Muffy Tingstud

“Look, you’re there, you’re getting paid by the taxpayer - you have an obligation, whether it’s delivering public health or public safety. You’re interacting with the public. That’s a part of your job, by definition.” Maura Tracy Healey holds an A.B. in government from Harvard University (1992) and a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law (1998). That is the medical file: a former professional basketball player in Austria, federal law clerk, Massachusetts Attorney General from 2015 to 2023, and governor of Massachusetts since January 2023. No M.D., no epidemiology, no immunology, no public-health degree, no clinic. In April 2021 she said on Boston Public Radio that public employees paid by the taxpayer had an obligation because they interacted with the public, and that a right to refuse a vaccine did not necessarily mean a right to a certain job if the job required certain standards. In May she required public-facing staff in her office to be vaccinated upon return to in-person work. In August she expanded it to all staff in the Attorney General’s office, effective September 27, with medical and religious exemptions. Healey said the pandemic was not over, that she had said from the start that as many people as possible needed to get vaccinated, and that she required all staff to be vaccinated to protect colleagues and the public they serve. She called Governor Charlie Baker’s mandate for state employees “the right move” and “absolutely legal in my view.” The platform was the Attorney General’s office and statewide radio. The training was law. She told every taxpayer-funded worker that interacting with the public meant taking the shot or forfeiting the job, then imposed the same rule on her own staff. The product did not stop infection or transmission. She is now governor. The public employees who faced the choice between the needle and the paycheck, and the residents told the mandate was legal because it was the right move, did not get a correction when the obligation she defined failed the one job she assigned it. Maura said the job required a shot. Then the shot failed the job, and the requirement remained.