Question 2: Union Rights for Public Defenders
Would let staff (the state agency's direct employees) unionize and bargain collectively.
Last verified October 27, 2026 against the official guide.
A YES vote: CPCS staff employees get the right to unionize (not private bar advocates). A NO vote: They continue without bargaining rights.
Page 1 of the official AG-certified petition text. View the full PDF on mass.gov
A YES vote ✓ Your choice
Gives direct employees of the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), roughly 500 staff attorneys, social workers, investigators, and administrative and IT staff, the right to form a union and bargain collectively. CPCS would have to request funding from the Governor for any agreement within 30 days of signing it. This does not cover private "bar advocates": independent-contractor attorneys who take a large share of the state's indigent-defense cases but are not CPCS employees.
A NO vote ✓ Your choice
CPCS employees continue without collective bargaining rights, as is the case today.
Who this affects
- CPCS staff attorneys, social workers, investigators, and administrative/IT staff, the agency's direct employees
- Private bar advocates are NOT covered: they're independent contractors, not CPCS employees, and this question doesn't change their pay or status
- People who rely on court-appointed lawyers
Common questions
Why is there so little opposition to this one?
The petition doesn't invent new bargaining rules or dispute-resolution machinery: it just adds CPCS to a labor-relations framework (Chapter 150E) the state already uses for other public employees. That's likely why no organized opposition campaign has emerged.
Does this change anything for private bar advocates?
No. Private bar advocates (the court-appointed attorneys who handle many indigent-defense cases) are independent contractors, not CPCS employees, so this question doesn't touch their pay or status.
Who's for it, who's against it, and why
Supporters say
Organized by CPCS employees and union allies under the name Yes on 2: Right to Unionize for Public Defenders, with support from the Massachusetts Defenders Union, SEIU Local 888, AFT Massachusetts, and the National Association of Government Employees. They note that nearly every other public employee in Massachusetts already has the right to bargain collectively over pay and working conditions, and say public defenders being one of the few exceptions makes it harder for CPCS to keep experienced attorneys.
Funding: About $1.08 million reported since the committee organized in 2025 ($827,000 in 2025 and $256,000 so far in 2026) from the four unions above, through Labor Unions for Public Counsel Workers Rights.
Opponents say
No organized opposition campaign has emerged. The practical concern raised in Legislature testimony is cost: any contract CPCS negotiates would need the Governor to approve funding for it within 30 days, adding a new claim on the state budget.
Funding: None reported. No committee has registered with to oppose Question 2.
Committee filings at OCPF: Support: Labor Unions for Public Counsel Workers Rights · Democratic Socialists For a Fair Massachusetts
Funding figures are total receipts reported to OCPF since each committee organized, through filings covering the period ending October 26, 2026, checked October 27, 2026. They will shift before Election Day.
How to read these numbers
In-kind support is noted separately where it's significant. Check every figure against OCPF's own ballot-question filings. OCPF's summary view reports money spent, and it splits a committee that works on two questions evenly between them, so its per-question totals are smaller than the receipts shown here. Each committee's own OCPF page shows its receipts.
Official source: Secretary of the Commonwealth, 2026 Information for Voters. The ballot language, official summary, and any fiscal statement come from there. Independent research: background and funding figures compiled by this site from Tufts University's Center for State Policy Analysis and OCPF campaign finance filings. Not an official state source.
Other places to look
No single guide should be your only one. These are worth your time, and a couple of them do things this site can't:
- Information for Voters, the state's "red book". Mailed to every household. It prints the full legal text and the arguments written by the campaigns themselves, which is a primary source no summary replaces. If anything on this site conflicts with it, believe the red book.
- League of Women Voters of Massachusetts. Explainers plus live forums where you can hear the campaigns and ask your own questions. They are nonpartisan on candidates and parties, and they do take positions on some of this year's questions; they say openly which ones.
- Tufts Center for State Policy Analysis. Nonpartisan analysis of what each question would actually do. Takes no positions.
- OCPF campaign finance filings. The raw source behind the funding figures here. Check my numbers against it.
- Ballotpedia. Background and history on each measure.