Massachusetts Governor: Maura Healey (D)
Maura Healey has deep roots in Massachusetts. Her parents both grew up in Newburyport. Her maternal grandparents met in Gloucester, where her grandfather worked on the fishing docks and her grandmother, whose ancestors settled on the Parker River in Newbury in 1636, went to nursing school. Her paternal grandparents came from Ireland and worked as a domestic worker and a janitor.
Her maternal grandmother was determined that her grandchild be born on Massachusetts soil. She traveled through a snowstorm down Route 1, flew to Maryland, snuck into the delivery room wearing her nursing outfit, and placed a bag of soil from a family woodlot in Byfield below the delivery bed so that she could be “born” over Massachusetts.
She attended Harvard College, where she captained the basketball team, and then spent two years as a 5’4” starting point guard on a professional basketball team in Austria. She attended Northeastern University School of Law, motivated by a commitment to public service and a desire to help people.
She went on to work in private practice before leaving to serve as chief of the Civil Rights Division in the Attorney General’s Office. She was promoted to oversee two of the office’s most prominent divisions: the Public Protection & Advocacy Bureau and the Business & Labor Bureau.
In 2014, Healey was elected the first openly gay attorney general in the country. She was reelected in 2018. She has taken on some of the most powerful institutions on behalf of Massachusetts residents. She made the AG’s office the first statewide office to implement paid leave for families and established the office’s first-ever Community Engagement Division to go out directly into communities, share resources and empower people through education about their rights.
