Tenure
Healey's plan to reduce gun violence addresses what she perceives as its root causes. The program includes enhancing the background check system to include information regarding recent restraining orders, pending indictments, and any relations to domestic violence, parole, and probation information. The plan also seeks to track better stolen and missing guns. Healey advocates fingerprint trigger locks and firearm micro-stamping on all guns sold in Massachusetts.
Healey's plan for criminal justice reform includes ending mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and focusing on treatment rather than incarceration.
Healey plans to combat prescription drug abuse and Massachusetts's heroin epidemic by implementing a "lock-in" program. The program will be carried out in pharmacies to identify and track prescription drug abusers and distributors. Her plan includes deployment of new resources to drug trafficking hotspots, improvement of treatment accessibility, and expanding access to Narcan.
Healey's women's rights platform focuses on sex education, expanding access to abortion services in Massachusetts, and ensuring that every woman in Massachusetts has access to abortion, regardless of where she lives, her occupation, or her income. In 2026, Healey signed into law a bill removing all restrictions on abortion.
On July 20, 2016, Healey announced her intention to ban the manufacturing of most assault rifles in Massachusetts. In 2021, as a result of this and other "arbitrary and damaging legislation", Smith & Wesson announced plans to relocate its headquarters and much of its manufacturing from Massachusetts to Tennessee. The new factory opened in Maryville, in 2023.
On January 31, 2017, Healey announced that her office was joining a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's Executive Order 13769, commonly known as a "Muslim ban." Healey condemned the order as "motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment and Islamophobia, not by a desire to further national security." A federal court eventually struck the order down on similar grounds.
On March 9, 2017, Healey announced that her office was joining a lawsuit challenging Trump's Executive Order 13780. She said the new order, a revised version of the one that had been struck down, "remains a discriminatory and unconstitutional attempt to make good on [Trump's] campaign promise to implement a Muslim ban." The order has been blocked in various federal courts on similar grounds.
On May 11, 2017, after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, Healey led efforts calling for a special counsel to investigate Russia's meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Her office sent a letter to that effect, signed by 20 Attorneys General across the nation, to Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. On May 17, Rosenstein appointed a special counsel, former FBI director Robert Mueller.
In 2021, Healey announced a resolution against the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma. The resolution requires a payment of more than $4.3 billion for prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts in communities across the country. It will also require Purdue Pharma to be wound down or sold by 2024 and ensure that the Sacklers are banned from the opioid business and are required to turn over control of family foundations to an independent trustee to be used to address the opioid epidemic.
