The initiative petition to reform the system under which lawmakers receive extra pay for serving in a leadership position and as committee chairs will not proceed to the ballot following the Supreme Judicial Court’s opinion that it is unconstitutional, according to Assistant Attorney General Anne Sterman who sent a letter to Secretary of State Bill Galvin last week saying the measure “may proceed no further.” Ironically in August, Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office originally certified the measure as eligible for the ballot, but the letter nixes the proposal in light of the court opinion. The advisory opinion was sought by the State Senate which opposes the measure.

The high court’s justices wrote last week that the proposal is unconstitutional because it is in fact a Senate rules change, not a law change, seeking to impose reforms to the Legislature’s internal proceedings.

“As you know, in August 2025, the Attorney General’s Office certified the petition as being in proper form for submission to the people according to the process set forth in the Constitution,” read the letter from Sterman. “But that certification was proper only to the extent the petition proposed a law, rather than a legislative rule.”

The Legislative Effectiveness and Accountability Partnership, the sponsor of the possible ballot question, had filed 96,797 signatures (only 74,754 are needed) as a step in getting the question on the 2026 ballot for voters to decide. It contends that the legislative leadership uses stipends to deliver millions of dollars to favored legislators and calls the money “loyalty pay” intended to bind lawmakers to the wishes of leadership.

All 40 senators and 108 of 160 representatives receive an additional stipend, above their $82,046 base salary, for their positions in the Democratic and Republican leadership, as committee chairs, vice chairs and the ranking Republican on some committees. The current Senate stipends range from $30,207 to $119,631 while the House ones range from $7,776. to $119,631. All of the positions are appointed by either the Senate President, House Speaker, Senate Minority Leader or House Minority Leader.

The proposal first went to the Legislature which had until May 6 to act on it but obviously did not do so. Under state law, if the Legislature takes no action, proponents must gather another 12,429 signatures by July 1, in order for the question to appear on the November 2026 ballot. The group was ready to collect the additional signatures but Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office said it can only provide petitions if an initiative is certified by the attorney general. “Given this letter, and [the attorney general’s] view that the petition is not properly certified, we have notified the petitioners that we will not be able to provide them with additional petitions,” Galvin spokesperson Deb O’Malley said.

The Legislative Effectiveness and Accountability Partnership said it is “committed to return in 2028 with a ballot question to eliminate stipends altogether,” calling the events “the Legislature’s backdoor maneuver” to block voters from voting on stipend reform. In a press release, the group said that the infrequently used step the Senate took to request the advisory opinion from the justices is a “short-circuit maneuver [that] is only available to the Legislature.”

“The opinion that came back is, by the justices’ own description, advisory and non-binding,” continued the release. “It is not a ruling. It is not a final decision. But it is now being used as the legal cover to silence the voices of the voters,” continued the release.

The group’s treasurer Jennifer Nassour said in the release that this “backdoor maneuver should alarm voters across the political spectrum.”

“The Legislature has now demonstrated, in real time and in front of the entire commonwealth, exactly why this reform is needed,” said John Lippitt, the group’s chair. “We are going to keep fighting until this question reaches the voters where it belongs. The next question will not be how to reform the stipend system, it will be to end it. We would have preferred reform. The Legislature has forced us to move to eliminate it.”