Healey’s true colors
Last week, political reporter Adam Reilly wondered in these pages just how committed Republican lieutenant governor Kerry Healey is to her purported “moderate” political standards in her race to succeed Mitt Romney as governor. Since then, Healey has made two moves that justify his question. First, she named former state-police colonel Reed Hillman as her running mate. As a state representative, Hillman was one of the most conservative on Beacon Hill. And then a few days ago, Healey proposed a plan designed to inhibit the independence of state judges by making it easier to remove them. In doing so, Healey put herself at odds with recently retired US Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor, also a lifelong Republican, who warned that national efforts by the GOP to silence judges they didn’t agree with could breed tyranny. If Healey is so concerned with the quality of justice in Massachusetts, why haven’t we heard her speak out about the low level of pay for judges and public defenders, about the lack of programs for rehabilitating prisoners, about the uneven and inadequate professional staffing of the courts, about legislative patronage and interference, about the crumbling and dilapidated state of so many courthouses? Could it be that she’s more concerned with politics than with justice?