Paris Hugley
Boston University News Service
Lawmakers, reform advocates and legal experts sparred Tuesday over whether a ballot proposal to rewrite the Legislature’s stipend system is a transparency measure or an unconstitutional attempt to dictate how Beacon Hill runs itself.
The petition, backed by former lawmakers and government reform advocates, would change how extra pay is awarded to legislative leaders and committee chairs and tie some of that compensation to public-facing committee work, such as holding public debate or votes.
Supporters say the measure would curb a system that has long allowed House and Senate leaders to distribute stipends in ways critics say reward loyalty and concentrate power at the top.
But at a hearing before the Special Committee on Initiative Petitions, lawmakers and witnesses repeatedly questioned whether the proposal goes too far by conditioning pay on internal legislative procedures, including public markup sessions, public votes and other committee requirements.
Former Rep. Jon Hecht, one of the measure’s leading backers, argued the proposal is about compensation, not internal rules.
“This has nothing to do with rules. This is a pay statute, the details are all about who gets paid extra, how much extra they get paid and under what conditions they get paid extra,” Hecht told lawmakers.
Hecht said the Legislature would remain free to organize itself however it wants, but voters could decide the conditions under which lawmakers receive extra money beyond their base salary.
“The Legislature sets its own rules, but the people through this law can set conditions under which legislators make extra pay,” he said.
The petition comes amid longstanding criticism of the current stipend structure, which gives the House Speaker and Senate President broad power to assign leadership and committee posts that come with thousands of dollars in extra annual compensation. Critics like Hecht have argued that system gives top leaders too much leverage over rank-and-file lawmakers.
A Boston Globe investigation last year found stipends had expanded sharply over time while power remained concentrated in leadership. As of 2023, 149 of the Legislature’s 200 members received some form of leadership pay.
Supporters of the petition say that growth reflects a system untethered from clear standards for actual legislative work. Hecht said many committees rarely meet beyond public hearings and do little work in public view despite the stipends attached to leadership positions.
“Most committees, the only time they meet collectively is when the public is invited to give testimony,” Hecht said. “We’re not doing any of that in the Legislature in Massachusetts now,” he added, referring to public markup sessions, debate and votes on bills.
Sen. Brendan Crighton, D-Lynn, pushed back on that distinction, questioning whether the petition’s “conditions” for pay were functionally the same as rules governing legislative conduct.
“You reference conditions, but essentially, it’s rules,” Crighton said. “You’re setting order. You’re dictating what is permissible behavior. You’re setting consequences, which would be the removal of stipend.”
The exchange underscored the central constitutional dispute surrounding the petition. While backers say it merely sets the terms for extra public compensation, opponents argue it effectively tells committees how to operate, crossing into an area the Massachusetts Constitution reserves to the House and Senate.
Sen. Ryan Fattman, R-Webster, raised a related concern, asking why supporters did not pursue a constitutional amendment instead of a ballot measure if the proposal is likely to face constitutional scrutiny.
“A quick answer is a constitutional amendment has to pass through the Legislature,” Hecht said.
Later in the exchange, Hecht argued lawmakers had already had a chance to address stipend reform through normal legislative channels and failed to do so.
“The Legislature has buried it. Done nothing with it. Didn’t even give it a bill number. Didn’t even send it to committee,” Hecht said.
Boston University School of Law professor Sean Kealy offered the sharpest legal critique of the proposal, telling lawmakers the petition would likely be constitutional if it only changed stipend amounts. The problem, he said, is that the measure goes further by tying pay to changes in committee procedure.
“it ties the stipends to the House and Senate both changing the chamber rules and the joint rules that govern the Legislature and the bill process,” Kealy testified.
The Massachusetts Constitution gives each chamber authority to determine its own rules of proceeding and argued that neither a referendum nor a statute can override that authority.
“A statute passed either by referendum or by the Legislature cannot overcome the dictates of the Constitution,” Kealy said.
He called the petition “an attempt to get rules that they want into the rule book of the House, the Senate, and the joint rules, without going through a constitutional process.”
“This is basically an end run around the constitution,” Kealy said, warning the proposal could have significant practical downsides, including more cumbersome committee procedures and potential litigation over whether lawmakers complied with the required public process.
Some lawmakers appeared to bristle at how supporters characterized the current system. Rep. Alice Hanlon Peisch, D-Wellesley, defended committee leadership saying, “I resent the implications that every chair here does not think for themselves and does not work hard.”
If lawmakers take no action on the proposal before the first Wednesday in May, supporters will need to collect an additional 12,429 signatures to secure a November ballot spot. In the meantime, the Massachusetts Senate has asked the Supreme Judicial Court to issue a non-binding advisory opinion on the constitutionality of this and a separate petition related to opening access to public records.
