Governor Maura Healey‘s aides on Friday refused to say where the Democrat traveled last month when she spent four days out of state on a “personal trip,” a stretch in which Healey’s powers constitutionally shifted to the Massachusetts secretary of state.
Healey’s office months ago stopped publicly divulging her out-of-state travel plans ahead of time. But this is the first instance in which her office has shielded her whereabouts even after the fact, despite promising to include travel records in documents it releases upon request.
When Healey initially left Massachusetts in mid-February, it was Secretary of State William F. Galvin, not Healey’s office, that disclosed she had traveled out of state. Under the state Constitution, any time the governor travels outside of Massachusetts, it triggers a transfer of executive power.
Advertisement
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.
Driscoll was traveling for a family matter, aides said then. Driscoll later disclosed that her 90-year-old father had died.
A copy of Healey’s monthly calendar, which her office released late Friday in response to a Globe request, notes that Healey was not in Massachusetts starting a day earlier, on Feb. 8. But beyond noting she was “OOS” — or out of state — it did not specify exactly when she left Massachusetts, when she returned on Feb. 11, or other details, such as to what airport she was flying. Those are details she has routinely included for other trips on her calendar.
Her office late Friday said it would not disclose where she went, citing it as a “personal trip.”
Advertisement
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.” But they 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.”
Coincidentally, 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.
It marked at least the second the time the group demonstrated there following an October incident in which they held a sign reading, “New England is ours, the rest must go.” Healey later denounced the group, saying it was “trying to scare people from exercising their rights and standing up to their hate.”
The decision by Healey, who entered office vowing to bring more transparency to the office “than ever before,” not to disclose where she went marks a major break from her predecessors. It also runs contrary to Healey’s own practice early in her term, when she routinely disclosed upcoming trips. That included personal ones, too, which like official trips typically carry costs for the governor’s security detail and constitutional shifts in governing power.
Healey, for example, disclosed in February 2023 that was traveling to Florida for what her office at the time called a “family trip.” It also disclosed in July that she traveled to Rhode Island for an eight-day personal trip around the Fourth of July holiday.
Advertisement
Healey has regularly traveled outside of Massachusetts since taking office. In the roughly 14 months she has been governor, she has spent at least part of 59 days outside of the state, a Globe analysis found.
Recently, she attended a gathering of Democratic governors in Phoenix in late November and early December, and traveled to Washington, D.C., last month, both for a meeting of the nonpartisan National Governors Association and to press federal officials for more funding on several fronts.
For the latter, her office shared details of her plans the day she traveled, offering real-time insight into an official trip. It also included details of which airport she flew into and when on her calendar.
Healey, like past governors, has held that under a 1997 state Supreme Judicial Court ruling, her office is not subject to the Massachusetts public records law, which requires a response to requests within 10 business days. As a result, her office has regularly denied requests for her emails and phone call logs, claiming that “doing so would interfere with the Governor’s necessary, regular activities and responsibilities and, as a consequence, unreasonably hinder the Governor in effectively performing her duties.”
It has, however, released redacted versions of her calendar, with varying response times.
The Globe, for example, first requested the portion of her calendar covering the days she traveled out of state last month on Feb. 26. Healey’s office didn’t release her daily calendar covering January until Feb. 22, three weeks after the Globe first requested it.
Advertisement
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.