Maura has deep roots in Massachusetts. Her parents both grew up in Newburyport. Her maternal grandparents met in Gloucester, where her grandfather worked on the fishing docks and her grandmother, whose ancestors settled on the Parker River in Newbury in 1636, went to nursing school. Her paternal grandparents came from Ireland and worked as a domestic worker and a janitor.
Maura was born at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1971 while her father served as a captain in the U.S. Public Health Service, and later as a civil engineer in the Environmental Protection Agency. Her maternal grandmother was determined that her grandchild be born on Massachusetts soil. She traveled through a snowstorm down Route 1, flew to Maryland, snuck into the delivery room wearing her nursing outfit, and placed a bag of soil from a family woodlot in Byfield below the delivery bed so that Maura could be “born” over Massachusetts. What mothers and grandmothers will do!
Maura is committed to protecting and expanding access to the ballot in Massachusetts and across the country.
The 2020 presidential election made clear that there are two forces in our country: those fighting to protect our democracy and those trying to undermine it. Across the country, people of color are being disenfranchised, and disinformation and violent rhetoric continue to spread across digital spaces. Protecting the integrity of our democracy and expanding access to it have been top priorities for Maura. In 2020, she convened a task force to protect voters from intimidation, led a voter education campaign that included materials for people who are incarcerated, and took multistate legal action to assist officials in other states to make sure every vote counted.
But she knows we still have a lot of work left to do to make sure that everyone not only has the right to vote, but is able to use it. As Governor, she will focus on: