Overview

• On Tuesday, January 25th, labor attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan launched her campaign for attorney general. Liss-Riordan made the formal announcement at the Ironworkers Local 7 hall in South Boston, where the union also endorsed her candidacy. Liss-Riordan is a partner at Lichten & Liss-Riordan and has built a reputation for filing lawsuits against major corporations on behalf of workers, including Starbucks, FedEx, American Airlines, GrubHub, DoorDash and others. She opened a campaign account in December in anticipation of a run and reported raising $159,131 before the end of the year, with attorney contributions constituting a big share of her donations.

• On Wednesday, January 26th, Chris Doughty, a Wrentham Republican who has grown a manufacturing business in Massachusetts over the last three decades, announced that he is running for governor. Doughty is the second Republican to launch a major campaign for governor, joining former state Representative Geoff Diehl in the party's primary contest, as Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito both decided not to seek third terms. Doughty is a Brigham Young University and Harvard Business School graduate who started Capstan Industries and Capstan Atlantic, based in Wrentham, in 1992.

• Seven-term Rep. Carolyn Dykema (D-Holliston) plans to resign from her office next week for a job in the solar energy industry, adding to a growing list of vacancies in the House and opening up a top job on the Legislature's Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture Committee.  Dykema announced Monday that she had accepted a position as northeast policy director at Nexamp, a company that she said focuses on "vertically integrated solar and energy storage solutions across the country." It is the same company that hired Ben Downing as vice president of new market development at the tail end of his decade in the Massachusetts Senate. Dykema will leave the Legislature on Feb. 11, though the House clerk had not yet received a formal resignation letter early Monday morning.

• On Wednesday, January 26th, Senate President Emerita Harriette Chandler, the Worcester Democrat announced she will not seek reelection this year after more than three decades of public service. Chandler has been involved in health and dental care policy, women's rights issues, and education throughout her 25 years on Beacon Hill. Having served on the Worcester School Committee since 1991, she first joined the House in 1995 and in 2001 became the first woman to represent Worcester in the Massachusetts Senate, and in 2017, Chandler became the second woman chosen to serve as president of the Massachusetts Senate. In July 2018, Karen Spilka assumed the role as president of the Massachusetts Senate, while Chandler dove back into her policy work and assumed the new position of Senate president emerita. Chandler's district currently includes the northern half of Worcester, all of Boylston, West Boylston, Holden and Princeton, and portions of Clinton and Northborough. The new First Worcester District, reshaped in last year's redistricting effort, will include most of Worcester and all of Boylston, West Boylston, Northborough, Berlin and Bolton. The redistricting split Worcester from Holden, a suburb that has consistently supported Republican Representative Kim Ferguson for the last 12 years. Democrat Representative David LeBoeuf of Worcester said within minutes of Chandler's announcement that he is "seriously considering running" for the Senate seat.

• On Wednesday, January 26th, treasurer Deb Goldberg announced her plans to seek a third term in 2022, becoming the last statewide elected official to make their plans known. Goldberg was widely expected to run again after she passed up a race for an open Congressional seat in 2020 citing that she had more she wanted to accomplish in the office she had. She is currently the only declared Democrat or Republican in the race for treasurer and one of just two statewide officeholders seeking reelection next year.