Kimberly Atkins to cover Washington for the Herald

A very smart move by the Boston Herald: Kimberly Atkins, who covered state politics for the paper before moving to Washington in 2006, will become the tabloid’s full-time Washington reporter. Atkins has been writing a political column part-time for the Herald in recent years in addition to covering legal issues for the Lawyers Weekly newspapers. She tells me by email:

I’m really excited! Covering the law was fun, but I really missed covering politics regularly. And with all the big Supreme Court cases coming up (Facebook threats, state same-sex marriage ban challenges, the trio of Obamacare challenges) I’ll still be able to flex my legal brain pretty frequently as well.

Atkins, who’s also a lawyer, will be the Herald’s first full-time Washington reporter since Andrew Miga, who’s been working for the Associated Press since 2005. Herald editor-in-chief Joe Sciacca says in the Herald announcement, “Kimberly is very smart and politically savvy and our readers will benefit by her knowledge of the inner workings of the nation’s capital.”