What to know about Concord & Carlisle Question 10

Concord and Carlisle voters will find Question 10 on their November 2026 ballots in addition to the nine statewide ballot questions. This guide explains the question, its background, and what a YES or NO vote would mean.

What does Question 10 mean?

Question 10 concerns the extra pay, known as stipends, that Massachusetts legislators can receive in addition to their regular salary for serving in leadership positions or taking on certain committee roles.

Currently, the Speaker of the House and the Senate President have significant influence over which legislators receive positions that come with these stipends. Question 10 asks whether your state representative should support changes that would reduce legislative leaders' control over these payments and provide stipends only for legislators who perform significant additional work in a way that is transparent and accountable to the public.

Question 10 is non-binding. The result will not change the law or the stipend system. Instead, it tells the state representative how voters in the district would like the representative to approach this issue. Massachusetts describes these public-policy questions as a way for voters to give their legislators non-binding instructions. 

The question does not specify exactly how a new stipend system should work, how much stipends should be, or what qualifies as "significant extra work."

A YES vote means you want your state representative to support legislation or legislative rules that reduce the House Speaker's and Senate President's control over stipends and limit stipends to legislators who perform significant additional work that is transparent and accountable to the public.

A NO vote means you do not want to give your state representative that instruction.

How did Question 10 get on the ballot?

Question 10 grew out of an earlier effort to change the legislative stipend system through a statewide ballot initiative. That proposal would have changed state law and included specific rules for determining which legislators could receive stipends and under what circumstances. The Attorney General initially certified the proposal, allowing supporters to begin the process of qualifying it for the 2026 ballot.

In April 2026, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court concluded that parts of the proposal went beyond regulating compensation and would instead regulate the Legislature’s internal procedures. The court found that the proposal was therefore not in proper form to be submitted to voters. It did not appear on the statewide ballot. Learn more.

Supporters of stipend reform then pursued non-binding public policy questions in individual legislative districts. The resulting question qualified for the ballot in eight Massachusetts House districts, including the House districts that include Concord and Carlisle. Unlike the earlier statewide proposal, Question 10 does not propose a specific new stipend system or change state law. It asks voters whether their state representative should support the general reforms described in the question.

Where else will this question appear on the ballot?

The legislative stipend question will appear in eight of Massachusetts’ 160 House districts, including the districts that include Concord and Carlisle:

• 13th Middlesex — includes Concord Precincts 3 and 4
• 14th Middlesex — includes Carlisle and the Concord Precincts 1, 2 and 5
• Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket
• 15th Middlesex
• 20th Middlesex
• 25th Middlesex
• 29th Middlesex
• 32nd Middlesex

The question may have a different number in different communities, depending on what other questions appear on the local ballot.

Who brought Question 10 to the ballot?

The non-binding question was placed on the ballots in the eight districts as a continuation of LEAP, the Legislative Effectiveness and Accountability Partnership, which sponsored that earlier ballot question. Volunteers in each district from Act on Mass, a progressive advocacy group, coordinated the current effort.

What is the League of Women Voters’ position?

The League of Women Voters of Massachusetts (LWVMA) took no position on the original statewide ballot proposal to reform and regulate legislative stipends. 

LWVMA stated: “The League supports adequate salary levels for legislators with procedures to determine compensation, and supports a permanent bipartisan commission to establish salaries for the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.” Learn more.

LWVMA will not issue a recommendation on the new, non-binding Question 10, since it is a local question.

Learn more about the November Ballot Questions

Information is provided as a public service and may change. Please verify details with the appropriate election officials.

Last updated: Oct 1, 2026