By Killian Maree
For the North Star Reporter
Muriel Kramer of Hopkintin is running for a seat on the Governor’s Council for District 2 with the promise of helping those who are marginalized by the legal system, increasing equity and social justice.
The Massachusetts Governor’s Council is a group of eight people from districts across Massachusetts who meet weekly. The members provide advice and consent on gubernatorial appointments, pardons and commutations, and warrants for the state treasury, according to the Governor Council’s website. Every two years councilors are elected from their respective districts.
District 2 includes North Attleborough, and the seat is vacant at this time. Kramer is running as a Democrat and will face fellow candidates Tamisha Civil, Sean Murphy and David Reservitz for the nomination in September. Republican Francis T. Crimmins Jr. is running unopposed at this time.
Kramer has been in local politics for 12 years in Hopkinton, where she has lived for 30 years. Her passion for local government was sparked after working as a freelance reporter and covering the town’s Planning Board and Board of Health.
Kramer went on to chair the Hopkinton Master Plan Committee and was elected to the Select Board twice. Kramer has also been on the Planning Board, an elected position.
Right now, Kramer is a social worker. She decided to go back to school and get her degree in social work after her first internship with the Massachusetts Bail Fund.
“The Massachusetts Bail Fund really gave me a better first-hand knowledge of the ways the system works very differently… for people who have money and people who don’t have money,” said Kramer.
While working at the Bail Fund, Kramer saw that there was much that had to change on all levels of the criminal justice system, and that working outside of it would be the best way to facilitate that and keep her voice.
“I really feel passionately that we should stop building space to imprison people and start to really think about ways that we can work with the issues that people present differently,” said Kramer. “We know that upwards of 50, 70% of people who are in jails and prisons today in Massachusetts and across the county have a mental illness or substance use disorder… People of color are disproportionately imprisoned. They meet disadvantages at every cycle of the system.”
Kramer said what separates her from other candidates is the ability to focus on changing the system, informed by the perspectives shared with her from those who are at the greatest disadvantage in dealing with it.
Kramer has been watching and attending Governor’s Council meetings and said that she has seen conversations about how racism and implicit bias are known factors of the system. However, she does not see anyone going further.
“How do we make constructive change? That is the piece that I hope to bring to the Governor’s Council,” said Kramer.
When asked why Kramer ran for the council, she said that the council and its work needs to be better understood by the public.
“The work that they do has long-standing impacts in the system. And most people – I was one of them – knew very little about the Governor’s Council until I started looking into it,” said Kramer.
Kramer then went on to say that it is obvious to appoint trusted people to protect human rights.
“We have a long way to go and we need to make progress. We really need to get serious about it,” she said. We need the playing field to be leveled for women, for people of color, for people with substance abuse disorders. We need all of us talking about having the same access and the same rights as everyone else.”
