WASHINGTON, D.C. – ICYMI, the Boston Globe today profiled Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll and her work as second in command in Massachusetts. On issues from housing, to senior centers to working with mayors from all across the Commonwealth, LG Driscoll has emerged “as a powerful voice on policy and a deft hand in translating it on the ground, elevating a role that technically carries few formal responsibilities.”
Key points:
- There are few issues Kim Driscoll hasn’t touched as Governor Maura Healey’s second-in-command.
- She was the one on the phone, providing a near-daily sounding board for Newton’s mayor during a contentious teachers strike. She rallied supporters in Milton over a state-mandated, yet controversial housing plan. And it was Driscoll who squeezed into a Hadley senior center last fall with mayors and town administrators, helping craft a wish list of local priorities — including the power to raise local taxes on hotel stays, cars, and meals, estimated to cost taxpayers $150 million this year — that became the foundation of a wide-ranging municipal bill Healey unveiled in January.
- “I was like, oh wow. . . . Our hands, our input is all over that bill,” said Mayor Nicole LaChapelle of Easthampton, one of the 50-plus officials who brainstormed ideas with Driscoll in that October meeting. “And the only reason why our fingerprints are in that bill is because of Kim Driscoll.”
- In her year-plus as lieutenant governor, the Salem Democrat has emerged in the Healey administration as a powerful voice on policy and a deft hand in translating it on the ground, elevating a role that technically carries few formal responsibilities.
- Driscoll is every mayor’s best friend inside the administration, Healey’s trusted adviser, and in the eyes of some, a governor in waiting. She is the governor’s literal, as well as figurative, boots on the ground on several fronts, from housing to education. A chief executive herself for 16 years in Salem, Driscoll has naturally been the administration’s primary conduit to local officials. But she’s also a regular point of contact for lawmakers and other elected officials on thorny issues, including the state’s handling of an overwhelmed emergency shelter system.
- “I would say there is perhaps no more qualified lieutenant governor to serve to date than her,” said Tim Murray, the state’s lieutenant governor for six-plus years under former governor Deval Patrick. “She’s clearly got as meaningful a role as she could hope for.”
- In Driscoll, local officials say they see someone whose influence extends beyond backroom conversations and photo ops into substantive policy. At the Massachusetts Municipal Association’s annual meeting in January, when the administration unveiled its municipal bill, Healey and Driscoll took the stage together, sharing the microphone to detail the proposal.
Read the entire story HERE.
