Heckler, Margaret, 1931-2018

<p>Margaret M. Heckler served eight restless terms in the House, as she was frequently mentioned for state office while moving through six standing committees. “Her seniority and bargaining ability were weakened by these frequent moves,” observed a colleague, “and she was forced most often to carry her agenda directly to the House Floor.” Such activity may have been due to the fact that Heckler was a moderate Republican from one of the nation’s most liberal and Democratic states.</p>

<p>Margaret Mary O’Shaughnessy was born on June 21, 1931, in Flushing, New York. She was the only child of John O’Shaughnessy, a hotel doorman, and Bridget McKeon O’Shaughnessy, Irish-Catholic immigrants. She graduated from Albertus Magnus College in 1953, marrying John Heckler, an investment banker, in 1954. Theirs would be a commuter marriage that eventually produced three children: Belinda, Alison, and John Jr. The marriage ended in 1985 after she left Congress. Heckler went on to Boston College School of Law, where she was the only woman in her class. She graduated in 1956, forming a law office with fellow law school graduates. Shortly afterward, she began volunteering in local Republican campaigns, and in 1958 she became a member of the Republican committee for Wellesley, Massachusetts, a position she held for eight years. Heckler’s first elected office was to the eight-person governor’s council (an advisory body mandated by the state constitution) in 1962, serving two terms. Thereafter, she was frequently mentioned as a possible candidate for statewide office.</p>

<p>In 1966 Heckler dismayed the Republican establishment when she announced her candidacy against Representative Joseph W. Martin Jr., the venerable 81-year-old House incumbent, whose seat encompassed southeastern Massachusetts. Martin had served in Congress since 1925 and was Speaker of the House twice. Heckler’s energetic campaign was a marked contrast to the performances of her elderly opponent, who had missed more than half of the votes in the previous Congress. She narrowly won the Republican primary by 3,200 votes. Heckler went on to win the general election against labor lawyer Patrick H. Harrington Jr., with 51 percent of the vote, to become the first woman from Massachusetts elected to Congress without succeeding her husband. “The men kept saying I couldn’t make it,” she later recalled, “but the women convinced them that a woman, even if she was the underdog, deserved their backing.”</p>

<p><b>RACES</b>
<ul>
<li> 12/17/1985 US Ambassador to Ireland Won 100.00% (+100.00%)</li>
<li> 03/08/1983 Secretary of Health & Human Services Won 96.47% (+92.94%)</li>
<li> 11/02/1982 MA District 4 Lost 40.47% (-19.06%)</li>
<li> 11/04/1980 MA District 10 Won 60.62% (+21.23%)</li>
<li> 11/07/1978 MA District 10 Won 61.14% (+22.29%)</li>
<li> 11/02/1976 MA District 10 Won 100.00% (+100.00%)</li>
<li> 11/05/1974 MA District 10 Won 64.15% (+28.31%)</li>
<li> 11/07/1972 MA District 10 Won 99.96% (+99.93%)</li>
<li> 11/03/1970 MA District 10 Won 57.04% (+14.08%)</li>
<li> 11/05/1968 MA District 10 Won 67.37% (+34.74%)</li>
<li> 11/08/1966 MA District 10 Won 51.10% (+2.20%)</li>
<li> 09/13/1966 MA District 10 - R Primary Won 55.82% (+11.65%)</li>
</ul>
</p>

<p>Margaret Mary Heckler (née O'Shaughnessy; June 21, 1931 – August 6, 2018) was an American Republican Party politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives from 1967 to 1983 and served as Secretary of Health and Human Services and Ambassador to Ireland under President Ronald Reagan.</p>

<p>She was born Margaret Mary O'Shaughnessy in Flushing, New York. Her undergraduate studies began at Albertus Magnus in New Haven, Connecticut. She then studied abroad at the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands, in 1952 and went on to graduate from Albertus Magnus College (B.A. 1953) and from Boston College Law School (LL.B. 1956). She was the only woman in her law school class. She was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts. She was an editor of the Annual Survey of Massachusetts Law.</p>

<p>From 1963 to 1967, Heckler was the first woman to serve on the Governor's council for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1964 and 1968, and was elected as a Republican from the 90th to the 97th Congresses (January 3, 1967 – January 3, 1983).</p>

<p>Heckler received an honorary doctorate from Johnson & Wales University in 1975.</p>