Sam Drysdale
State House News Service

House Speaker Pro Tempore Kate Hogan shook her head for over an hour Tuesday as a panel of legislative reformers lambasted a "frankly manipulative" stipend system that they say creates incentives that "erode democracy."

Though the powerful Democrat who often sits at House Speaker Ron Mariano's right hand remained silent throughout the hearing, her colleagues did not.

In a gathering that broke from Beacon Hill norms, lawmakers openly sparred with supporters of a ballot initiative to overhaul legislative stipends, challenging both the substance of the proposal and the campaign behind it. Hearings typically feature questions, not arguments, but legislators repeatedly pushed back — at times sharply — on former colleagues and reform advocates pressing for change in State House operations.

The clash reflects a broader and emerging pattern for the Special Committee on Initiative Petitions, which has engaged in similar, testy back-and-forths on proposals that would affect the Legislature's internal operations.

The ballot question headed toward November would restructure stipends paid to some legislators on top of their $82,044 base salary. The proposal would cap stipends as a percentage of base pay, reduce the number of leadership-controlled stipends, and tie a portion of that extra compensation to transparency benchmarks, such as public committee debates and votes.

Supporters cast the measure as a pro-democracy reform aimed at rebalancing power and restoring public trust. Lawmakers and a constitutional law expert countered that it risks violating the state constitution, distorting legislative work, and imposing rigid rules on a coequal branch of government.

Pro-reform advocate and former Rep. Denise Provost traced what she described as a gradual but consequential shift inside the House over her 15 years in office.

She said stipends expanded alongside leadership positions, changing incentives and, ultimately, behavior.

"The year that all committee vice chairs were given stipends, the speaker's margin of votes became so comfortable that the polling of members simply stopped," Provost said, describing a time when leadership once gauged support and adjusted bills before bringing them forward. "There was no longer any need for it."

As stipends grew, she said, so did the costs of dissent.

"Dissent lessened, dissidents became more conspicuous and marginalized," she said, adding that the system is "demoralizing … to have to work in such a frankly manipulative system."

Her testimony, and the suggestion that stipends shape votes, drew a direct response from Rep. Michael Day.

"I think I'm paraphrasing but I think Rep. Provost said she wasn't intending to demean the public service of our colleagues here, but our votes are being bought?" Day said. "So I'd be curious to see how we would be more demeaned."

Day then focused on the campaign behind the proposal, pressing former Rep. Jonathan Hecht on fundraising and spending, including roughly $300,000 used to pay signature gatherers, a common practice for campaigns hoping to put public policy questions before voters.

"$300,000 spent just to gather signatures to get on the ballot," Day said, before asking how many were collected by volunteers.

"About 15,000," Hecht replied, out of roughly 95,000.

Hecht, a leading proponent of the initiative, argued the current system concentrates financial power in the hands of a few legislative leaders, shaping how lawmakers act.

"It's common sense that financial dependence limits autonomy and leads to deference," he said, noting that 145 of 200 legislators receive stipends, some boosting pay by more than $100,000.

The proposal, he said, would reduce that concentration by eliminating certain stipends, redistributing funds toward rank-and-file members, and tying additional pay to measurable work — including participation in committee deliberations conducted in public.

"It's about extra money," Hecht said. "If the people are going to pay legislators extra money for extra work, then it's reasonable to require that that work be done in a democratic, transparent and accountable fashion."

That framing became a central point of contention.

Sen. Brendan Crighton challenged Hecht's assertion that the proposal regulates pay, not legislative rules.

"But essentially, it's rules," Crighton said. "You're setting order. You're dictating what is permissible behavior."

Hecht pushed back: "This has nothing to do with rules… 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."

The exchange continued in a loop, with Crighton insisting "it's still setting rules," and Hecht countering, "No, it's not setting rules… it's about extra money."

The Senate last week asked the Supreme Judicial Court for an advisory opinion on whether the stipend proposal — along with another ballot question opening the Legislature and governor's office to public records law — would pass constitutional muster.

That distinction also sat at the center of testimony from Boston University law professor Sean Kealy, who warned the proposal likely crosses a constitutional line.

"A statute… cannot overcome the dictates of the Constitution," Kealy said, arguing the measure intrudes on the Legislature's authority to set its own rules.

While adjusting stipend levels alone would be permissible, he said, tying pay to requirements like public bill markup sessions and votes effectively mandates how the Legislature conducts its business — an "end run around the Constitution" that courts could ultimately strike down.

That constitutional concern drew questions from Republican Sen. Ryan Fattman, who asked why supporters did not pursue a constitutional amendment instead of a ballot statute.

"The quick answer is, a constitutional amendment has to pass through the Legislature," Hecht said.

Fattman noted such an amendment would require 50 votes (in a Legislature with 200 seats) and suggested that forcing that vote could itself be valuable.

"It does, it needs 50 votes. And you don't think that that would be quite an interesting debate? Especially if people vote for it to put people on the spot to their constituents?" he said.

Hecht responded that "one does not preclude the other," adding that supporters are pursuing the ballot route now while leaving open the possibility of further action.

Kealy also raised practical concerns, warning that requiring public deliberation and votes on every bill — potentially as many as 10,000 per session — could create more work without necessarily fruitful payoffs.

Some bills, he noted, are filed symbolically or at constituents' request and have no chance of passage, yet would still require time-consuming public sessions.

Supporters of the proposal said one way to ensure stipends are tied to actual work is by limiting them to committees that handle a significant number of bills — setting a threshold of at least 50 bills per session. They argued that a number of House and Senate committees routinely receive few or even zero bills, yet their chairs still collect stipends, making those positions hard to justify as "extra work."

Sen. Paul Feeney said that approach misses the mark in some cases, pointing to committees like Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets, which may see low volume but handle long, complex and high-stakes legislation. A single bond bill, he said, can require extensive time, research and coordination, raising concerns that a volume-based standard could overlook some of the Legislature's most substantive work.

"That, to me, is significant committee work," Feeney said.

Supporters, however, argued the current system fails on more fundamental grounds.

Mary Connaughton of the Pioneer Institute said stipends function as a "financial reward system controlled by leadership that encourages legislators to go along, to get along," pointing to low public approval as evidence that trust has eroded. The Pioneer Institute released a poll Monday that found 28% of respondents are satisfied with the Legislature.

Hecht added that committees rarely meet beyond public hearings and chairs do not always make themselves available to committee members to hear their perspectives on legislation.

"This is not normal, and it's not healthy," he said.

That assertion drew skepticism from Sen. Cindy Friedman, who challenged both the premise and the broader narrative.

"I answer to my constituents, and my constituents are the ones who decide whether I will be elected or not. You are saying, what I'm hearing you say is our constituents are not happy. They don't think we work hard, we get paid for stuff we don't do. I'm just wondering, like you have a very particular point of view."

Friedman said her experience in the Senate does not align with the depiction offered by former House members and questioned whether the initiative reflects a "very particular point of view."

"I don't feel, I've never felt like I can't go to the Senate president and say I don't agree. I've never been asked about or been told that I have to vote for something. So I'm just like, I'm kind of wondering if there's a narrative coming out of here that I don't, I cannot agree with," she said.

Former Rep. Lenny Mirra responded that while individual experiences may differ — particularly between the House and Senate — the broader structure still concentrates power in ways that discourages independence and limits meaningful debate.

"I felt as though every bill… was pretty much a foregone conclusion," he said, arguing that stipends incentivize loyalty because "if you want one of those stipends… you just do whatever the speaker says every time."

Rep. Alice Peisch defended the independence of committee chairs. She was a committee chair for 12 years.

"The decisions made about what bills would move out of the committee that I chaired were based on my recommendations to the speaker, and not vice versa," she said. "I resent the implications that every chair here does not think for themselves."

By the hearing's end, neither side had moved much.

Supporters framed the initiative as a necessary outside push to curb concentrated power, improve pay equity and force transparency. Lawmakers and critics warned it could upend legislative operations, invite litigation and infringe on constitutional boundaries.

And in a hearing where lawmakers rarely show their hand, they made clear that when the debate turns inward — to their own pay, power and process — they are willing to argue it out.