Your Voice in Government
All Twenty-Six
Twenty-six people carry Boston’s voice on Beacon Hill and in Washington, which is the largest delegation any community in Massachusetts gets, bigger than some entire counties, because this is the biggest city in the Commonwealth. Six state senators, sixteen state representatives, two members of Congress and two United States senators all answer to voters here. Every one of them has a name, an office, a phone number, and a public record of what they have filed and how they have voted. Click any card below and you will get all of it.
Why twenty-six
Boston is too big to be one district of anything. It is cut across sixteen state House districts, six state Senate districts and two congressional districts, which means the person who represents your street on Beacon Hill may not represent your friend’s street a mile away. Roughly 41,000 people share each state House seat, so your representative covers a slice of Boston about the size of a single neighborhood.
This is the delegation that decides whether Boston gets to do the things Boston votes for. When the city passed a home rule petition to let sixteen year olds vote in municipal elections, it was these people, and their colleagues from the other 350 communities, who had the final say. They sent it to a study order. That story is on the capital city page, and it is the clearest illustration in this guide of why these twenty-six names matter.
State Senate
Six senators represent pieces of Boston. The Massachusetts Senate has forty members for the whole Commonwealth, so Boston’s six are fifteen percent of the chamber.
State House of Representatives
Sixteen representatives, one for each of Boston’s House districts. The Massachusetts House has 160 seats, so one in ten members of that chamber represents part of this city.
In Washington
Boston is split between two congressional districts. Ayanna Pressley represents the 7th, which covers roughly the northern three quarters of the city. Stephen F. Lynch represents the 8th, which covers the southern portion. That description is approximate on purpose: the real boundary runs along census blocks rather than neighborhood lines, so any tidy map of it would be wrong about somebody’s street. Look yours up with the tools below.
Both United States senators represent the entire Commonwealth, Boston included.
Find the ones who are actually yours
Six senators and sixteen representatives serve Boston, but only one of each serves you. Your address decides it. Look it up, and write the name down somewhere you will find it again.
What to do with a name
- Read what they have already filed. Click any card above. Every bill a legislator has filed this session is public, and it tells you more about them than any speech.
- Write to the one who represents you. Legislators count contacts from their own district and largely discount the rest. A letter from a constituent is worth a hundred from strangers.
- Testify at a committee hearing. This is the stage where bills live or die, it is open to the public, and anyone may sign up, whatever their age and whatever their credentials.
- Watch what happens to a study order. When a bill is sent “to study,” it is being quietly killed without a vote. Now that you know the phrase, you will see it everywhere.
What this seat decides
The state and federal seats
Your State Representative and your State Senator. State law: the driving age, the minimum wage, the bottle deposit, and Chapter 70, the formula that decides how much state money your schools get. They also carry a home rule petition to the State House when your town votes for something state law does not yet allow it to do.
Your member of Congress and your two US Senators. Federal law and federal money, and help with a federal agency like Social Security, the VA, or immigration when someone in your family needs it. They also nominate candidates to the US service academies.
The State House is at 24 Beacon Street, inside your city. The public gallery is open. Your representative works a bus ride away.
Photo: King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.