How Ron Mariano Will Control the Massachusetts State House

Ron Mariano has officially been elected Massachusetts Speaker of the House. Not much is expected to change since Mariano is the handpicked successor of Robert DeLeo, who announced his resignation this month.

Calla Walsh has an excellent summary of everything that is wrong with the current setup of the Massachusetts State House here.

One particular passage that caught my eye was about the January 2017 stipend increases:

Jan 2017: DeLeo re-elected as Speaker; DeLeo leads charge on rapidly passing rules package at the beginning of session that includes significant stipend increases for representatives who receive leadership and committee-chair and vice-chair appointments; there are now 87 paid leadership stipends (54% of Reps, 66% of the Dems), ensuring DeLeo has leverage over ⅔ of Dems and a majority of the chamber with the ability to threaten to demote them at any time and cut their salaries

These stipends are what have allowed Robert DeLeo, and now Ron Mariano, to control the agenda of the State House.

Rules for Rulers

It may seem an obvious point at first — of course the speaker of the House will have an outsized say in proceedings. After all, doesn’t every leader of a political body have that power?

But what makes the stipends particularly interesting is how easy it makes the control of power.