Governor’s Pregnant State Is the Big News

America’s first pregnant governor would like to move past that description. There are, she steadily insists, much more compelling issues facing her home state.

But with twins due June 15, Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift has added parental leave, lactation rooms and, as of late Tuesday, contractions to this state’s political lexicon, right alongside economic development, welfare reform or her personal favorite, public education.

On Wednesday, Swift launched her “working maternity leave,” conducting state business from a hospital bed while doctors worked to postpone delivery as long as possible. (Twins notoriously arrive early.)

Her expectant status makes Swift the ultimate modern politician: a 36-year-old working mom with a commuting marriage who first won statewide office at age 25. She’s an immensely pregnant head of a state who only has to enter a room to prove that the men’s club of politics isn’t what it used to be.

In an interview shortly before she was hospitalized, Swift conceded her pregnancy “certainly serves as a focal point that occasionally makes it difficult to garner focus on issues that I care about.”

Deftly, she then pointed out that “it does make an important statement to young girls, particularly in Massachusetts, that you can achieve a position of authority without sacrificing your personal life.”

Swift’s political rise has been just short of meteoric. Raised in the working-class town of North Adams in western Massachusetts, Swift took a job with a state legislator at age 24. The next year she became the youngest woman ever elected to this state’s Senate.

Three years ago, then-Gov. Paul Cellucci tapped the feisty Republican legislator as his running mate. The soon-to-be lieutenant governor was pregnant then too. Three-year-old Elizabeth Ruth Hunt lives in Williamstown with her father, Chuck. Swift makes the 2 1/2-hour drive from Boston to spend weekends with her family.

Swift had a different reputation then, saddled with the scandal of deploying staff members as unpaid baby-sitters for Elizabeth and using a state helicopter for personal purposes. The resulting ethics inquiry cost Swift a $1,250 fine and a plunge in approval ratings.

Swift became acting governor last month when Cellucci was confirmed as ambassador to Canada. She has begun amassing a war chest, but said she will not decide whether to run for governor until later this year.

On the heels of Cellucci’s weak governorship, Swift has moved quickly to put her mark on Beacon Hill. One Swift proposal would expand training programs for welfare mothers, but require mothers on public assistance to work when their children are 2 years old. She also has hammered hard on the state’s responsibility to improve public education.

Her goal, in short, is to emphasize “issues that help the families of Massachusetts. It’s the reason I got into politics. . . . It’s a happy coincidence for me that the issues at the forefront of the voters’ mind are the ones that I am the most passionate about and have a great deal of experience in dealing with.”

Former Lt. Gov. Evelyn Murphy, a Democrat, cautioned that “as soon as this birth happens, we’re all going to turn back to what are the issues that drive a state and a governor’s role.”

But until then, Swift’s pregnancy will overshadow most state business, said Elizabeth Sherman, director of the Center for the Study of Women in Politics at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. “There’s just no way that she can make a public appearance and stand there and talk about the Big Dig [a massive tunneling project in Boston] or education reform without people saying, ‘Holy cow!’ ”

As for the rough-and-tumble of politics, Swift said: “I just try to keep it all in perspective. . . . I have a wonderful husband, a daughter who like every other mother I think the world of--and we’re about to have this fabulous expansion of our family. Those things don’t change if there’s a bad headline.”