Andrea Campbell

Andrea Joy Campbell is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the 45th attorney general of Massachusetts since 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served on the Boston City Council from 2016 to 2022, serving as council president from 2018 to 2020. She unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Boston in 2021, placing third in the nonpartisan primary election.

In 2022, Campbell announced her candidacy in that year's election for attorney general of Massachusetts. Campbell was the first Black woman to qualify for ballot access for statewide office in Massachusetts. Winning the Democratic Party's nomination with a sizable victory in the Democratic primary, Campbell won the general election by a large margin. In January 2023, she was sworn in as attorney general, becoming the first Black woman to hold the office and only the second Black person to hold it, preceded by Edward Brooke.

Early life and education Campbell poses with Lois Savage, her aunt and mother-figure, on the day of her swearing-in as attorney general. With Campbell's birth mother deceased and her birth father imprisoned for much of her childhood, Savage and her husband played a major role in Campbell's upbringing.

Campbell and her twin brother, Andre, were born in Boston, Massachusetts. She has an older brother named Alvin Jr. Soon after she was born, her birth father, Alvin Campbell Sr., was sentenced to an eight-year prison term. When Campbell was only eight months old, her birth mother, Denise, was killed in a car accident while driving to visit Campbell's birth father in prison. As a result, Campbell and her brothers resided in foster care and with various relatives. Among the relatives Campbell lived with were her grandmother, an alcoholic, as well as her aunt and uncle Lois and Ron Savage. Shell graduated from Boston Latin School. Campbell graduated from Princeton in 2004. When Campbell was 29, her twin brother, who suffered from scleroderma, died while in state custody awaiting trial. After this, Campbell spent two years at the Proskauer Rose legal firm where she provided advice to companies located in Boston and New York City on matters related to employment law and labor relations. Campbell was the first woman to represent her council district.

Campbell was a supporter of voting "yes" on the Massachusetts Charter School Expansion Initiative referendum in 2016, a ballot measure which would have authorized an expansion of the number of charter schools in the state. Campbell faced criticisms from teachers' unions and progressive activists for supporting charter schools.

In 2016 Campbell and Councilor Ayanna Pressley introduced an ordinance that would have banned the use of credit scores by employers to negatively assess job applicants and existing hires.

Campbell supported the proposed federal Second Chance Reauthorization Act of 2015, which would have reauthorized the 2007 Second Chance Act. She introduced an ordinance to the Boston City Council to express support for this.

Second term and council presidency (2018 and 2019) Campbell was reelected in November 2017, having run unopposed. Campbell was one of two members of the Boston City Council not to give an endorsement in the coinciding 2017 Boston mayoral election. Besides Campbell, Ayanna Pressley remained neutral (citing her husband's employment by Mayor Walsh). Tito Jackson was running against Walsh, and the other ten city councilors endorsed Walsh's reelection campaign.

On December 9, 2017, Campbell announced that she had unanimous support of her colleagues to be the next president of the council. She was elected council president on January 1, 2018. The ordinance was rejected by the City Council in a 9–4 vote. Also in 2019, Campbell and fellow councilor Matt O'Malley proposed the idea of a vacancy tax on abandoned residential and commercial properties.

Campbell promoted the idea of extending City Council terms from two years to four years in duration. She argued that longer terms would strengthen the City Council's power in city government and make it a more effective body. Such a proposal would require a home-rule petition to garner state consent. In February 2019, during hearings on this, Campbell proposed making further changes to city election laws, including creating a prohibition from running for more than one municipal office at the same time and changing the law so that special elections would be held to fill vacant at-large seats rather than the seat being offered to the first runner-up of the previous at-large election. This latter proposal notably came at a moment when Althea Garrison had just joined the Boston City Council to fill the at-large seat left vacant by Ayanna Pressley (who had resigned to join the U.S. House of Representatives) because Garrison had been the first runner-up in the 2017 at-large Boston City Council election. Campbell denied that her proposal was in response to Garrison, instead claiming it came from a belief that giving a seat to someone who had not outright won election to it is undemocratic. Campbell, ultimately, did not combine these ideas into a single petition. She separated them into two different petitions. One petition, which passed the City Council 11–2, requested that the state allow the city to extend Boston City Council term limits to four years. Campbell introduced a separate petition to hold special elections to fill vacant at-large seats.

After the chaotic right-wing "Straight Pride Parade" event held in Boston in 2019, Campbell called on the city to reassess its approval process for public event permits. Campbell was critical of the event and the public resources that went to providing crowd control and security around it, writing, "while I am a firm believer in free speech, I’m not okay with wasting tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars for a group to come into Boston from out of state to create chaos and spread hate."

Campbell endorsed Kamala Harris's campaign in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries.

In April 2018, during her City Council presidency, Boston magazine ranked Campbell 51st on its list of the "100 Most Influential People in Boston". The magazine wrote that political insiders anticipated a continued political ascent for Campbell. She was one of only three city councilors included in these rankings, joined by Ayanna Pressley (ranked 20th after having won an upset primary election victory that made her poised to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives) and Michelle Wu (ranked 31st). At the end of Campbell's council presidency, Milton J. Valencia of The Boston Globe opined that during both Campbell's City Council presidency and the preceding tenure Michelle Wu as City Council president, the council had, "been, perhaps, the most aggressive in recent history in pushing reforms, often to the left of the mayor, on issues addressing climate change and economic and racial equity."

Third term (2020 and 2021) Campbell won reelection to the council in November 2019. She was succeeded as president by Kim Janey in January 2020.

In June 2020, Campbell was one of the five city councilors in the minority that voted against Mayor Walsh's $3.61 billion operating budget proposal. She argued that it failed to include changes necessary for the city to address its racial inequality and systemic racism. That month, when Walsh announced the creation of a philanthropic fund focused on racial inequities, Campbell was somewhat critical. While she supported the creation of the fund itself and acknowledged that she believed philanthropy could play an important role, she argued that it was more important for the city to focus its own budget on such problems. Campbell was also critical of Walsh's coinciding move to create a new cabinet position within his administration dedicated to equity and inclusion, considering it a "duplicative position" and criticizing Walsh for not instead implementing other "actionable ideas" to "transform inequitable systems" that had been proposed to Walsh by her and others. Ultimately, the Boston City Council voted later that year to approve a different ordinance creating an Office of Police Accountability that features a civilian police review board and oversight panel for internal affairs, which Mayor Walsh signed into law.

In 2021, Campbell and fellow councilor Kim Janey proposed an ordinance that would have banned almost all employers in Boston from running credit checks on job seekers, arguing that credit checks are most detrimental to low-income applicants.

In April 2021, in her capacity as chair of the public safety committee, Campbell refused to push forward $1.2 million in proposed grants for the Boston Police Department. Amid this, she engaged in a social media conflict with the account of the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association, which had issued criticism of Campbell. Campbell contrasted the union's vocal criticism of her with the union's failure to comment on the former child abuse allegations made against a past president of the police union. Acting Mayor Kim Janey signed the ordinance into law. Another such ordinance authored by Campbell and Arroyo had previously been passed by the City Council in December 2020, but had been vetoed by Mayor Marty Walsh in January 2021.

Campbell voiced opposition to the police department's use of exams which she contended were "biased" in order to weigh promotions of officers. She criticized Acting Mayor Janey for her initial defense of such exams. After Janey changed her position, Campbell criticized her for being late to address the matter.

, Campbell served on several council committees, including Community Preservation Act, Public Safety & Criminal Justice, Rules and Administration, and Whole.

Campbell did not run for reelection to the council in 2021, as she instead opted to run for mayor.

2021 mayoral campaign

On September 24, 2020, Campbell announced her candidacy in the 2021 Boston mayoral election from her childhood home in Roxbury. In an announcement video that was released, she declared, "I'm running for mayor, because every neighborhood deserves real change and a real chance."

During her campaign, Campbell was critical of Acting Mayor Kim Janey, who was also a candidate in the election. In early August, Campbell called for Janey to put in place rules which would require that many businesses require patrons provide proof of vaccination. Campbell also criticized Janey for having, per her criticism, waited too long to put in place a vaccine mandate for city employees.

Campbell's campaign platform included a proposal to reallocate ten percent of the Boston Police Department's budget ($50 million) to other programs matters related to public health, economic justice, and youth issues. She also proposed removing the Boston Public Schools' 125 school resource officers and reutilizing those funds to pay for more mental health specialists. The latter accusation was seen as alluding to the fact that a super PAC supporting Campbell's candidacy received funding from wealthy charter school proponents, such as Reed Hastings. Campbell publicly took issue with the characterization of her in this ad, and urged Janey to disavow it, which Janey did not. Janey's campaign manager accused Campbell of being a hypocrite, characterizing Campbell's campaign as being entirely, "based on negative political attacks on Mayor Janey". Once the votes were fully reported, Campbell had finished third in the primary, meaning that she did not advance to the general election.

Following her loss, Campbell stated that she would have a publicly transparent process in contemplating which general election candidate (Annissa Essaibi George or Michelle Wu) to endorse, if any. She stated that she would seek firm commitments to the Black community to be made by any candidate she might endorsed. She ultimately gave no endorsement to either remaining candidate.

Attorney general of Massachusetts 2022 election

On February 2, 2022, Campbell announced her candidacy for Massachusetts attorney general in the 2022 election. Campbell's announcement came after incumbent attorney general Maura Healey announced that she would not seek reelection and run for governor of Massachusetts instead.

Campbell's inclusion on the ballot for the election's Democratic primary made her the first Black woman in the history of Massachusetts to qualify for inclusion on the ballot for election to statewide office. Healey endorsed Campbell in August, prior to the primary election. Campbell won the Democratic nomination and, in the general election, was elected to serve as attorney general. She is the first Black woman to hold the office, and the second Black person to hold the office, after only Edward Brooke. Other focuses of her platform included addressing public safety as well as housing-related matters.

As a candidate, Campbell pledged to approach the position through what she dubbed an "equity lens". She pledged that she would use the office to address matters such as disparities of health and economics negatively impacting the rural parts of the state prison reform, and juvenile justice. She promised that she would seek to ensure that nobody would be treated as "above the law". Campbell's Republican opponent, Jay McMahon, attempted to paint her as being "soft" on crime.

Campbell won the November general election 62.6% to 37.4%. In early December, Campbell announced that she had established a committee to facilitate her end of the Attorney General's Office's transition of leadership. Campbell took office on January 18, 2023. Her swearing-in ceremony took place at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Campbell has said that she views primary role for the office of attorney general as being to serve as the "people's lawyer". Campbell's husband, Matthew Scheier, held the Bible upon which she took her oath. Her aunt, Lois Savage (who Campbell regards as a mother figure), administered the oath. and was pledging to establish the latter. In March 2024, Campbell further proposed creating a unit dedicated to housing affordability.

MBTA Communities Zoning Law lawsuit against Milton In March 2023, Campbell threatened legal action against Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority municipalities that were not adhering to the transit-oriented housing policy of the MBTA Communities Zoning Law. The law, adopted in 2021, requires all municipalities within the service area of the MBTA transit agency to have at least one zoning district permitting multi-family housing by right. Proponents of the referendum contended that municipalities have the final authority on such zoning matters, not the state. Campbell's suit challenges this contention. The municipal government of Milton opposes Campbell's lawsuit. She has requested for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to hear the matter.

Other matters

While Campbell stands by her personal opposition to qualified immunity, within months of taking office she had backed away from her promise of ending it, viewing such a pursuit as detrimental to the working relationship her office needs to maintain with law enforcement officials.

In February 2024, Campbell announced that the state of Massachusetts would receive $8 million from a national $350 million multi-state national settlement with Publicis Health over that company's role in the opioid epidemic in the United States.

In May 2023, Campbell announced that the Attorney General's Office was probing allegations of racial bias within the gang unit and gang database of the Boston Police Department.

In April 2024, Campbell had the state of Massachusetts join a multi-state lawsuit seeking to reinstate protections for transgender individuals and other vulnerable populations. A Trump administration-era rule change had eliminated these protections.

In 2023, Campbell proposed regulations that would seek to prohibit junk fees.

In October 2023, months after the United States Supreme Court's Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision declared race-based college admissions affirmative action programs to be unconstitutional, Campbell and Governor Healey jointly released new statewide guidelines for colleges and university's to promote campus diversity. The guidelines allow the institutions to consider life experiences that have shaped the lives of applicants, which can include race-related life experiences. This is in keeping with new federal recommendations on the matter.

In March 2024, Campbell launched The Youth Sports Betting Safety Coalition in partnership with the NCAA. The private-public partnership aims to educate youth on the potential perils of participation in sports gambling.

In November 2023, Campbell issued an opinion that State Auditor Diana DiZoglio lacked authority to audit the operations of the Massachusetts General Court (state legislature). DiZoglio had been attempting to undertake such an audit, but had faced strong opposition from state legislative leaders.

In December 2023, Campbell launched civil rights litigation against the National Socialist Club 131, a regional neo-Nazi organization. This made her the second states attorney to sue the organization, as New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella had earlier that year filed a civil rights lawsuit against the group. The suit Campbell filed alleges that the group has committed "violent" and "coercive" actions that amount to harassment and civil rights violations, including targeted disrupting of drag queen story hour events and intimidation actions towards hotels that are allowing their facilities to be used as shelters for migrants.

Political positions Campbell is regarded to be a progressive member of the Democratic Party.

Criminal justice Campbell has expressed her belief that policing and the criminal justice system in Massachusetts are in need of reform.

Campbell has highlighted combatting government corruption as an important priority for her as attorney general, remarking, "No one should be above the law...When something goes wrong that is not in compliance with our law, that is in violation of the spirit of our laws and stands in the way of justice, an AG has a responsibility to stand up."

Abortion Campbell supports access to reproductive healthcare, including abortion care. She has highlighted preserving abortion access as an important priority for her as attorney general. EMILY's List had previously endorsed her 2019 re-election as city councilor.

Campbell has voiced her opposition to efforts to restrict access to the medical abortion medicine Mifepristone.

LGBTQ matters Campbell supports access to gender-affirming care. She also supports the participation of transgender student athletes in sports on teams consistent with their gender identity.

Education Campbell is a longtime support of charter schools. In 2016, she endorsed a "yes" vote on the unsuccessful Massachusetts Charter School Expansion Initiative referendum.

Diversity and equity policies Campbell criticizing the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard

Campbell criticized the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which found race-based affirmative action in college admissions to be unconstitutional. Saying that the ruling, "undermine and discount" the history of the United States, Campbell remarked,

After the case, Campbell partnered with Governor Healey to create new state guidelines for colleges and university's promotion of diversity.

Personal life Campbell was born in Boston. Her mother and father died when she was very young; she refers to an aunt and uncle as her parents. Campbell, in 2022, stated that she had not visited her brother Alvin since he was arrested, remarking, "I view my older brother's charges and what is happening there as just another brother lost, which is sad and tragic for me. So now I have two brothers who are lost." In November 2024, Campbell and her husband purchased a home in Dartmouth, Massachusetts which they intend to make their new residence.

Electoral history City council 2015 Boston City Council 4th district electionCandidatePrimary election General election Votes%Votes% Andrea Campbell 1,982 57.92 4,311 61.32 Charles Yancey (incumbent) 1,159 33.87 2,701 38.42 Terrance J. Williams 217 6.34 Jovan J. Lacet 60 1.75 all others 4 0.12 18 0.26 Total 3,422 100 7,030 100 write-in votes

Mayor 2021 Boston mayoral electionCandidatePrimary election General election Votes%Votes% Michelle Wu 36,060 33.40 91,794 63.96 Annissa Essaibi George 24,268 22.48 51,125 35.62 Andrea Campbell 21,299 19.73 Kim Janey (acting incumbent) 21,047 19.49 John Barros 3,459 3.20 Robert Cappucci 1,185 1.10 Jon Santiago (withdrawn) 368 0.34 Richard Spagnuolo 286 0.26 Scattering 00.00595 0.41 Total 107,972 100 144,380 100

Attorney general

Commentaries and op-eds authored "Is Boston's Booming Economy Making Our City Better Or Destroying It? The Truth Lies Somewhere In Between", WBUR, February 13, 2020. "What The Pandemic Is Doing To My Boston Neighborhood", WBUR, April 24, 2020. "We Can't Make Sweeping Structural Change If Our Leaders Don't Understand Racial Equity", WBUR, June 4, 2020, by "Boston Needs to Take More Decisive Measures on COVID-19", The Boston Globe, August 19, 2021. "How Will Mayoral Candidates Address Inequities and Empower Black Bostonians?", The Boston Globe, September 24, 2021. "Massachusetts Should Ban Third-party Electric Suppliers", The Boston Globe, September 29, 2024 –co-authored with Michelle Wu