Mike Kennealy and Brian Shortsleeve’s vocal opposition echoes arguments others have made here, and in other states, against retiring a longstanding state symbol. But their new push could cast the debate into a broader arena, elevate a divisive issue, and, perhaps, also bring attention to their still-quiet primary to challenge Healey.
In turn, any move Healey and the Democrat-led Legislature make, or choose not to, in codifying a new flag could run headlong into their own reelection efforts next year. That timing could further push what has been a bureaucratic exercise firmly onto the campaign trail.
“In the flag adoption process, it’s 10 percent design — and 90 percent politics and public relations,” said Ted Kaye, who wrote a compendium on flag design, “‘Good’ Flag, ‘Bad’ Flag,” and has consulted with cities, states, and the country of Fiji during their own flag adoption debates.
Kaye also testified before the current advisory panel tasked with identifying a replacement for Massachusetts’ flag and seal, which depicts a colonist’s arm holding a sword above the image of a Native American. The emblem is draped by a Latin motto that roughly translates to: “By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty.”
Massachusetts officials, Kaye said, have “spent too much time” trying to identify a new design and not enough on appealing to the public on why it’s needed. “That’s part of why you’re seeing the challenge that is happening right today,” he said. “Let’s help people understand why it’s important to change the seal and flag.”
The effort to replace the flag dates back decades, but gained traction in 2020, when the murder of George Floyd sparked a nationwide reexamination of race and historical emblems, including a Massachusetts state seal that Native Americans have long criticized as offensive and racist.
Massachusetts lawmakers passed, and Republican governor Charlie Baker signed a measure in 2021 creating a panel to recommend changes. It disbanded nearly three years later without offering a substitute, prompting lawmakers to create — and Healey, a Democrat, to approve — a new committee with a December deadline to produce recommendations. The commission last month offered several options for designs, and is planning a series of public hearings this fall.
Over those five years, however, the country’s racial reckoning has largely receded from the public consciousness. In its place, President Trump’s administration has leveled a consistent assault on diversity, inclusion, and equity initiatives. Efforts that sprang from the anti-racist movement, and drew huge sums of money in the process, today face their own reckoning.
“The further we get away from the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, the cat is out of the bag,” said Deborah Schildkraut, a Tufts University professor of political science who’s written about the rise of states reimagining their symbols. “Those discussions spill over into debates about what should be on the flag, what voices should be included, and should people be made to feel bad about their history.”
That debate hasn’t been special to Massachusetts. Utah and Mississippi have changed their flags in recent years with no shortage of political drama. Maine put a new (and simultaneously old) flag to a ballot referendum, and voters rejected it. Discussion about Minnesota’s new flag has long fallen along partisan lines, and officials in some of the state’s more rural, conservative corners have refused to fly it.
Healey’s GOP rivals are today seizing on the issue. Kennealy, a former state housing secretary, vowed in a post on the social media platform X to keep the current flag and “our historic motto” if elected governor in 2026, and urged those who agree to report his message.
Shortsleeve, a former MBTA executive, similarly said he “especially loves[s]” the state motto, and asked his 3,000-plus followers if the flag should be changed. (The vast majority who responded said “no.”)
In interviews, both Republican candidates framed their opposition in similar ways: The effort to replace the flag is a waste of money — both commissions were seeded with $100,000 — and officials should be focused on more pressing challenges, such as cutting residents’ utility bills or the cost of living, they said.
Simultaneously, the flag is an important symbol, and Shortsleeve said, “symbols really matter.”
“We have a great flag. It’s a flag I love, it’s a flag that represents our heritage,” said Shortsleeve, a Marine veteran who pointed to the “generations of men and women who have served” under the state’s banner. “It’s a reminder of the ideals of the state.”
Kennealy said the current flag represents a “complex history” and not one that should be undone.
“And when you start trying to rewrite symbols anytime history is kind of messy, I’m not sure where that ends,” he said. Plus, he said, the state would have to consider changing all the places in government buildings, the State House, and elsewhere that feature the current seal. “It would be an enormous undertaking.”
Healey approved language creating the second commission when she signed last year’s budget, and leading officials in her administration, including her education secretary, are leading the panel, though their inclusion was dictated by the law.
Still, how Healey would approach replacing the flag and seal is unclear. Karissa Hand, a Healey spokesperson, did not say whether the governor personally supports replacing the symbol, or if she would file a bill during the current legislative session, which ends in January 2027, to do so.
The law mandates that the governor submit a bill to “codify the new state motto and designs for the seal and flag” after the commission files its recommendation, but it doesn’t offer a specific deadline to do so.
“Governor Healey’s focus is on the economy, lowering the cost of housing, energy and health care, and standing up to the damage Donald Trump is doing every day,” Hand said in a statement. “She will analysis the recommendations of the Commission.”
Opting to replace the flag may not necessarily be a winning issue politically. A UMass Amherst poll last October found virtually as many people strongly support getting rid of the current flag and seal (24 percent) as those who strongly oppose it (23 percent). The biggest share of respondents — 28 percent — said they were neither.
Shortsleeve and Kennealy have attacked Healey on several fronts, from her handling of a surge of migrant families into the state’s shelter system to the state’s economy. The flag debate may help deliver the thing they’ve lacked the most, said Tatishe Nteta, the director of the UMass Amherst Poll.
“A lot of the issues they envisioned as the foundations of their campaign are no longer really there, and they’re searching for something,” he said. That includes identifying a topic that could mobilize the state’s fractured Republican base, Nteta added.
“They may have found the issue,” he said.
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.
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