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, defeating the Republican nominee, former state representative Geoff Diehl.
Maura Healey
Charlie Baker
Joanna Lydgate
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 then defeated Republican attorney John Miller in the general election. Healey was reelected in 2018.[1] She was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2022.[2]
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.[3] 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.[4][5]
Early life and education[edit]
Born at the Bethesda Naval Hospital,[6] 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.[7] 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.[6] 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.[8]
Healey attended Winnacunnet High School,[9] and majored in government at Harvard College, graduating cum laude in 1992. She was co-captain of the Harvard Crimson women's basketball team.[10] After graduation, Healey spent two years playing as a starting point guard for a professional basketball team in Austria, UBBC Wustenrot Salzburg.[11] Upon returning to the United States, she earned a Juris Doctor from Northeastern University School of Law in 1998.[12]