Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey is up for reelection next month. Some details of her personal life have drawn far less scrutiny than they likely would have for a male politician in the same position.
Critics argue the media coverage has been noticeably softer, if not outright absent, due to the fact that she is a woman and has been celebrated as the first openly lesbian governor in the United States. As if that is some sort of qualification for the job.
Healey spent roughly a dozen years in a relationship with Massachusetts Appeals Court Judge Gabrielle Wolohojian that ended in 2019, while Healey was still attorney general. A few years later, she nominated Wolohojian to the Supreme Judicial Court, a move the Boston Globe’s editorial board at the time called dreadful on optics grounds and one that raised obvious questions about recusal.
"Surely a smart politician like Governor Maura Healey knows that optics count. And surely she also had to know that the optics around nominating her former longtime partner to the state’s highest court are just dreadful," the board wrote, though it contends Wolohojian had the qualifications.
Rumors have circulated about the reasons for Healey and Wolohojian’s 2019 split, though none have been confirmed. Regardless of that background, the Globe contends that it'd be nearly impossible for bias not to creep into Wolohojian's work.
"The court’s rules call for judges to step aside from a case if a judge has a 'personal bias or prejudice concerning a party,'" it wrote. "None of us need to know the circumstances of Healey and Wolohojian’s breakup, but it beggars belief to imagine that the judge has no 'personal bias,' positively or negatively, toward her ex — who is arguably a party in all manner of lawsuits involving state government."
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey defends her decision to nominate a former lover - Gabrielle Wolohojian - to the state's highest court Something smells fishy about this nomination https://t.co/bGcm51fWmt
— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) February 10, 2024
Another relationship from Healey’s time as attorney general has drawn even less scrutiny.
Separately, Healey began seeing Joanna Lydgate, a married subordinate in the attorney general’s office who later divorced her husband and became known as the governor’s “First Lady” even though the two are not married.
That status means Lydgate is not required to file the financial disclosures that apply to spouses of public officials.
According to the timeline the two later described, their relationship began a few months after Lydgate left the AG's office. She was still married to her husband, Marc Ruben, and they were sharing custody of their two young children.
“Working together in the office, we were always really close,” Healey told the Globe. “After we stopped working together, we realized this is something more … than just being best friends, and it has been a really beautiful, unexpected journey.”
In that same profile, Lydgate said she and her husband had “lovingly and mutually” parted ways.
Healey has also nominated a lawyer who works for Lydgate to a Superior Court judgeship. In a statement, a spokesperson for the governor said Feiner is “a highly qualified candidate for the Superior Court” and that Lydgate “was not involved in the nominating or selection process.”
Maura Healey, @MassGov , took last week off to Gay Paree with her gal pal. Pretty expensive, but Maura's not worried. Not only does she make $243,493, but check out how much her younger Sapphic soulmate, Joanna Lydgate, grabs at something called "States United Democracy Center." 420 large -- not bad! Most she ever made working under Healey in the AG's office in 2020 was $136,000. Also see who's on board -- Norm Eisen, perhaps the most rabid TDS-obsessed Lawfare lawyer there is & ex-NJ Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Trump-hating RINO's RINO.
— Howie Carr (@HowieCarrShow) July 15, 2025
Embedded tweet continues:
... 420 large -- not bad! Most she ever made working under Healey in the AG's office in 2020 was $136,000. Also see who's on board -- Norm Eisen, perhaps the most rabid TDS-obsessed Lawfare lawyer there is & ex-NJ Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Trump-hating RINO's RINO.
Coverage of these relationships in the Globe and elsewhere has been soft, to say the least. The profile that introduced Lydgate described the relationship warmly and took the couple’s timeline at face value. A later Globe event had Lydgate talking about parenting and her role as first lady without much pushback on how the relationship started while she was still in the attorney general’s office.
"She has made her peace with this new, bigger spotlight, but Healey worries about bringing others into it," it wrote. "Especially now, when there are so many opportunities for people to say and do ugly things to elected officials and those dear to them."
Even the paper’s more critical editorial on the Wolohojian nomination focused mainly on optics and recusal rather than treating the personal history as a scandal.
Similar details involving a male governor — particularly a relationship with a married subordinate with kids, followed by a judicial nomination of an ex-partner — would have led to deeper scrutiny and constant badgering by the media.
Why is the press granting her a free pass?
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