Healey, Driscoll to speak at Connect 351

Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll will share their vision for the coming year with local leaders from across the state during Connect 351, the MMA’s annual conference in Boston.

The appearance, at the general session on Friday, Jan. 23, will come the day after the governor’s annual State of the Commonwealth address and just a few days before she is due to file her fiscal 2027 state budget plan with the Legislature.

The governor and lieutenant governor are expected to address their priorities for 2026, as well as areas where the work of local government and the administration intersect.

Over the past year, the Healey-Driscoll administration has been working to address housing, health care and overall affordability concerns, climate issues, and federal funding gaps, to name a few challenges.

During an Opening Session address at the MMA conference this past January, Healey and Driscoll discussed their state budget and local aid plans, public schools and roads, and other priorities. They pledged to work closely with cities and towns, emphasizing the importance of continued advocacy for their proposed Municipal Empowerment Act.

Driscoll discussed the Municipal Empowerment package and the state-local partnership, along with her experience in public service, during a recent appearance on the MMA’s podcast, The 351.

In November 2022, Healey became the state’s first woman and first openly gay candidate to be elected governor, after serving two four-year terms as the state’s attorney general. She has been a frequent speaker at MMA events since her time as attorney general.

Raised in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, Healey came to Massachusetts to attend Harvard College, where she majored in government and was co-captain of the women’s basketball team. She spent two years playing professional basketball in Europe before returning to earn her law degree at Northeastern University School of Law.

Healey began her law career as a U.S. District Court clerk followed by seven years in private practice. She served as a special assistant district attorney in Middlesex County, as chief of the attorney general’s Civil Rights Division, as chief of the AG’s Public Protection and Advocacy Bureau, and as chief of the AG’s Business and Labor Bureau. In 2014, she was elected attorney general, and was reelected in 2018.

In January 2023, Healey and Driscoll became the state’s first all-women leadership team, and Massachusetts became one of the two first states in the country, along with Arkansas, to have women occupying the two top executive roles. Driscoll was also the first woman to serve as mayor in Salem when she was elected there in 2005.

Driscoll was previously chief legal counsel and then deputy city manager in Chelsea, community development director in Beverly, a councillor in Salem, and an intern in Salem’s Planning Department. She majored in political science and played basketball at Salem State University before earning a law degree at the Massachusetts School of Law.

During 17 years as mayor of Salem, Driscoll was credited with helping to improve Salem’s finances, overseeing infrastructure upgrades, investing in public school improvements, championing climate initiatives, prioritizing downtown and waterfront revitalization, and promoting equality.

She had been actively involved in the MMA and served as president of the Massachusetts Mayors’ Association in 2012. She also served as chair of the North Shore Coalition of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, and served on the Massachusetts Workforce Development Board, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Local Government Advisory Committee, the Massachusetts Seaport Economic Council, and the Massachusetts Economic Development Planning Council.