Coakley will forever go down in political history as the candidate who lost the seat of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) to a Republican who jeopardized Kennedy's lifelong cause, health-care reform.
Despite late endorsements from the Kennedy family, Coakley could not push past state Sen. Scott Brown (R) in the Jan. 19, 2009 special election to fill Kennedy's seat, even in heavily Democratic Massachusetts that hadn't seen a GOP senator since 1972. Coakley's loss ended the Democrats filibuster-proof 60-seat Senate majority and jeopardized health-care reform, as well as struck fear into the hearts of all Democrats running in the 2010 midterm elections.
Democrats were quick to play the blame game, pointing fingers at the candidate's poorly-run campaign and inattention from Washington.
Path to Power
Martha Mary Coakley was born on July 14, 1953 in Pittsfield, Mass., but moved to nearby North Adams shortly afterwards. There, she went to St. Joseph's School and Drury High School, before receiving her B.A. cum laude from Williams College in 1975. She received her J.D. from Boston University in 1979.
She practiced civil litigation in Boston, first at Parker, Coulter, Daley & White, then at Goodwin Procter LLP.
In 1986, she became an assistant district attorney in the Lowell District Court office. A year later the U.S. Justice Department asked her join its Boston Organized Crime Strike Force as a special attorney. In 1989, she resumed her post as an ADA, and in 1991 was appointed chief of the Child Abuse Prosecution Unit, where she investigated and prosecuted hundreds of cases of physical and sexual abuse of children, making a name for herself in the case of Louise Woodward, a 19-year-old nanny convicted of involuntary manslaughter of an eight-month-old child.
Middlesex County District Attorney
In 1998, Coakley was elected district attorney of Middlesex County, serving for eight years. She established an Adult Sexual Assault Division in 2002, and successfully prosecuted high-profile crimes, such as ones involving several Catholic priests who were charged with sexually abusing children. She also won a conviction against Michael McDermott, who killed seven of his colleagues at Edgewater Technologies in Wakefield, Mass.
That same year she was named Woman of the Year by the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. In November 2000, the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts awarded her the Leila J. Robinson Award for her contributions to the field of law.
In 2007, Coakley became the first woman to serve as Massachusetts attorney general. Some of her victories included obtaining a Supreme Court ruling making the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency responsible for regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act;winning $70 million dollars in settlements from Goldman Sachs and Fremont Investment & Loan for their reckless use of subprime loans and lending; the successful "Buffer Zone Law" that created a safe 35-foot buffer around entrances and driveways of reproductive health-care facilities to keep anti-abortion rights protesters at bay, and the redesign of Apple's iTunes to make it more accessible to the blind.
In Their Own Words
"It is unconstitutional for the federal government to discriminate, as it does because of DOMA's restrictive definition of marriage. It is also unconstitutional for the federal government to decide who is married and to create a system of first- and second-class marriages. The federal government cannot require states, such as Massachusetts, to further the discrimination through federal programs, either. The time has come for this injustice to end."
More on: Martha Mary Coakley
Show less
Text Size
