The lawyer of criminal justice can take action. Set question of governor Healey

Governor Maura Healey may have a challenge within her own party when she is looking for a second term.

Andrea James, an advocate of imprisoned women and founders of the group families for justice as a healing, submitted paperwork for campaign financing supervisory authorities, who signaled that she should run as a democrat for the governor

The step is just one of many candidates who have to take it, including the collecting of thousands of signatures and the acquisition, sufficient support from party relegation to qualify for the ballot next year. However, it often offers one of the first public signs of the plans of a candidate for the upcoming elections, in this case about 18 months before the Democratic Elementary School in 2026.

The efforts to reach James on Monday were not successful.

James is the founder of families for justice as a healing and the National Council for detained and previously imprisoned women and girls. She was a loud critic of plans to build a new women's prison in Massachusetts, and has been a long -standing advocate of the reduction of the prison population as a whole and wrote in a 2022 that state officials “should never build another prison in Massachusetts”.

James from Dorchester started for representative work after she had been sentenced to brown fraud and was sentenced to two years for two years of charge. James, a real estate lawyer, was accused, customer funds abused and mortgage agents and homeowners cheated, as can be seen from a decision -making decision submitted by the state board prison.

James openly wrote and spoke about her experiences, as it contributed to inspiring her work on the reform of the criminal justice. In 2016 she was honored by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Organization.

Healey said last month that she intended to run for re -election and make her the first candidate to publicly explain the race. The campaign will probably play in the middle of a rapidly changing political environment, with Healey trying to rule a blue state at a time when Trump has returned to the White House.

Your offer will also serve as a referendum for her first term in which she has tried to tackle the state's housing crisis, to monitor an improvement, but still financially unstable MBTA systems and to overwhelm yourself with an emergency accommodation system that was overwhelmed by escalation costs and an increase in migrant families in Massachusetts.

A survey of the University of Massachusetts Amherst/WCVB published last week showed that 52 percent of voters agree to their work they do. She has recently received national fighting from an interview for the New York Times program “The Interview”. It is said to appear in “Late Night with Seth Myers” on Wednesday.

No other candidate alongside Healey has officially announced a plan for the governor Next year, although several Republicans can enter the race. Senator Peter Durant, a Spencer Republican and singing critic of Healey's handling of the protection system, said he weighed a run.

Mike Kennealy, a former secretary for housing and economic development under the then governor Charlie Baker, also confirmed that he “seriously thinks about an offer”. According to GOP insiders, Brian Shortsleeve, former chief administrator of the MBTA under Baker under Baker, also consider the race on the Republican side.

Matt stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.