BOSTON — At the midway point of her term in office, Gov. Maura Healey said last week she’s comfortable with what she’s gotten done and is more focused on implementing what she sees as “transformational” accomplishments than on pondering her next move.
Healey told the News Service she “didn’t expect time to fly by as quickly as it has” since she took office in January 2023, but ticked through what her administration sees as its accomplishments of 2024: implementation of last year’s tax cuts; signing housing, climate and economic development policies she had a hand in shaping into law; making good on the MBTA’s pledge to eliminate subway system slow zones by the end of this year; and Massachusetts securing favorable perches in various “best state for” rankings.
“I guess as I reflect on the last two years, I feel good about making good on the commitments made when I stood at that inauguration,” the governor said as she sat in her holiday-decorated ceremonial office last week.
She said her first full legislative session as governor “was really remarkable for what we got done, some transformational legislation.”
“A lot got done. There is a lot to do,” Healey said. “And I think, if anything, it’s like, my focus now is on the implementation, right? How do we get the money out the door? How do we get these programs up and running? How do we now deliver on these transformational pieces of legislation that were priorities, and how do we do that as quickly as we can?”
In the second year of her term, Massachusetts faced a series of crises that tested the leadership of Healey’s administration. The Steward Health Care hospital system’s bankruptcy and the closure of two for-profit hospitals — one in a health care desert — exacerbated the state’s health care access issues. Meanwhile, the homelessness crisis deepened as families (almost evenly split between migrants and longer-standing residents) continued to overwhelm the state’s-already strained shelter system, prompting the governor to implement further restrictions on Massachusetts’ right-to-shelter policy. And the cost of living continued to rise, placing additional financial strain on Bay Staters who were already feeling the pain of lighter wallets.
In a 20-minute interview with the News Service, the governor acknowledged that she wishes July’s chaotic burst of limited lawmaking had gone differently, that many residents are closely guarding their pocketbooks while the state has grand spending ambitions, and that the incoming Republican-controlled federal government could make her job more difficult for the second half of her term – and she says she has not even begun to consider the idea of reelection less than two years from now.
“No, I’m not. I’m not making any announcements or decisions about that right now,” the governor said when asked if she was at the point yet of considering reelection in 2026. “I feel like we just got through an election. And my focus really is, my laser focus, is on implementing Mass Leads, Affordable Homes, and all the great policy pieces that we got done.”
She said she would start to think about reelection “sometime over the course of the next year.”
Healey pointed to the Boston Celtics “Banner 18” championship as a highlight of her year, as well as “getting into communities.”
She didn’t have a specific answer to whether she made any new discoveries within Massachusetts, or was surprised or taken with any city or town she wasn’t wasn’t overly familiar with before her time as governor.
“I’ve been around, I was AG for eight years,” she said, before saying that her administration has made a point to spend time in central and western Massachusetts.
She concluded with a statement of her “Team Massachusetts” philosophy.
“It’s a wonderful state full of a lot of wonderful people, both in the private sector, nonprofit sector and public sector, who, you know, if you can bring people together and get them working together, really great things could happen,” Healey said. “And that’s a little bit of what we’ve tried to promote with the Team Massachusetts vibe, you know, that we are all in this together, and like our successful sports teams, like the Celtics, you know, if everybody plays as a team we can really do some great things.”