Andrea Campbell

Campbell speaking in 2017

In the 2015 Boston City Council election, first-time candidate Campbell placed first in the 4th district's preliminary election and went on to defeat sixteen-term incumbent Charles Yancey in the general election with 61% of the vote.[15] Campbell was the first woman to represent her council district.[8]

Campbell was a supporter of voting "yes" on the Massachusetts Charter School Expansion Initiative referendum in 2016,[16] a ballot measure which would have authorized an expansion of the number of charter schools in the state.[17] Campbell was one of only two city councilors to vote against a resolution to voice the City Council's opposition to the ballot measure. The resolution overwhelmingly passed the council 11–2.[17] Campbell faced criticisms from teachers' unions and progressive activists for supporting charter schools.[14] The referendum wound up being heavily defeated by voters.[18]

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.[19]

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.[20]

Campbell was reelected in November 2017, having run unopposed.[21] 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.[22]

On December 9, 2017, Campbell announced that she had unanimous support of her colleagues to be the next president of the council.[23] She was elected council president on January 1, 2018.[2] Campbell was the first African-American woman to hold the position.[23]

In 2019, as City Council president, Campbell proposed an ordinance to create a city inspector general. Mayor Marty Walsh came out in opposition to it.[24] The ordinance was rejected by the City Council in a 9–4 vote.[25] Also in 2019, Campbell and fellow councilor Matt O'Malley proposed the idea of a vacancy tax on abandoned residential and commercial properties.[26]

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.[27] 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.[28]

Campbell endorsed Kamala Harris's campaign in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries.[29]

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 a upset primary election victory that made her poised to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives) and Michelle Wu (ranked 31st).[30] 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."[31]

Campbell won reelection to the council in November 2019.[32] She was succeeded as president by Kim Janey in January 2020.[33]

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.[11] 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.[34][35] Campbell was also critical of Walsh's coinciding move to create a new cabinet position within his administration dedicated to query and inclusion, considering it a "duplicative position" and criticizing Walsh for not instead other "actionable ideas" to "transform inequitable systems" that had been proposed to Walsh by her and others.[34]

In July 2020, amid the George Floyd protests, Campbell proposed an ordinance to create a police oversight board.[36] 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,[37] which Mayor Walsh signed into law.[38]

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.[39]

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.[14]

In May 2021, the City Council passed an ordinance by Campbell and Ricardo Arroyo which limits the use of crowd control weapons by officers of the Boston Police Department.[40] Acting Mayor Kim Janey signed the ordinance into law.[41] 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.[42][43][44][45]

Pressley 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.[46]

As of January 2020, Campbell served on several council committees, including Community Preservation Act, Public Safety & Criminal Justice, Rules and Administration, and Whole.[2]

Campbell did not run for reelection to the council in 2021, as she instead opted to run for mayor.[47]

Logo for Campbell's 2022 attorney general campaign

On February 2, 2022, Campbell announced her candidacy for Massachusetts Attorney General in the 2022 election.[62][63] 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 a statewide election.[64] Healey endorsed Campbell in August, prior to the primary election.[65] Campbell won the Democratic nomination and, in the general election, was elected to serve as attorney general.[66] She is the first black woman to hold the office, and the second black person to hold the office, after only Edward Brooke.[67] Other focuses of her platform included addressing public safety as well as housing-related matters.[68]

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".[6] She also promised to revive public faith in the criminal justice system.[69] Campbell made criminal justice reform a focus of her candidacy.[46] Campbell also made addressing police misconduct one of the focuses of her campaign.[46] Among the positions she staked out was a promise to end the practice of qualified immunity.[69] Campbell's Republican opponent, Jay McMahon, attempted to paint her as being "soft" on crime.[6] After the Dobbs v. Jackson decision by the United States Supreme Court overturned the federal protections of abortion rights that had been previously protected by the Roe v. Wade decision, Campbell pledged that as attorney general she would establish a reproductive justice unit under the Office of the Attorney General.[70]

Campbell (far right) taking her oath of office as attorney general

Campbell took office on January 18, 2023. Her swearing-in ceremony took place at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.[71] Campbell has said that she views primary role for the office of attorney general as being to serve as the "people's lawyer".[72] Campbell's husband, Matthew Schier, held the Bible upon which she took her oath.[7]

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.[73]

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.[69]

On April 4, 2023 Campbell spoke to the state legislature to request that the state's upcoming budget fund the creation of four new departments under the Office of the Attorney General: a Reproductive Justice Unit, an Elder Justice Unit, a Gun Violence Prevention Unit and a Police Accountability Unit.[72]

In a June 2023 filing with the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, Campbell advised that it would be wiser to grant only a much smaller procurement of offshore wind power than Governor Healey had requested approval from the Department to procure. Campbell argued that the a 20-year contract to procure energy should be for a smaller amount of power than Healey was proposing, arguing that it was unwise to make an agreement for larger purchase at a time when prices for offshore wind power had increased.[74]

† write-in votes