Meet Dan Haley

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Dan Haley is a practicing attorney who lives in Holliston with his wife, Melissa, infant daughter, Sylvie, and Black Labrador, Pax. With deep roots in the community and a broad range of experience in national politics and state government as well as the private sector, Dan is excited to be a candidate to represent the Eighth Middlesex District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Dan was born at Leonard Morse Hospital and raised in Holliston, where he attended public schools and graduated from Holliston High. His family roots in the town extend back to the 19th century.

Three Generations

Dan's grandfather, Daniel "Happy" Haley was born in 1900 in Holliston's 'Mudville' neighborhood, where he spent his entire life in the same house on Mechanic Street.

Happy worked for the Holliston Post Office, and – as Dan's grandmother Georgette never tired of telling him – for many years the town's fire horn was sounded from a spare room upstairs in their home.

Dan's father (Daniel, Jr.) grew up on Mechanic Street with his sister, Ann. In later years, Dan himself spent countless hours of his childhood sitting on the porch in front of that house in Mudville, helping his grandparents receive a never-ending stream of local visitors.

Dan's father attended Holliston Public Schools, where he was a stand-out athlete on the highly successful Holliston High basketball team.He married Alicia Koledo of Springfield, Vermont, and spent his entire career working for W.F. Wood Engineering and then Ty-Wood/Century Manufacturing, both Holliston companies. He and Alicia raised their two children, Dan and Natasha, in Holliston.

Training in Leadership

After graduation from Holliston High School, Dan left Holliston for the first time to attend Middlebury College in Vermont. During a summer internship at the National Republican Senatorial Committee Dan first caught the political "bug." Following Middlebury, he worked for a year helping to prepare for the 1996 Republican National Convention in San Diego, before moving to Washington, DC where he spent several years working first for the National Republican Congressional Committee, and then for the Republican National Committee. At the RNC, Dan was privileged to serve as the top aide to then-Chairman Jim Nicholson, traveling with Chairman Nicholson to nearly every state and in the process gaining an up-close look at the political process at every level, from county Lincoln Day dinners in rural America, to meetings with Congressional leadership.

In 1998 Dan returned to New England to attend Harvard Law School, where, on his very first day and in his very first class, he had the good fortune to be assigned a seat next to Melissa Halasz from Cleveland, Ohio. Melissa and Dan graduated together in 2001, and were married in 2004. That same year they bought a house in Holliston, where they live today. In November of last year Dan and Melissa were blessed with the arrival of their daughter, Sylvia Rose.

Following law school, Dan joined the litigation department of Goodwin Procter, a respected Boston law firm. While with Goodwin, he was privileged to serve as a Special Assistant District Attorney for Middlesex County, prosecuting cases in the Middlesex District Court in Cambridge.

Dan worked at Goodwin until 2005, when he was recruited to join the Romney Administration as the Governor's Deputy Legal Counsel. Less than a year later he was promoted to the Governor's senior staff, and became Chief of Staff to Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey.

Dan is currently a litigator with the Boston office of McDermott Will and Emery. He is a member of the Boston Bar Association’s Legislative Advisory Committee and the Board of Trustees of Framingham State College and serves on the Advisory Committee for the Youth Advocacy Foundation, a group dedicated to providing legal, community-based and educational services to indigent children in the Boston Metropolitan area.

A Proven Leader

Due to his experience prosecuting repeat offender drunk driving cases in the District Court, Dan was asked to take the lead in drafting Governor Romney's 2005 anti drunk driving legislation, which came to be known as "Melanie's Bill" in honor and memory of Melanie Powell, a 13-year-old victim of a repeat drunk driver whose grandfather, Ron Bersani, became the public face of the fight for Melanie's Bill. As the primary author of the bill, Dan was a central figure in the high-profile legislative battle against entrenched special interests that sought to bury the legislation in committee. Over the course of several months, Dan accompanied Ron Bersani and the Lieutenant Governor to countless meetings with individual legislators, making the case for the bill, answering questions from the legislators and from the media, and drumming up grass-roots support. Of Dan's role, Ron Bersani has commented, "He was intensely passionate about doing the right thing, never backing down from a challenge and finding a way around every roadblock." Watching Governor Romney sign Melanie's Bill into Melanie's Law was Dan's proudest professional moment.

Dan's role in this and other high-stakes legislative battles, including the successful fight against a legislative attempt to enact a massive retroactive tax hike in 2005, taught him the importance of open government and a strong public role in the legislative process. Without public and media attention to the issues, Dan believes that Melanie's Bill would have been quietly buried in committee, and retroactive taxes would have been imposed by a super-majority that has lost any sense of accountability to the voters.

Since leaving the State House and returning to the private practice of law with the firm of McDermott, Will and Emery, where he has the privilege of working closely with former Governor Bill Weld, Dan has become increasingly frustrated with the daily consequences of one party government on Beacon Hill. Major legislation is literally "debated" behind closed doors, out of public view. Despite record revenues pouring into state coffers, the Legislature has spent the Commonwealth into a deficit that exceeds a billion dollars. Ignoring this deficit, legislators continue to pile hundreds of millions in new spending onto the budget. This year cities and towns across the Commonwealth were forced by inadequate state aid to place Proposition 2-1/2 overrides on the ballot, even as tax revenues came in 1.2 billion dollars ahead of budget estimates.

Dan is convinced that there is something fundamentally wrong with how our government is operating on Beacon Hill. With the benefit of his experience in national politics, state government and the private sector, Dan knows he can make a difference for the Eighth Middlesex District and for the Commonwealth.

Dan, Melissa and Sylvie look forward to meeting you on the campaign trail, where Dan intends to earn your support and your vote.

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