Healey's `town meetings' are really campaign events

Call the attorney general! There is a major baitand-switch scam happening all across Massachusetts. Residents are being invited to town hall meetings to discuss issues with a certain elected official, but in reality the meetings are to pump up the ambitions of the political figure.

Who’s behind it? Attorney General Maura Healey.

Since December, the AG has been holding strategically placed town hall meetings across the commonwealth, including in Framingham, Newburyport, Somerville, Springfield, Hingham, Malden, New Bedford, Worcester, Barnstable and Lowell. The so-called town meetings are being sponsored by her campaign to promote Healey.

At the start, the meetings were billed as “AG Maura Healey’s Post-Election Town Hall.” They should have been correctly named “Healey’s Hissy Fit Over Trump’s Win.” In mid-March, she realized it was too post-election so now they are just called “Town Hall with Attorney General Maura Healey.”

While I am relieved it appears that Massachusetts taxpayers are not footing the bill, shouldn’t there be upfront disclosure that these are campaign events?

The meetings are not listed on Healey’s official AG website. They can be found on her public figures Facebook page. But that page doesn’t really advertise it as a campaign page. On the “About” page, it does list her campaign website.

When you sign up for one of these events, you get an email response from her “field director” and are asked to submit your question for the meeting. In the process, you end up on Healey’s campaign email list and you start receiving the “People’s Report,” her campaign newsletter.

At the meetings you receive a Healey handout that has the disclaimer that it is paid for by her campaign. The campaign literature urges you to join her team by following it on its Facebook, Twitter and texting system, and to join local Democratic groups.

There is even a page on how to write letters to the editor to support Healey. It says “Letters to the editor are an important tool for sharing information on the actions, priorities and achievements of the Attorney General’s office and Maura’s leadership on key issues.”

Healey claims to be the “people’s lawyer,” but she is actually an activist attorney general who focuses on her liberal agenda instead of just doing her job. So beware of the Healey Town Hall meetings. You are being invited to a campaign event, not an open forum.