Governor Maura Healey on Monday defended her decision to not disclose her whereabouts last month when she took a four-day trip out of state, during which her executive powers constitutionally shifted to the Massachusetts secretary of state.
The first-term Democrat told reporters Monday that she intends to share information publicly about her “work-related travel.” But she suggested that even basic details about personal trips, like the one she took in mid-February, will not be disclosed — breaking from her predecessors and further narrowing the scope of what information Healey says she’s willing to make public, and when.
“My personal life is my personal life,” Healey said at the State House on Monday. “I’m going to work to make sure that privacy is maintained for my family.”
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Healey’s office months ago stopped publicly divulging her out-of-state travel plans in advance of the governor’s travels. But her trip last month marked the first instance in which her office shielded basic details of her travel destination even after the fact.
And on Monday, Healey indicated that, going forward, she will continue to keep details of any future personal trips under wraps.
“I’m constantly working,” she told reporters Monday. “We’ll continue to provide our calendar, as we’ve promised to do, and I’ll continue to provide information about all of my work-related travel and events.”
When Healey initially left Massachusetts in mid-February, the public and press only learned that the governor was traveling out of state because Secretary of State William F. Galvin, disclosed it. Healey’s office later acknowledged it, saying that she was on a “personal trip.”
A spokesperson for Galvin, a Brighton Democrat, said at the time that he would serve as acting governor for roughly three days — from Friday, Feb. 9, until the evening of Sunday, Feb. 11 — because both Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll had left the state. Under the state Constitution, any time the governor travels outside of Massachusetts, it triggers a transfer of executive power, first to the lieutenant governor. The secretary of state is then next in line.
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Driscoll, however, was traveling for a family matter last month, aides said then. Driscoll later disclosed that her 90-year-old father died.
Because Healey’s administration has stopped alerting the public about her out-of-state travel, it means the public could be unaware when it is Driscoll who is serving as acting governor.
Galvin said Monday that typically it’s Healey’s chief of staff, Kate Cook, who informs his staff when he is slated to serve in the acting role. He said he is not told, nor does he ask, where the governor is traveling, but he makes sure he has the “means of communicating with them, if I need to.”
“Your role is simply to make sure things are handled while the duly elected officials are unable to do it themselves. There’s no policy role,” said Galvin, an eight-term Democrat who’s filled in as acting governor at various times for decades.
A copy of Healey’s monthly calendar, which her office released late Friday in response to a Globe request, did not specify exactly when she left Massachusetts, when she returned on Feb. 11, or other information, such as to what airport she was flying. Those are details she has routinely included for other trips on her calendar, including for an official trip she took to Washington, D.C., later in February.
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Healey’s aides said in November that they would stop providing details of her out-of-state travel ahead of time, citing unspecified “security concerns.” They also pledged transparency, with a spokesperson saying at the time that “a record of her travel is included in her calendar, which is available to media.”
Healey’s shifting posture on disclosures has sparked a range of questions about what the state’s chief executive should, and should not, be expected to make public, particularly at a time when elected officials face escalating risks from protests to swatting calls to, in the case of Michigan’s governor, a failed kidnapping plot.
While Healey was out of state last month, about two dozen members of a regional neo-Nazi group demonstrated outside her Arlington home. State Police said members of NSC-131, which describes itself as a “pro-white, street-oriented fraternity,” gathered for about 12 minutes before leaving. Police made no arrests.
Healey, the first woman and openly gay governor elected in Massachusetts history, denounced the group after its first demonstration, saying its members were “trying to scare people.” Healey lives in Arlington with her partner, who has two children.
Still, as a public figure, and especially the state’s top elected official, “you lose the luxury of privacy,” said Mary Z. Connaughton, director of government transparency and chief operating officer at the Pioneer Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank.
“While it’s the governor’s call on what to disclose, this steady drop in transparency is hardly a way to engender strong bonds with the public,” said Connaughton, a former Republican candidate for state auditor. “So why the mystery?”
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The debate around Healey’s actions highlights a wider issue, said Geoff Foster, executive director of the good government group, Common Cause Massachusetts: All three branches — the governor’s office, the Legislature, and the judiciary — enjoy a blanket exemption from the state’s public records law. Massachusetts, in fact, is the only state where that’s the case.
“It’s important that we balance the reality that threats of political violence are at an all-time high, but so too is public distrust in government,” Foster wrote in an email. “It’s past time that we take another look at ways to strengthen the public records law which already includes reasonable exclusions related to policy development and personal privacy.”
Healey entered office vowing to bring more transparency to the executive suite “than ever before,” and once said she would not claim a blanket exemption from Massachusetts public records. But she quickly reversed herself, saying she would evaluate requests on a case-by-case basis. Her office has since routinely denied monthly requests for her emails and call logs on the argument that it would “unreasonably hinder the governor in effectively performing her duties.”
But her decision not to disclose where she traveled, even after the fact, runs contrary to her predecessors and her own past practice.
Healey, for example, disclosed in February 2023 that she was traveling to Florida for what her office at the time called a “family trip.” Her office also disclosed in July that she traveled to Rhode Island for an eight-day personal trip around the Fourth of July holiday.
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Democrats had varying reactions Monday. Asked whether legislative leaders are informed about the governor’s travels, a spokesperson for state Senate President Karen E. Spilka, an Ashland Democrat, defended Healey as “one of the hardest working people the Senate President knows,” arguing that the governor has made herself available “24/7, 7 days a week.”
Jonathan Cohn, policy director of the group Progressive Massachusetts, said while Healey shouldn’t be expected to disclose what hotel she’s staying in or other intimate details, “you should be at least willing to tell people where you went.”
“It’s a sense of accountability to the public,” Cohn said. The public “should be able to know when you’re gone for a period of time without it being somehow shrouded in mystery.”
Amy Carnevale, the chair of the state Republican Party, argued that if security concerns prompted her not to disclose upcoming trips, “there seems to be no justification for not being forthcoming with residents afterwards.”
“This situation is unsettling,” she said.
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.