned in 2012 in mid-January, then-Speaker Robert DeLeo opted against calling for a special election out of concern that the timing could cause confusion for voters with candidates simultaneously running for election, and gathering signatures to qualify for the November ballot as well. In Cronin’s case, redistricting is an additional complicating factor with her district set to be merged with Rep. Gerard Cassidy’s for the fall elections.
Healey’s leap into the governor’s race shifted the focus of the will-they-won’t-they guessing game to the office she’s giving up, and the Democrats are swarming.
Shannon Liss-Riordan and Quentin Palfrey, past contenders for statewide office, took steps to prepare for campaigns even before Healey made her intentions clear. And Andrea Campbell, the former Boston city councilor fresh off a 2021 run for mayor, and New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell are also said to be mulling a bid to be the state’s top law enforcement officer.
Middlesex DA Marian Ryan has not ruled out a run for attorney general and why would she? The three AGs before Healey — Harshbarger, Reilly and Coakley — each made the jump from Middlesex DA to attorney general.
Treasurer Deborah Goldberg and Secretary of State William Galvin are now the only two constitutional officers to have not explicitly announced their 2022 plans. Whether Galvin runs or not, Democrat Tanisha Sullivan, president of the Boston branch of the NAACP, plans to make the case to voters that she should oversee elections, corporations and securities and public records in Massachusetts.
