Steve Kerrigan, head of Mass. Democratic Party, charged with drunken driving last month

Steve Kerrigan, the chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, was charged with drunken driving last month and admittedthat prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him after he was pulled over in Southborough, according to court records.

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Kerrigan, 54, pleaded to sufficient facts on June 15 in Westborough District Court after he was charged with operating under the influence of liquor and a marked lanes violation.

The outcome is a common one in drunken driving cases, under which Kerrigan will have his case continued without a finding for a year. He lost his license for 45 days.

In a statement issued through his lawyer, Kerrigan acknowledged that he was pulled over, and after taking a breathalyzer test, had a blood alcohol level of 0.089. The state’s legal limit is 0.08.

“I regret and take full responsibility for my actions and their consequences,” he said.

A spokesperson for the state Democratic Party referred questions to Kerrigan’s attorney, Andrea Levy. Kerrigan, a former lieutenant governor nominee and Democratic National Convention Committee executive, has led the state party since 2023.

In a statement, Governor Maura Healey, who endorsed Kerrigan for his role leading the state party, said “driving under the influence is never acceptable.”

“I’m relieved that no one was hurt,” she said. “I have spoken to Steve and told him how unacceptable this is. He has taken responsibility for his actions and committed to making sure this never happens again.”

Kerrigan was arrested just after midnight on June 13 in Southborough, about 18 miles south of his home in Lancaster, after police said they saw him driving his 2017 BMW SUV in the middle of two lanes.

Kerrigan told the police officer that he was driving home from a restaurant. The officer wrote in the police report that he was unable to smell alcohol on Kerrigan “due to an overwhelming odor of cologne.”

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Police said Kerrigan’s eyes were glassy and bloodshot, and his speech was slow and slurred, according to the report.

When asked how much alcohol he had to drink, Kerrigan told the officer he had two beers at 6 p.m. and then went out to dinner.

The incident comes as Democrats in Massachusetts have temporarily eased the rules on public drinking and allowed towns and cities to extend last call at bars this summer. The state Senate on Thursday also passed a measure pushed by state Senator Julian Cyr, a Provincetown Democrat, that would lift Massachusetts’s decades-old ban on happy hour and permit a local option for allowing discounted prices on alcoholic drinks.

Healey has said she “personally” supports the idea of letting cities and towns decide whether they want to allow happy hour. She also backs an extension to allow for a later last call.

The state party is also trying to court the Democratic National Committee into choosing Boston to play host for the party’s 2028 national convention. Boston is one of five finalist cities for the competitive bid, and “there is no better place than the place where the shot heard ‘round the world was fired, where our democracy began,” Kerrigan said earlier this year.

Kerrigan is not the first Democrat in recent years to face charges of drunken driving.

State Senator Michael Brady was charged in 2018 with drunken driving, telling police that he had been drinking at a “work event” in Boston and that “he was a state senator.” He, too, reached a plea deal with prosecutors in which he admitted they had enough evidence to convict him at trial but avoided a conviction.

In 2022, state Representative David LeBoeuf of Worcester was arrested after driving erratically on Interstate 93 after a late-night budget debate.

And last year, state Representative John Lawn was charged with drunken driving after hitting a parked vehicle near the State House just before 2 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. Lawn also pleaded to sufficient facts, lost his license for 45 days, and was ordered to undergo alcohol treatment.

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Kelly Garrity of the Globe staff contributed to this report.