Maura Healey

Maura Tracy Healey (born February 8, 1971) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 73rd governor of Massachusetts since 2023.

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 Wustenrot Salzburg.

Upon returning to the United States, she earned a Juris Doctor from Northeastern University School of Law in 1998.

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 led the state's challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

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.

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 then defeated Republican attorney John Miller in the general election.

In October 2013, Healey announced her candidacy for attorney general.

Coakley was retiring from the office to run for governor.

In 2014, Healey became the first openly lesbian woman elected attorney general of a U.S. state and the first openly LGBT person elected to statewide office in Massachusetts.

In 2022, she became one of the first two openly lesbian women (alongside Tina Kotek) and the co-third openly LGBT person (alongside Tina 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.

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.

Her family roots are in Newburyport and the North Shore area, while several of her grandparents and great-grandparents were born in Ireland.

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.

A member of the Democratic Party, she served as Massachusetts Attorney General from 2015 to 2023 and was elected governor in 2022, defeating the Republican nominee, former state representative Geoff Diehl.

Healey was reelected in 2018.

She was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2022.

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

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."