NEW BEDFORD, MA – Today, Republican Lt. Governor Candidate Shawn Oliver gave the following remarks at his campaign kickoff event in New Bedford:
“My name is Shawn Oliver.”
“I’m a husband, father, grandfather, corrections officer, and a New Bedford City Councilor and I’m proud to join Brian Shortsleeve as his choice to be your next lieutenant governor.
“I’m a first-generation American, and like so many others, my story begins in a place where the life we often take for granted here is considered just a dream.
“That story began long before me in a modest home with no indoor plumbing, in a humble Portuguese whaling village on the island of Pico. In 1969, my grandparents, Alfredo and Maria, were raising my seven-year-old mother, when they made the decision to risk everything for a better life in the United States.
“Sponsored by a relative who had come before them, they made their way to another whaling city they had heard about back home, New Bedford. Here, they got straight to work.
“My grandfather in the factories and my grandmother in the mills. And when the textile mills began to close, my grandmother began cleaning houses to make ends meet. As a child, I would go with her from house to house, watching her scrub floors on her hands and knees.
“I was too young to understand it then but as I grew older, it was these moments that made her one of my heroes.
“Seeing her do whatever it took to provide. It was a hard life, but it was an honest one and better than what they had left behind. They were determined to make it even better for my mother. And they did.
“My grandmother attended the Immigrant Assistance Center in the early 1970s to learn English and eventually became a U.S. citizen. My grandfather believed my mother should choose her own path, encouraging her to make that decision when she came of age. She proudly became a citizen in 1982, and my grandfather followed in the late 1990s.
“Because of their sacrifice and my parents’ hard work, I grew up in a home that, while not wealthy, we had stability, a roof over our head, food on the table, and opportunities my grandparents never had.
“Nothing was handed to them. Everything was earned. From them, I learned the values of faith, family, and hard work.
“I attended New Bedford public schools and planned to pursue architectural drafting after high school. But those plans changed when I learned, at 17, that I was going to be a father. In that moment, my priorities became clear, it was now my responsibility to provide.
“I worked two and sometimes three jobs in retail management to make ends meet. Determined to build a better future, I took and passed the civil service exam, graduated from the Corrections Training Academy, and became a corrections officer. For nearly a decade and a half, I’ve seen firsthand the best and worst of our criminal justice system.
“Still, I always knew that if I had the opportunity, I would give back to the community that gave my family a chance.
“You see, I wasn’t political by nature, but I grew frustrated watching city government move in the wrong direction, focused more on ideology than on improving schools, fixing roads, and managing taxpayer dollars responsibly. I didn’t see myself, my family, or many of my neighbors being represented. As my son reached school age, I knew I couldn’t sit on the sidelines while decisions affecting his future were being made by people with very different values.
“So in 2022, I ran for New Bedford City Council on a platform of common sense, fiscal responsibility, the rule of law, transparency, and accountability, and I won!
“Now, municipal races are nonpartisan, and at the time I was an unaffiliated voter. But I’ve always been a conservative who voted Republican, and it didn’t take long to see that local politics were anything but neutral. The lines were clear and I knew where I stood.
“In August 2025, I officially registered as a Republican.
“On the Council, I approach every issue with one question in mind: how does this affect working families? Families trying to keep up with bills that come faster than their paychecks. Workers juggling multiple jobs just to afford rent, groceries, and childcare. Parents striving to give their children a better life. Seniors fighting to stay in the homes they’ve owned for decades as property taxes continue to rise.
“I think about them because that’s my story. That’s my family. Those are my people. And today, under the leadership of Maura Healey and Kim Driscoll, that story is getting harder to live. Massachusetts has become one of the most expensive places in the country to raise a family. Utility bills are skyrocketing. Housing is out of reach. Taxes keep climbing.
“I’ve followed this Republican primary for governor closely, looking for the candidate with the experience, the vision, the values, and the determination to turn this state around. That candidate is Brian Shortsleeve.
“Brian’s story is different than mine, but similar in ways that may not immediately occur to you.
“Brian went to Harvard, but on a ROTC scholarship, and took up the conservative cause right away. At that time Harvard banned ROTC from its campus, and looked down on the military. So, Brian did his drills at Boston University and MIT, while he fought the powers that be on Harvard’s campus to change their policy. It was his first political battle, and eventually his side won.
“After graduation, when his fellow alumni sought lucrative jobs on Wall Street or in big corporate consulting firms, Brian joined the Marines. Like my grandmother was my hero, Brian’s grandfather was his. His grandfather served in the Navy in World War Two, a member of the Greatest Generation that liberated the continent where my grandparents grew up. He inspired Brian to serve a cause greater than himself.
“Brian served honorably, leading Marines on deployments to war torn Bosnia and the Persian Gulf. When he completed his commitment and returned to the states, he attended Harvard Business School and entered the world of business. In his early career, he specialized in helping turn around troubled companies, which put him on the radar of a future governor.
“When Snowmaggedon struck Massachusetts in 2015, just weeks after Charlie Baker took office, and buried the state in 100 inches of snow over the course of a month, crisis set in. The biggest crisis of all was at the MBTA. The trains stopped working, commuters were stranded, and a financial house of cards stood up by years of mismanagement came tumbling down.
“Baker called in the Marines. Or, rather, one Marine. Brian Shortsleeve.
“Brian agreed to leave his private sector work for two years and take the job, as thankless as he knew it would be. That’s what leaders do.
“The T had a $300 million operating deficit. The state’s economy depended on it. And it was in total and complete collapse. So, Brian got to work. He audited everything from top to bottom. In fact, he’s the only candidate in this race who has audited a state agency. He exposed millions of dollars in waste, abuse and absurd inefficiencies. He took on powerful public employee unions to renegotiate contracts. He streamlined the workforce, reformed overtime policies, and restructured debt. Where he could get taxpayers a better deal and better results, he privatized services. And where fraud was uncovered, people went to jail.
“By restoring confidence in the T’s finances, he was able to secure federal support and restart the stalled Green Line Extension. This is the sort of government reform conservatives like me dream about. And as governor, Brian will do it across every agency of state government. By the time he was done, he had balanced the budget for the first time in 15 years.
“Brian’s tenure was a brief, shining moment for the T, and no one has been able to do what he did ever since. The Boston Herald editorial page cheered his reforms, saying, and I quote, ‘Shortsleeve’s work helped turn a bloated, underperforming agency into one focused on riders, performance, and results.’
“Sadly, under Maura Healey, the trains are off the rails again. Despite multiple taxpayer bailouts in the years after Brian left, the T now faces a $700 million deficit. And it’s not just the MBTA that’s been driven into a ditch under Healey, but all of state government – and it’s going to take another Mission for Massachusetts to fix it.
“After his stint at the T, Brian returned to his true passion – helping small businesses that provide opportunity to people from all walks of life. In fact, small businesses make up 99.5 percent of all businesses in Massachusetts. They form the backbone of our economy and the foundation for better lives. And there is nowhere more evident of this than right here in New Bedford.
“Small businesses are where families like the one I grew up in take their first step on the ladder leading to the American Dream. Small businesses are where entrepreneurs with big ideas change lives. Brian founded his company, M33 Growth, to help small businesses grow and prosper. Through his mentorship and expertise, thousands of good-paying jobs have been created. He understands something that Maura Healey, Kim Driscoll and the politicians on Beacon Hill do not – that for our people to succeed, our small businesses must succeed. And for our small businesses to succeed they must be able to compete.
“But the current administration makes it harder every day for businesses large and small to make Massachusetts home. Her spending addiction means a never-ending cascade of costly taxes and fees. She is on an ideological crusade to ban affordable, reliable energy sources and force our families and businesses to buy and subsidize expensive, Healey-approved, green energy.
“That’s why your utility bills have skyrocketed.
“Costly regulations have stymied home construction, and make it impossible for working families and young people just starting out to afford mortgages and rents. Adding insult to injury, while our families struggle, illegal immigrants have enjoyed billions of dollars in free hotel rooms, free meals, free transportation, free health care – all paid for with your hard-earned tax dollars.
“A Shortsleeve-Oliver administration will champion legal immigration. We understand that immigrants are critical to our economy and enrich our culture. We believe in America’s role as a beacon for freedom loving people around the world, and as an asylum for refugees seeking safety from political persecution and natural disaster. Immigrant families like mine come to America because they want liberty, opportunity and better lives, not handouts. They come here to become Americans, but you cannot start the journey of becoming American with hat in hand, cutting the line, and breaking our laws.
“Our administration will reform our emergency shelter program, and return it to its rightful purpose, offering a temporary safety net to help vulnerable U.S. citizens bounce back from hard times, particularly families with children, pregnant women and homeless veterans.
“Brian Shortsleeve will be a law-and-order governor. As a corrections officer, I have watched as Maura Healey has denigrated law enforcement, defended lawlessness, and cheered on rioters, declaring, “America is burning, but that’s how forests grow.” I’ve seen her soft-on-crime judges release violent criminals without bail. I’ve watched as her Parole Board set free criminals guilty of the most heinous crimes. And we’ve all watched as she and Michelle Wu built Mass and Cass and so many other neighborhoods into dens of addiction, crime, homelessness, and hopelessness.
“The Shortsleeve-Oliver administration will end the nonsense, support law enforcement, reform our bail system, fire the Parole Board, and tackle our addiction problem with common sense, not free needles.
“Finally, Brian Shortsleeve understands that local control must be returned to cities and towns.
“One of the first conversations I had with Brian was about unrestricted local aid that municipalities depend on to fund fire, police, EMS, public works and more.
“For years our cities and towns have been underfunded and not even keeping up with inflation. Because under Maura Healey, that aid is cannibalized by her ever-growing list of state spending priorities, with the effect of raising local property taxes.
“That’s why your property tax bills are rising; it’s why Healey wants to give even more taxing authority to cities and towns, including tripling the car tax. If she can force municipalities to raise taxes by denying them state aid, then she doesn’t have to be accountable. Brian Shortsleeve will restore local aid to bring property tax relief to struggling homeowners, and he will oppose new local taxes. And Brian is the only candidate in this race who will put an end to the MBTA Communities Act that has used coercion and financial threats to force a big government mandate down the throats of local communities.
“I asked Brian point-blank why he wanted a job as tough as governor. He’s built a good life for himself, why are you stepping into the arena? He gave me two reasons that stuck with me. First, he’s a Marine, rooted in a tradition of service he learned from his grandfather. Second, he’s a father of three boys, and he’s looking at the future we’re leaving for them and for all our
kids and he believes we can do better. In that moment, I realized that while our paths to this stage look different, our “WHY” is exactly the same.
“My mind flashed back to the day I learned I was going to be a dad, and the realization that I’d do anything to build a better world for my children. I thought about why I first ran for City Council, because I wanted to give back to the city that raised me and ensure our neighbors finally had a seat at the table. That is the balance this ticket brings to Massachusetts.
“We come from different experiences, but we are anchored by the same mission. I’ve seen firsthand that Brian Shortsleeve is a man of character. He is a man of deep, ironclad values. And most importantly, he is a leader who is utterly unafraid to do what is right, even when the right thing is the hardest thing to do.
“The Commonwealth doesn’t need more career politicians, it needs balance, executive experience, and local heart. Brian and I have the skills to take on Maura Healey and Kim Driscoll and WIN but more than that, we have the soul to actually turn this state around. I’m grateful for his partnership and with all of your support we’ll bring real leadership, common sense and character back to Beacon Hill.”
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