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Legislative Stipend Calculation and Payment Rules Initiative

Did not qualify

Massachusetts · November 2026 general election · Citizen initiative · Election day November 3, 2026
Topics: Government structure

In plain language

This initiative would have written into state law the limits on stipends Massachusetts legislators receive on top of their base salary, which is about $82,000. The Senate president and House speaker could have received up to 75 percent of base salary; party floor leaders and Ways and Means chairs up to 50 percent; certain assistant leaders, vice chairs and committee chairs up to 33 percent; and members of eligible committees up to 20 percent. It also limited how many stipends one legislator could draw. In April 2026 the Supreme Judicial Court advised that the proposal addressed internal legislative rules rather than a law, and the attorney general then barred it from the ballot.

Fiscal impact

No official fiscal note has been issued for this measure yet.

When the state publishes a fiscal analysis, it will appear here and be listed in the sources below.

What supporters and opponents say

These are summaries of arguments made by the named organizations, drawn from the sources listed below. They are their claims, not this site's, and this site takes no position on the measure.

What supporters say

  • Massachusetts Stipend Reform, the campaign behind the petition, said 149 of the state’s 200 legislators receive leadership stipends, that spending on them has quadrupled since 2015 to $5.4 million, and that leaders can grant or withdraw them at will.
  • Former State Rep. Jonathan Hecht (D) argued that legislators are financially dependent on leadership and that dependency discourages independent action.
  • State Auditor Diana DiZoglio (D), Act on Mass, Partners in Democracy and the Coalition to Reform Our Legislature supported the measure.

Attributed to Act on Mass, Coalition to Reform Our Legislature.

What opponents say

  • A spokesperson for Senate President Karen Spilka (D) said it is inaccurate to describe the Senate’s stipend system as stifling debate, and that committee chairs do exceptional work.
  • Evan Horowitz of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University questioned whether the rules would accomplish much, saying compliance could be gamed by steering the required number of bills to each stipend recipient.
  • The Massachusetts Senate challenged the petition before the Supreme Judicial Court, which issued an advisory opinion in April 2026 that the proposal concerned the internal rules of the Legislature and so was not a proper subject for an initiative petition.

Attributed to the sources cited below.

Official ballot language

The certified ballot text is not yet available for this measure. Once the state certifies it, the verbatim wording will appear here.

Sources

Everything on this page traces to these sources. Follow them to read the original documents.

Last updated . How this page is sourced and corrected is described in the correction policy.