Michael Walsh

Candidate for Attorney General of Massachusetts

[Michael Walsh @MikeWalshforAG]

Walsh vs. State Ballot Law Commission, day three update. VICTORY!
#mapoli #Massachusetts #AttorneyGeneral

[Michael Walsh @MikeWalshforAG]

Walsh vs. State Ballot Commission, day two update. #mapoli #Massachusetts #AttorneyGeneral

[Michael Walsh @MikeWalshforAG]

Walsh vs. State Ballot Commission, day one update.
#mapoli #Massachusetts #AttorneyGeneral

[Michael Walsh @MikeWalshforAG]

Mike Walsh for Attorney General convention video 2026

[Michael Walsh @MikeWalshforAG]

Mike Walsh for Attorney General convention speech 2026

[Michael Walsh @MikeWalshforAG]

250 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

Happy Fourth of July! Today, 250 years ago, the Second Continental Congress declared that they were free and independent states, who stood for the belief that all men are created equal and that all had the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In doing so, they left the arms of their mother country, cast their lot on an uncertain bet of victory against the world’s largest empire. The signers pledged lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to the endeavor. Thousands of others gave their service, their property, their freedom and their lives.

To declare for treason, to leave the warm if tyrannical embrace of the mother country, to take up arms, and to bravely declare for an idea is what the Signers and their new Countrymen did. After trying to make peace and address issues, the Signers and their Countrymen declared that lines had been crossed which could not be undone. It took more than a year after Lexington and Concord for those visionaries amongst the group to convince the reluctant that the breach was permanent and irreparable.

Despite the eventual unanimous declaration, it took an incredible amount of strife and struggle to get to that moment. Both on the bloody fields of Bunker Hill and Long Island, and in Independence Hall, where comfortable and well-off businessmen and merchant classes had to be cajoled to look beyond their self-interest at a bigger picture.

Getting thirteen fractious and fractured states to embrace a cause, a dangerous cause, and uncertain wager on freedom and liberty, was not easy. To do so by force of arms against the world’s largest army and navy meant the stakes could not be higher. The risk could not be graver. To take a stand on principle is never easy. To do so in the face of overwhelming odds requires character. To encourage others to do so, and join in the cause, and be united and unanimous in doing so is a feat not matched in the annals of history.

We remember courage, resolve, principle, integrity, commitment, in addition to liberty and freedom today. And it is on us to pass those values on, to honor them, and bequeath them to our child and our successors. No democracy has ever lasted as long. No nation has ever before been found solely on an ideal and a dream. And for 250 years, our predecessors kept the flickering candle of liberty alive, through some very dark hours. We owe it to them to burnish that flame, to add to that tale, and to pass it on into a better future. God Bless the United States.

[Michael Walsh @MikeWalshforAG]

CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY OF MASSACHUSETTS ATTORNEY GENERAL

Drafting the concise summary of ballot questions is the only express duty given by the State Constitution to the office of Attorney General. The office itself is mentioned only a few times, but dealing with and handling ballot questions is the sole duty expressly given to the office. It is, accordingly, the highest and most important role of the AG.

To borrow from recent film, Andrea Campbell “had one job.” Just one. The rest of the job’s functions are all ancillary. They are flexible and amenable. But not the ballot questions which Andrea Campbell’s office whiffed.

Moreover, the framers in 1918-1919 specifically reserved to the People the right to legislate, around an unresponsive or uncooperative legislature. The whole amendment is self-executing. It is intended to be user-friendly for the people. The Attorney General’s role in this process is to aid citizen-legislators making their own laws by popular initiative. Instead, Andrea Campbell has been a weight around the people’s ankles, strategically handicapping them after they’ve collected their 75,000 signatures, when it is too late to fix and must now wait two more years.

And isn’t it funny how the questions that tanked are the one’s the Governor doesn’t like? Maura Healey thinks rent control is problematic and too left-leaning for the electorate and then, boom, it’s dead. Maura Healey thinks that the tax cut is too right leaning and would stop her spending plans and then, boom, Campbell’s office confesses to a “mistake” and it’s dead. The legislative stipend question, unpopular on Beacon Hill, gets its signatures too but then, boom, it’s dead. Maura Healey publicly states that she likes the legislative audit but it puts her in a politically awkward spot and then—it gets stonewalled for 3 and a half years.

Andrea Campbell has publicly failed in the only constitutional job she is given. And when called on it, she defends that record, saying 3 of 6 isn’t bad. That’s 50%. That’s an F. Even Meatloaf required 2 out of 3, to say it wasn’t bad.

When elected, I am going to make sure that the smartest and best lawyers in the state work to let the people have their say at the ballot. We will make the only constitutional duty charged to the office the highest and most important priority of the office.