From the Globe:
It is certainly one of the grandest quarters ever for a candidate for attorney general: a $1.4 million Charlestown townhouse. For four months, as Maura Healey and her small staff worked to launch her candidacy, she used the home where she lives as a working office for some of her political operations. Healey does not own the property, but because she lives there, her campaign was not required to pay rent, saving some hefty bills in its early low-budget efforts to jump-start her candidacy for the Democratic nomination.
This article was printed in yesterday’s Globe. I found it interesting, and I have not seen much discussion about it on this site. I think this is an issue directly related to how Healey has chosen to run her campaign — skirting an ethics dilemma.
On the seriousness of the allegations, the Globe explained:
The judicial ethics panel has repeatedly warned judges to be extremely cautious about showing any appearance of involvement in partisan issues, even in cases of family members. In a 2005 opinion, the Massachusetts Committee on Judicial Ethics addressed a similar issue now facing Healey and her partner. An unnamed judge, whose daughter was living at home while also managing her brother’s run for public office, asked the committee if the daughter could put up a campaign sign on the family lawn. The panel said such a political activity was “strictly forbidden.”
If Healey has been a top attorney in the AG’s office for 7 years, an office charged with investigating political and ethical violations, how did candidate Healey find this to be an acceptable arrangement? To quote further from the Globe, Healey said, “We reviewed the rules for public servants and judges and we have ensured that we have complied with those rules.”
Did Healey misinterpret the meaning of the word, “involvement” in the campaign? If even a lawn sign is “strictly forbidden”, it would seem to me that running a statewide political campaign out of her home for four months would be a serious violation.
For a candidate that has erroneously called out her opponent for “breaking the rules” in the past, this raises some questions.
