1. Maura Tracy Healey was born on February 8,1971 and is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 73rd governor of Massachusetts since 2023.
37 Facts About Maura Healey
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Maura Healey 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.
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Maura Healey defeated former State Senator Warren Tolman in the Democratic primary and Republican attorney John Miller in the general election.
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In 2014, Maura Healey became the first openly lesbian woman elected attorney general of a US state and the first openly LGBTQ person elected to statewide office in Massachusetts.
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Maura Healey's 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.
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Maura Healey was co-captain of the Harvard Crimson women's basketball team.
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Maura 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.
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Maura Healey 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.
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Maura Healey led the winning arguments for Massachusetts in the country's first lawsuit striking down the law.
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In 2012, Maura Healey was promoted to chief of the Public Protection and Advocacy Bureau.
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Maura Healey was then appointed chief of the Business and Labor Bureau.
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In October 2013, Maura Healey announced her candidacy for attorney general.
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Maura 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.
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Maura 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.
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Maura Healey authored an op-ed in The Boston Globe outlining her plan to combat student loan predators.
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Maura Healey's plan includes deployment of new resources to drug trafficking hotspots, improvement of treatment accessibility, and expanding access to Narcan.
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On July 20,2016, Maura Healey announced her intention to ban the manufacturing of most assault rifles in Massachusetts.
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On March 9,2017, Maura Healey announced that her office was joining a lawsuit challenging Trump's Executive Order 13780.
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On May 11,2017, after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, Maura Healey led efforts calling for a special counsel to investigate Russia's meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
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Maura Healey's office sent a letter to that effect, signed by 20 Attorneys General across the nation, to Deputy US Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
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In 2021, Maura Healey announced a resolution against the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma.
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On January 20,2022, Maura Healey announced her candidacy in the 2022 Massachusetts gubernatorial election.
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Maura Healey's announcement came after the incumbent governor, Charlie Baker, a Republican, announced he would not seek reelection.
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On September 6,2022, Maura Healey won the Democratic primary election.
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Maura Healey defeated Sonia Chang-Diaz, who withdrew from the primary.
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Maura Healey was endorsed by Vice President Kamala Harris and US Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey.
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The day after being sworn in, Maura 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.
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In February 2023, the Maura Healey administration announced a $742 million tax cut package to be filed, as an addition to its proposed fiscal year 2024 budget.
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Maura Healey signed these changes into law on October 4,2023.
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At a news conference held at Bunker Hill Community College in March 2023, Maura 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.
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The state legislature approved the plan, as part of the 2024 fiscal year state budget, which Maura Healey signed into law in August.
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In May 2023, Maura 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.
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Maura Healey set a limit of 7,500 on the number of families that could be housed in the state's emergency shelter system.
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In February 2024, Maura Healey nominated her former romantic partner, appellate court judge Gabrielle Wolohojian, to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
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In July 2022, Maura Healey moved from Boston to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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On January 9,2023, shortly after being inaugurated as governor, Maura Healey announced that she is in a relationship with attorney Joanna Lydgate, her former chief deputy.
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Maura Healey 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.