A years-long debate over whether to replace the state flag turned into a political football this past week as Republicans looking to challenge Gov. Maura Healey in next year’s governor’s race tried to turn the effort into a campaign talking point.
When presented with a chance to weigh in on the topic during an unrelated event on COVID-19 vaccines, Healey nearly laughed off a question from a Herald reporter and declared the state flag would not be going anywhere any time soon.
“I don’t mean to laugh. But of everything that’s going on right now — I support that there was a legislative commission to look at this,” Healey said before acknowledging that a 2021 law tasked a state commission with coming up with recommendations for a new state flag, seal, and motto.
Healey then pivoted into well-worn talking points.
“I’m focused on a bunch of stuff, public health that we’re talking about today, building more homes, driving down housing costs, right? Bringing more energy into the region so we can lower people’s energy bills. We’ve got ongoing issues with ICE in our communities, right? And these are the things that I’m focused on,” she said.
The first-term Democrat then made clear that the state flag would be sticking around, for now.
“Until further discussions and recommendations … I’ll continue to be here and that flag will continue to be here,” Healey said.
As she continues to stare down the barrel of the 2026 governor’s race, Healey has at times chosen to take a moderate tack on key issues.
Those decisions may play well next year with the massive number of independent voters in Massachusetts that she will need to win over, and Democrats who find themselves disaffected with their party after the 2024 presidential election.
Healey’s attempt to sidestep, and even downplay, the debate over the state flag could be another notch in the moderate column.
But it could also be — as others in the State House press corps have pointed out this past week — an effort to stay out of what is sure to be a raucous culture war argument between Republicans who want to keep the state flag as it is and other groups who find the depiction of a Native American under a colonist’s arm holding a sword offensive.
House Democratic leadership has some reading to do…
Top House Democrats made it clear this past week that two key proposals from Healey to make driving records public again and expand her budget-cutting authority are not on their immediate to-do list.
Healey filed a $2.45 billion spending bill last month that sought to reopen driving records to public scrutiny after an immigrants’ driver’s license law sealed them away. Another $100 million spending bill she filed in July would hand her office the extraordinary power to cut spending across all of state government instead of just within the executive branch.
House budget chief Aaron Michlewitz, a North End Democrat, said lawmakers are still reviewing the expanded budget-cutting plan.
“She does already have some of those powers at hand, and I think we feel comfortable with where it’s been in the past,” he told reporters this past week.
House Speaker Ron Mariano said he has not read the driving records access language.
“I haven’t read the proposal,” he said. “You have the advantage on me. I don’t know. I’d have to go back and review it.”
Michlewitz said Democrats in House leadership are still “reviewing all the outside sections” Healey has filed.
“(We) haven’t really made a determination yet where we’re going to land on that,” he said of the driving records.
Brian Shortsleeve touts results from South Shore ‘straw poll’ …
Brian Shortsleeve, a venture capitalist and former MBTA official running to challenge Healey next year, is trying to play up the results of a local survey of Republicans down the South Shore this past week.
Shortsleeve earned 68% of the vote in a “straw poll” held during a candidate forum hosted by the Republican Town Committees of Duxbury, Pembroke, and Weymouth, according to his campaign. Shortsleeve described the outcome as a “decisive victory.”
“These early wins show that our message is resonating. Voters are ready for bold leadership and real results, and they support my mission for Massachusetts,” he said in a statement.
A “straw poll” of a handful of South Shore towns is hardly an indicator of who will win the Republican primary next year. But it is an interesting sampling for political insiders to chat about.
Shortsleeve is running against Mike Kennealy, a former cabinet secretary under Gov. Charlie Baker, for the Republican nomination to take on Healey in the 2026 statewide election.
Logan Trupiano, a spokesperson for Kennealy, accused Shortsleeve of going “negative” during the candidate forum only hours after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
“Republicans overwhelmingly reject Brian Shortsleeve when they find out he donated $100,000 to Democrats like (Attorney General) Andrea Campbell, while simultaneously giving a $249 million taxpayer-funded no-bid contract to the Chinese Communist Party while he was running the MBTA into the ground,” Trupiano said in a statement.
Holly Robichaud, a political strategist working for Shortsleeve, shot back.
“Mike Kennealy keeps losing these straw polls because Republicans strongly oppose his record as a Never Trumper who, as Gov. Baker’s housing secretary, opened migrant hotels, wrote the MBTA Communities Act regulations, and was the COVID economic hibernation czar who kept businesses and schools shut down way too long, doing lasting damage to our economy and students,” Robichaud said in a statement.
