Boston Globe Columnist: Reform “Notorious Leadership Stipends”

Flickr/Domenico Bettinelli

In his August 13 column, the Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby supported reforming Massachusetts’ system of legislative stipends:

The bid to curb Beacon Hill’s notorious leadership stipends, which augment the salaries of three-quarters of the state legislators by thousands of dollars each, was launched by the Coalition to Reform Our Legislature, a bipartisan alliance of liberals and conservatives fed up with the lack of integrity, transparency, and accountability on Beacon Hill. One of the petitions would eliminate the stipends altogether. A second would sharply reduce their number and value, and end the practice of paying extra money to “leaders” of committees that never meet or hold hearings.

[…]

It’s no mystery why the speaker would rather keep decisions about such pay behind closed doors, beyond public records law, and safely insulated from a public vote. But what serves his self-interest is exactly what erodes the public’s. In a state whose Legislature is routinely ranked the most secretive in the nation, shielding lawmakers’ perks from voter oversight isn’t just bad optics — it’s bad governance.