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Missing for key votes, including the term's biggest Parole Board vote

State House News Service reported her absent when the Council confirmed judges on Feb. 26, 2025, May 28, 2025 and Oct. 1, 2025 - nine judgeships in all, and on Oct. 1 she was the only councillor missing. On May 20, 2026, the Council rejected Governor Healey's Parole Board nominee, a former prosecutor backed by the state's district attorneys, by a vote of 4 to 3. Councillor Zeigler did not attend. The vote came nine days after a man the Parole Board had released in 2025 was charged in a shooting on Cambridge's Memorial Drive that seriously injured two drivers. He has pleaded not guilty.

Sources: Boston Globe, May 20, 2026 (opens in a new tab) · WBUR / State House News, May 21, 2026 (opens in a new tab) · State House News, Feb. 26, 2025 (opens in a new tab) · State House News, May 28, 2025 (opens in a new tab) · State House News, Oct. 1, 2025 (opens in a new tab)

William's plan

William will be in his seat for every vote on judges, the Parole Board, pardons and commutations, and will publish his attendance record. If he ever has to miss a vote, he will say so ahead of time, explain why, and make sure the questions he would have asked are on the record before the vote is taken.

On record for ending life without parole

Running for State Senate in 2022, she answered yes on a Progressive Massachusetts questionnaire to eliminating life without parole, eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for all drug offenses, and a moratorium on building new prisons. On the Governor's Council she now confirms the Parole Board members who decide parole for people serving life sentences, and votes on commutations.

Sources: Her 2022 Progressive Mass. questionnaire (opens in a new tab)

William's plan

William Falcetano believes that public safety must come before politics. Therefore he would not eliminate life sentences without parole for the most heinous crimes, nor would he eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses. The law must be severe enough to have a deterrent effect. William does not support a moratorium on building new prisons.

A no after the fact, then a yes

Two nominees, one background, two different answers. The Governor presented both of her Parole Board picks this year as former prosecutors with experience working alongside crime victims. When the first, Vincent DeMore, came up for a vote on May 20, nine days after the Memorial Drive shooting, Zeigler was absent. She later said she would have voted no. When the second, Kaitlyn O'Leary, came up on August 12, Zeigler voted yes, and O'Leary was confirmed 6 to 2.

Sources: WBUR / State House News, May 21, 2026 (opens in a new tab) · WBUR / State House News, Aug. 6, 2026 (opens in a new tab) · WBUR / State House News, Aug. 13, 2026 (opens in a new tab) · Boston Globe, Aug. 12, 2026 (opens in a new tab)

William's plan

William will go into every hearing with an open mind, ask his questions in public, and publish every vote he casts with a short written explanation, so voters always know how he decided and why.

Voted to pardon a lawyer who cheated the state

On May 14, 2025, she joined a unanimous vote to pardon Paul Cacchiotti. As a court-appointed defense lawyer, he took $1,500 from his own client in exchange for seeking a bail reduction, then billed the state's public defender agency while certifying he had been paid nothing. He was convicted in 1998 of attempted extortion and larceny, along with tax evasion and filing false tax returns. The Governor's office cited his conduct since, including his return to the bar in 2014.

Sources: State House News, May 14, 2025 (opens in a new tab) · Governor's office, Apr. 30, 2025 (opens in a new tab) · Mass. Appeals Court, 2002 (opens in a new tab)

William's plan

William will not vote to pardon anyone convicted of defrauding taxpayers or abusing a position of public trust, including officers of the court.

A Parole Board seat left empty for months

The seat stayed vacant from the May rejection until a confirmation in August. At the August hearing, Councillor Zeigler herself said the vacancy had caused delays and a backlog of parole hearings.

Sources: Boston Globe, Aug. 12, 2026 (opens in a new tab)

William's plan

William will push for prompt, thorough hearings on Parole Board nominees and support qualified candidates who put public safety and victims first, so the board is never short-handed on the decisions that matter most.

A Council that almost never says no

As of June 2026, only one of Governor Healey's 110 nominees had been voted down during her time in office, according to the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. All eight seats on the Council are held by one party.

Sources: BINJ, June 9, 2026 (opens in a new tab) · WBUR / State House News, May 21, 2026 (opens in a new tab)

William's plan

William will be an independent check, not an echo. He will read every file, question every nominee on the record, and vote no when a nominee has not earned a yes, whoever the Governor is.

Rules the public could not find

In April 2026, reporters found the Council's own rules for 2025 and 2026 were not posted on the state's website, and its deliberations are not transcribed. Councillor Zeigler campaigned in 2024 on connecting residents more closely to the Council's work.

Sources: BINJ, Apr. 14, 2026 (opens in a new tab) · Gloucester Times, Nov. 6, 2024 (opens in a new tab)

William's plan

William will push for transparency on the Governor's Council. The votes of the councillors, and the rules of the Council, should be made available online to the public without having to file a costly public records request. The lack of transparency of the Council is a symptom of the one-party rule under which the Commonwealth suffers.