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BOSTON — Advocates for increased transparency in the state Legislature are turning to voters in November with two potential ballot measures — to rework how legislators are paid and to apply public records laws to the Legislature and the governor’s office.
Asking the Legislature to support changes to its procedures has proven an uphill battle, leading to tense hearings and prickly exchanges this month.
Multiple New Bedford lawmakers told The Light they support reforming the public records law but disagreed with adjusting legislators’ leadership pay — a sentiment echoed by legislators across the state.
Legislative stipend regulation
Being a legislative leader comes with rewards: anywhere from $7,776 to $119,000 in addition to lawmakers’ base pay of $82,046. And leadership positions are easy to come by on Beacon Hill. Out of 200 state senators and representatives, 150 receive leadership stipends.
Leadership roles range from Senate president to vice chairs of little-known committees, some of which rarely hold hearings.
Critics claim this system places too much power in the hands of the House speaker and Senate president, who expect loyalty in return. A ballot campaign led by several transparency advocates and former legislators is seeking to rework the system.
The ballot measure would reduce the stipends of high-ranking lawmakers, capping leadership pay based on position. Additional rules would reduce stipends for legislators who are leaders on multiple committees.
To increase transparency in the Legislature, the measure would guarantee only half of eligible committee chairs’ stipends. The other half would be contingent on two conditions: their committees would have to hold both a public hearing and a public markup session on every bill by a certain date, and any committee recommendation must result from a majority vote in a public session with a quorum present.
Many committee chairs would receive stipends only if their committee is deemed “eligible” — meaning it is a joint committee, and the House and Senate refer at least 50 bills to it by March 1 of the first year of the two-year term.
The House speaker, Senate president, and several other leaders would also forfeit part of their stipends for every panel that fails to meet the transparency requirements.
Transparency advocates push for change
At a contentious hearing on Tuesday, advocates, including several former legislators, urged the Legislature’s Special Committee on Initiative Petitions to advance the measure.
Former Rep. Denise Provost said that at the beginning of her 15 years on Beacon Hill, leaders polled representatives on how they would vote on an upcoming bill. If members had concerns, votes might be postponed, bills might be redrafted, or there might be floor debates — “a real legislative process.”
Then, in 2017, the Legislature passed a law expanding legislative stipends and giving them to all committee vice chairs. That year, Provost said, the then-speaker’s margin of votes became “so comfortable” that polling stopped. Those who voted against the speaker saw demotions, less desirable committee assignments and downgrades in office space.
“With more members in leadership positions, the House became more hierarchical and less collegial. Dissent lessened, dissidents became more conspicuous and marginalized,” Provost said.
“I do not imply that members of the Legislature are venal or unprincipled,” she added. “It’s demoralizing, though, to have to work in such a frankly manipulative system, and embarrassing to have to explain it to constituents who want to know how and why particular decisions are made.”
Jonathan Hecht, who served as a representative for 12 years, stressed the importance of the transparency conditions written into the ballot measure. He said committees no longer hold open meetings to discuss, amend and vote on bills, and now meet only for hearings to take public testimony.
“This is not normal, and it’s not healthy,” Hecht said. “The inability of the public to observe and understand how bills are being shaped in committee, and to see committee members debating and voting in public, feeds cynicism and distrust in the legislation.”
Lawmakers defend the system
Attempting to persuade lawmakers to cut their own salaries proved difficult. Provost’s claim that stipends affect votes did not sit well with the committee.
“I think Representative Provost said she wasn’t intending to demean the public service of our colleagues here, but our votes are being bought?” Rep. Michael Day, D-Stoneham, said. “I’d be curious to see how we would be more demeaned.”
House Committee Chair Alice Peisch, D-Wellesley, said she “resent[s] the implications that every chair here does not think for themselves.”
Day grilled Hecht on the ballot campaign’s funding and spending, including about $300,000 used to pay signature gatherers, a common practice. He suggested that the campaign paid people to sign the petition, which Hecht rebutted.
Hecht later told The Light that he found Day’s “attitude” to be “troubling.”
“I think [the suggestion] shows a lot of contempt, frankly, for the people who signed,” Hecht said. “It sort of suggests that they’re stupid, or they’re easily fooled by somebody who’s asking them to sign.”
Three New Bedford-area representatives told The Light they also disapprove of the ballot measure on legislative pay.
Rep. Steven Ouellette, D-Westport, and Rep. Christopher Markey, D-Dartmouth, do not receive leadership pay, but both defended the system.
Ouellette said it’s “not necessarily true” that leadership pay is based on loyalty. He added that committee chairs “keep very busy.”
Markey called the ballot measure “inappropriate.” He chaired the House Committee on Ethics from 2015 to 2020 and said he was not “unduly influenced” by receiving extra pay.
Markey added that he doesn’t believe the Legislature has a transparency issue.
“I think that having elections every two years is a very important aspect of accountability. And as far as transparency, I think we’re pretty transparent in relation to how laws are written,” Markey said. “It would be nice to have a little bit more time to see a final bill and vote on it, but that would really be the only thing that I would want to change.”
Rep. Antonio F.D. Cabral, D-New Bedford, co-chairs the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, earning $44,861.93 in extra pay. Cabral said his committee has heard over 360 bills and held over 14 public hearings this session.
“Chairing a committee adds additional responsibility, and, of course, additional work. I’m not complaining about that. I enjoy very much what I do,” Cabral said, noting this includes engaging with the public and political subdivisions outside of the Legislature. “That’s what the stipend, I believe, is for.”
The claim that leadership pay buys loyalty “undermines” the work that committee chairs do, Cabral added.
Sen. Mark Montigny, D-New Bedford, and Rep. Mark Sylvia, D-Fairhaven, did not grant interviews with The Light. Rep. Christopher Hendricks, D-New Bedford, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Hendricks and Montigny both receive legislative stipends.
Montigny receives $75,068.96 in stipends as chairman for two committees and vice chairman of one. Yet the Light reported in August and January that the committees Montigny leads rarely consider bills. Neither committee he chairs — the Senate Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs and the Senate Committee on Post Audit and Oversight — held hearings this fall.
The post audit panel did hold a hearing on Feb. 3, and the intergovernmental affairs committee held a hearing on Feb. 4. They were the first hearings since a joint hearing of the two committees on July 30. That hearing took place a month after The Light began asking Montigny’s aides about his committee hearings.
The Legislature’s website did not have a record of the last time before 2025 that a committee Montigny chaired held a hearing. A Montigny aide told the Light last summer that he’d held several high-profile hearings in his previous stint as chair of Post Audit and Oversight in 2011 and 2012.
Montigny is not the only lawmaker who earns extra pay for chairing committees that rarely meet. Over 20% of the Legislature’s committees did not hold a single hearing or consider a single bill during the 2023-2024 session.
Public records reform
Massachusetts is the only state where the Legislature, the judiciary and the governor’s office are all exempt from the law guaranteeing access to public records, and one of only two states where both the Legislature and the governor are exempt.
A November ballot initiative started by the Coalition for Healthy Democracy 2026 seeks to address this gap. Under the proposal, the Legislature’s committee votes, final bill drafts and amendments, legislative expenditures, attendance records, public meeting minutes and public testimony submitted to committees would become public records.
Several supporters of the ballot measure testified earlier this month before the Special Committee on Initiative Petitions.
“Transparency is not a partisan issue; it is a democratic one,” said Coalition for Healthy Democracy campaign manager Jesse Littlewood. “It is one of the ways public institutions earn and sustain trust, and we are in a moment where public trust is strained.”
Scotia Hille, executive director of Act on Mass, told committee members that the ballot question “is not about punishing the Legislature or the governor’s office or making a mockery of elected officials.”
“It’s about affirming the public’s fundamental right to know what’s being done on our behalf … It’s also about safeguarding our democracy for future generations,” Hille said. “Governments are made of humans, after all, and although you may trust yourselves and your colleagues to do your jobs faithfully, I would ask, can you confidently say the same for every person that will hold your job in the future? For every future employee of the executive branch?”
Multiple New Bedford lawmakers said they support expanding the public records law to include the Legislature.
Cabral said he has been attempting to improve the public records law for many years, most recently by filing legislation that would create a division within the Secretary of State to oversee and regulate public records access.
Ouellette said the ballot measure makes sense “on the surface,” adding during his eight terms on the Westport Select Board, “everything executive was available unless it was a legal matter.”
Markey said he doesn’t support the measure as written because it lacks sufficient exemptions, but said the principle behind it is important.
A poll of 642 Massachusetts residents commissioned by the Pioneer Institute this month found that 86% of respondents believe legislators should be subject to state public records laws, while 84% believe the law should extend to the governor’s office and management of the judicial branch.
The poll also found that only 28% of respondents had a very or somewhat favorable opinion of the state Legislature, down from 49% who approved of the Legislature’s job performance in a November 2025 Suffolk poll.
Just over 87% of respondents said government transparency is extremely important to “achieve the ideals of a democracy.”
Committee raises concerns
Some lawmakers, including Senate President Karen Spilka, have spoken out against expanding the public records law, citing privacy concerns. Committee members echoed these concerns at the hearing.
In addition to the existing public records law exemptions, the measure would exempt communications and documents related to “developing policy positions” of legislators and the governor. Littlewood said that the exemption would apply to draft legislation, communications among legislators, and policy development discussions. Another exemption would apply to communications related to individual constituent services.
Sen. Barry Finegold, D-Andover, asked proponents whether the ballot measure could allow the Trump administration to access conversations between local lawmakers and universities about funding cuts. Sen. Paul Feeney, D-Foxborough, questioned whether an individual who calls their state lawmaker to lobby a bill would be protected.
Are these questions constitutional?
Critics question whether the two ballot measures violate the state constitution.
Boston University law professor Sean Kealey told the committee on Tuesday that the legislative stipend reform proposal is an “end run around the Constitution.” He argued that the measure dictates legislative rules by requiring public votes and markup sessions.
The committee went in circles with Hecht on whether the measure infringes on the Legislature’s right to create its own rules. Hecht insisted that it only relates to extra money.
“The Legislature can choose to do its business any way it likes, but the people don’t have to pay extra if the Legislature chooses to do it in a way that doesn’t meet what the people are looking for,” he said.
Political scientist Jerold Duquette testified against the public records ballot measure at the hearing in early March. Duquette co-founded the Massachusetts Law and Politics Project, which he described as bringing academic expertise to “efforts to misuse the Commonwealth’s initiative and referendum process.” Duquette, who teaches at Central Connecticut State University, argued the ballot question would require an amendment to the state constitution.
“[The petition] violates the separation of powers as well as the Legislature’s exclusive constitutional authority to ensure faithful execution of the law,” he said.
Last week, the Senate voted to seek advisory opinions from the state Supreme Judicial Court on whether the two ballot questions are constitutional. The last time the legislative or executive branch sought such an opinion was in 2016.
The attorney general has already determined the initiative petitions meet the constitutional requirements to appear on the ballot.
What comes next?
If lawmakers do not pass the measures as filed, the ballot campaigns must collect an additional 12,429 signatures for the question to be placed on the November ballot.
Hecht told The Light he’s “very confident” that the stipend question is widely supported by the public and will make it onto the ballot. He doesn’t expect the Legislature to pass it.
“The makeup of that committee itself was kind of indicative of the problem. There were no rank-and-file members of that committee,” Hecht said. “Those are all people who are chairs and leaders, and sometimes both. So they have a vested interest, both personally and professionally, in the system as it stands. It’s not surprising that they weren’t very happy to hear it criticized.”
Jamie Perkins is a graduate student in journalism covering state government for The Light as part of the Boston University Statehouse Program. Email them at jperkins@newbedfordlight.org.