Chapter 55

Section 1. For the purpose of this chapter, unless a different meaning clearly appears from the context, the following words shall have the following meanings: [ Definition of "Adult-care services'' inserted by 2025, 9, Sec. 32 effective July 1, 2025. See 2025, 9, Sec. 138.] "Adu…

Section 10. No person shall, directly or indirectly, make a campaign contribution in any name except his own nor in any manner for the purpose of disguising the true origin of the contribution nor unless he makes his name and residential address known to the person receiving such…

Section 10A. (a) Contributions made by a person to or on behalf of a particular candidate, including contributions made through an intermediary or conduit, shall be treated as contributions from such person to such candidate. (b) Contributions made to a candidate, such candidate'…

Section 11. No person, no political committee and no person acting under the authority of a political committee or in its behalf, shall demand, solicit, ask or invite from a candidate for nomination or election to public office, or a person occupying an elective public office, an…

Section 12. No political committee, and no person acting under its authority or in its behalf, shall demand or solicit from any candidate for nomination to elective office, or from any one acting in his behalf, a payment of money or a promise of payment of money, as a prerequisit…

Section 13. No person employed for compensation, other than an elected officer, by the commonwealth or any county, city or town shall directly or indirectly solicit or receive any gift, payment, contribution, assessment, subscription or promise of money or other thing of value fo…

Section 14. No person shall in any building or part thereof occupied for state, county or municipal purposes demand, solicit or receive any payment or gift of money or other thing of value for the purposes set forth in section thirteen. Any appointed officer or employee convicted…

Section 15. No officer, clerk or other person in the service of the commonwealth or of any county, city or town shall, directly or indirectly, give or deliver to an officer, clerk or person in said service, or to any councillor, member of the general court, alderman, councilman o…

Section 16. No person in the public service shall, for that reason, be under obligation to contribute to any political fund, or to render any political service, and shall not be removed or otherwise prejudiced for refusing to do so. Violation of any provision of this section shal…

Section 16A. No person doing business with the commonwealth shall, for that reason, be under obligation to contribute to any political fund, or to render any political service, and shall not be otherwise prejudiced for refusing to do so. Violations of any provisions of this secti…

Section 16B. No person employed for compensation shall be under any obligation to contribute to any candidate or political committee, or to render any political service on account of, or as a consequence of, his employment, and such person shall not be removed or otherwise prejud…

Section 17. No officer or employee of the commonwealth or of any county, city or town shall discharge, promote, or degrade an officer or employee, or change his official rank or compensation, or promise or threaten so to do, for giving, withholding or neglecting to make a contrib…

Section 18. (a) Each candidate and each treasurer of a political committee shall, except as provided in this section and section 24, file with the director reports of contributions received and expenditures made. A candidate and a committee organized on behalf of a candidate seek…

Section 18A. (a) Every individual, group, association, corporation, labor union, political committee or other entity that makes independent expenditures in an aggregate amount exceeding $250 during any calendar year for the express purpose of promoting the election or defeat of a…

Section 18B. Each candidate or elected official who sponsors a fund raising event in the commonwealth on behalf of a non-resident candidate shall file with the director reports of contributions received by the non-resident candidate as a result of said fund raising event on forms…

Section 18C. (a) The director shall develop an electronic reporting system for the submission, retrieval, storage and public disclosure of campaign finance reports and financial activity statements required to be filed with the director. (b) The following individuals and politica…

Section 18D. (a) For the purposes of this section the following words shall have the following meanings unless the context clearly requires otherwise:— ''Expenditure'', any payment made or liability incurred by a vendor on behalf of a political committee or on behalf of an indivi…

Section 18E. (a) Legal defense funds may be created by a candidate, a state party committee or the candidate's political committee to defend against a criminal matter or to pay costs associated with a civil matter that is not primarily personal in nature. Inauguration funds may b…

Section 18F. Every individual, group, association, corporation, labor union or other entity not defined as a political committee who makes an electioneering communication expenditure in an aggregate amount exceeding $250 during a calendar year shall electronically file with the d…

Section 18G. An independent expenditure or electioneering communication made by an individual, corporation, group, association, labor union or other entity which is transmitted through paid radio, television or internet advertising shall include a statement disclosing the identit…

Section 19. (a) Candidates for state office or for county office, or mayor, and candidates for city council or alderman in a city with a total population, as determined by the most recent decennial federal census, of 65,000 or more persons and the treasurer of each state committe…

Section 2. Every candidate shall keep detailed accounts of all contributions received by him, or by a person acting on his behalf, and of all expenditures made by him, or by a person acting on his behalf. Said accounts may be kept by an agent duly authorized thereto, but the cand…

Section 22. Any person or the treasurer of a corporation, association, organization or other group of persons, other than a political committee organized under section 5, which has given, paid, expended or contributed, or promised to give, pay, expend or contribute, any money or …

Section 22A. The treasurer of any city, town, or other governmental unit which has given, paid, expended or contributed, or promised to give, pay, expend or contribute any money or any valuable thing in order to influence or affect the vote on any question submitted to the voters…

Section 23. Whoever, acting under the authority or in behalf of a political committee, receives any money or its equivalent, or promise of the same, or expends or incurs any liability to pay the same, shall, on demand, and in any event within three business days after such receip…

Section 24. If the statement or report required to be filed by a candidate, treasurer or other person relates to a nomination or election to a city or town office, other than a municipal office for which a candidate is required to file with the director in accordance with section…

Section 25. The director shall retain all statements and reports filed with his office under the provisions of this chapter by candidates and their committees until December thirty-first of the sixth year following the relevant election, provided that the ending balance on such c…

Section 26. The city or town clerk shall retain all statements and reports required to be filed with such clerk until December 31st of the sixth year following the relevant election. In the case of committees other than those authorized by a candidate, the city or town clerk shal…

Section 27. The director shall make available to city and town clerks a summary of this chapter and forms approved by the director and the attorney general suitable for the submission of the statements and reports required by this chapter. The city and town clerk shall transmit f…

Section 28. The clerk of cities and towns shall inspect all statements and reports of candidates, or nonelected political committees supporting such candidates, filed with them, within thirty days of the reporting dates required by this chapter, and all other statements and repor…

Section 29. Upon failure to file a statement, report or affidavit within 10 days after receiving notice under section 28, the city or town clerk, as the case may be, shall notify the director thereof and shall furnish him with copies of all papers related thereto and the director…

Section 3. The state chairman of each of the two leading political parties, the state secretary, and a dean of a law school located in the commonwealth, to be appointed by the governor as provided hereinafter, shall serve as a commission for the purposes of selecting the director…

Section 30. The supreme judicial or superior court may compel any person failing to file a statement as above required, or filing a statement not conforming to the foregoing requirements in respect to its truth, sufficiently in detail, or otherwise, to file a sufficient statement…

Section 31. No person compelled to testify in any proceedings under section thirty shall be liable to criminal prosecution for any matters or causes in respect of which he shall be examined or to which his testimony shall relate, except to prosecution for perjury committed in suc…

Section 32. A candidate shall be deemed to have committed a corrupt practice who commits any of the following offences: Making or permitting any person or non-elected political committee authorized by him to make a false return in any statement filed under sections eighteen, nine…

Section 33. (a) If the attorney general or five or more voters have reasonable cause to believe that a corrupt practice, as defined in section thirty-two, has been committed by any successful candidate, other than a candidate for the United States Congress, or for the general cou…

Section 34. Sections one to thirty-three, inclusive, shall apply to all public elections and to elections by the general court and by city councils and by either branch thereof, and, so far as applicable, to the nomination by primaries, caucuses, conventions and nomination papers…

Section 35. Upon a complaint subscribed and sworn to by any person before a district court, alleging that reasonable grounds exist for believing that any law relating to the qualification or registration of voters, or to voting lists or ballots, or to primaries, caucuses, convent…

Section 36. The court may exclude all persons whose presence is not necessary at such inquest; and may also direct the witnesses to be kept so separated that they cannot converse with each other until they have been examined. The attorney general, the district attorney, or some p…

Section 37. Such court or attorney may issue subpoenas for witnesses, who shall be allowed the same fees, whose attendance may be enforced in the same manner, and who shall be subject to the same penalties, as if served with a subpoena in behalf of the commonwealth in a criminal …

Section 38. Such court may employ a stenographer and may have the proceedings reduced to writing; and, if he finds that the law has been violated, shall report to the superior court all the material facts and the names of any persons guilty of any such violation.

Section 39. The court may bind over, as in criminal prosecutions, such witnesses as are necessary, or as said attorney may designate, to appear and testify in the superior court.

Section 40. If a person charged by the report with the commission of an offence is not in custody, the court shall forthwith issue a process for his apprehension; but such process may issue before the filing of said report, if otherwise lawful.

Section 41. No person shall be excused from testifying or producing any papers in any inquest proceedings under sections thirty-five to forty, inclusive, on the ground that his testimony may tend to criminate him or subject him to a penalty or forfeiture, but he shall not be pros…

Section 42. The director in proceedings based upon an election petition, as provided in section thirty-three, and the clerk of the court wherein a person is convicted of a violation of any provision of law relating to corrupt practices in elections, shall, within ten days after f…

Section 5. Each political committee shall organize by filing with the director or, if organized for the purpose of a city or town election only, with the city or town clerk, a statement of organization. The statement of organization shall include: (1) the full name of the politic…

Section 5A. No candidate or individual holding elective public office shall establish, finance, maintain, control or serve as a principal officer of a political action committee; provided, however, that each of the following may authorize one such political committee to which thi…

Section 5B. (a) Every political committee, other than a political party committee or a candidate's committee, shall name and identify itself in its organizational statement pursuant to section five by using a name or phrase that: (i) clearly identifies the economic or other speci…

Section 5C. The office of campaign and political finance shall prepare and update from time to time an online training program to provide information on the requirements of this chapter applicable to treasurers of political committees that file reports with the office. A treasure…

Section 6. A political committee organized or operating on behalf of a candidate for the office of governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, state secretary, treasurer and receiver general or state auditor may receive, pay and expend money or other things of value for reas…