It vets judicial nominees and approves politically fraught pardons, yet operates in obscurity. Now, in a political cycle largely bereft of intraparty intrigue, the little-known Governor’s Council also may boast the liveliest Democratic primary battles in Massachusetts.
Fourteen Democrats are vying in Tuesday’s primary for one of the eight seats on the council, a long-ignored, sometimes ridiculed body with roots in the Colonial era. A pair of its longest-serving members are facing primary challengers in their districts, including in a tense rematch in Greater Boston. Two other seats are open. Come November, more than half of the panel could be new faces, an oddity in a State House defined by incumbent supremacy.
There’s the potential for history-making, too: The batch of Democratic candidates includes three women of color, any of whom would be the first to ever serve on the council and its first person of color in more than three decades.
At stake is the responsibility to vet every judge, clerk-magistrate, and Parole Board member nominee chosen by the governor, as well as any proposed pardons or commutations. As the spotlight on the power, and problems, of the US Supreme Court and federal judiciary has grown, so, too, has the interest in Massachusetts’ own judicial gatekeeper — at least say those seeking a part-time council spot and its $36,025 annual salary.
“It’s been a hidden secret,” said Stacey Borden, one of two Democrats challenging incumbent Christopher Iannella, a Jamaica Plain Democrat who by the end of his current term will have served 38 of the last 40 years on the council. Much of the campaigning, Borden and other candidates say, centers on simply educating voters about the council itself, where candidates are identified on the ballot as running for “Councillor,” a holdover spelling from a bygone era.
“It’s not even on the ballot correctly,” Borden said. “No one seems to know what it is.”
That often makes the body misunderstood or maligned. The council has for years been beset by infighting, with its own members calling it a “laughingstock.” Two years ago, one council member accused another of throwing a coin at her — only for the other to toss the accusation back at her. Critics, including some current candidates, have chided it as a rubber stamp for rarely rejecting judicial nominees submitted by the governor.
In spite of its obscurity, the council is also a hotbed for political competition. The council has had anywhere from two to seven competitive Democratic primaries for its eight seats every year since 2012. This year, three primaries, including one for an open seat, drew multiple candidates — the most since 2018.
Compare that to the 160-seat Massachusetts House, where just 13 incumbent Democrats face a primary challenge next week, or the 40-seat Senate, where there are just three. None of the state’s nine sitting US House members face a Democratic opponent this cycle.
All told, for many Democratic primary voters, the Governor’s Council may be among the few races where they actually have a choice.
“The sentence I use [with voters] is: If you care who our judges are, then you should care who your governor’s councillor is,” said Mara Dolan, a Concord Democrat, former political consultant, and public defender who is challenging 25-year incumbent Marilyn Petitto Devaney for the second straight cycle.
Their rematch in the Third District, which stretches northwest from Boston, is the most contentious of the bunch. They have attacked each other’s records, have accused each other of lying, and appear headed for a tight vote. Devaney prevailed by fewer than 1,700 votes among the 119,000 cast two years ago.
Dolan, 61, has accumulated endorsements in her repeat bid for the seat, including from US Representatives Ayanna Pressley, Lori Trahan, and Seth Moulton and four sitting members of the Governor’s Council. She has elevated reproductive rights as a key issue, promising to impose a “litmus test” on judicial nominees’ support of abortion.
“You can have whatever personal opinion you want, but you absolutely have got to support the legal right to choose,” she said.
Devaney, 85, rebuffed the framing of the role as a vote on abortion or other policy preferences.
“That’s legislative. We vote on people,” she said. Devaney said she has beaten back 11 primary challengers since first taking office in 1999 because she treats the part-time role as a full-time responsibility, including meeting individually with judicial nominees.
“I am a worker,” she said. “I do my job.”
In the Fourth District, which includes parts of Boston and the South Shore, Iannella, 71, is vying for his 20th term. An attorney and the council’s current longest-serving member, he said he has been accessible (”People call me at the law office all the time”) and helped confirm a slate of historic nominees.
The only break in Iannella’s tenure came in 1990, when he lost to Michael Murphy, a Black Republican who held the seat for two years before losing his own reelection bid.
Borden, one of Iannella’s two challengers, is now vying to become the first woman of color on the council, arguing it has badly lacked that perspective as it approves judges for what is still a mostly white, male judiciary. Borden, 62, said she struggled with addiction as she navigated the court system for decades, facing charges for credit card fraud, larceny, and other offenses. She completed her last sentence over a decade ago, earned a master’s degree, and founded New Beginnings Reentry Services, which helps formerly incarcerated people.
“We want judges to recognize that it’s not a solution anymore, just putting people anyway,” Borden said. “It’s time for change. It’s time to disrupt the system.”
Iannella’s other challenger, Quincy Democrat Ron Iacobucci, is pitching himself as a change agent, too, saying he’d be more proactive in recruiting judicial candidates. Iacobucci, executive director of the city’s Workforce Development Department, said the council, and Governor Maura Healey’s administration, should also go beyond “symbolic” picks, arguing that Healey’s blanket pardon of marijuana convictions would carry more weight if officials also pushed to expunge people’s records.
He, like others, cast the council as too deferential. So far, its seven current members have approved roughly three dozen judicial nominees offered by Healey. It has yet to reject an appointment, and only three times did a single councilor vote “no” on a nominee.
“I’m more than just a rubber stamp,” Iacobucci, 68, said.
At least two seats are guaranteed to usher in change. The vacant Second District, which stretches southwest of Boston from Milton to Attleboro, has drawn a four-way Democratic primary.
Tamisha Civil, a 43-year-old probation officer from Stoughton and daughter of Haitian immigrants, is also vying to become the first woman of color on the council, saying she was motivated to run by the experience of her cousin, James Lucien. Lucien spent nearly 27 years in prison before his murder conviction was tossed in 2021 because the trial was marred by police misconduct and perjury.
“We want to shy away from what has always been the [council’s] focal point, which has been electing attorneys who really don’t have an understanding of what the people are going through in the communities they’re serving,” said Civil, who previously ran for state representative twice.
Dave Reservitz, a 53-year-old Needham attorney, said he’s been eyeing the seat for roughly a decade, having helped vet judicial nominees for former governor Deval Patrick. He said he wants to ensure the state has a roster of judges with diverse professional backgrounds.
“I’ve spent half my life in courtrooms,” he said.
Muriel Kramer, a former Hopkinton Select Board chair and health care consultant, said that not being an attorney is a plus, given she “isn’t collegially tied” to the pool of judicial candidates.
“We know that implicit bias is a big impact,” said Kramer, a 62-year-old Air Force veteran. “It just doesn’t tee up a rigorous evaluation process.”
Another attorney, Sean Murphy, is also running, pitching his legal bona fides: The Navy veteran was an attorney for the city of Brockton and now runs his own practice. Murphy served time in federal prison two decades ago for an oxycodone distribution conspiracy charge and told the Boston Herald, which first reported his criminal record, that the “arrest saved my life” and his experience speaks to the impact that reasonable judges can have.
Murphy did not respond to messages from the Globe this week.
The winner of the four-way Democratic race will face Republican Francis Crimmins in November, when three other seats will also be contested. That includes a three-way race for an open seat in the North Shore-anchored Fifth District between former Methuen city councilor Eunice Zeigler, a Democrat and daughter of Haitian immigrants; Republican Anne Manning-Martin; and Jody Elliott, an independent candidate.
Samantha J. Gross and Laura Crimaldi of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.