Title: Clark v. Attorney General

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal 
revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound 
volumes of the Official Reports.  If you find a typographical 
error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of 
Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 
Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-
1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 
 
SJC-13560 
 
STEPHEN CLARK & others1  vs.  ATTORNEY GENERAL & another.2 
 
 
 
Suffolk.     May 8, 2024. - June 13, 2024. 
 
Present:  Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Kafker, Wendlandt, Georges, 
& Wolohojian, JJ. 
 
 
Initiative.  Constitutional Law, Initiative petition.  Attorney 
General.  Tips.  Minimum Wage.  
 
 
 
 
Civil action commenced in the Supreme Judicial Court for 
the county of Suffolk on February 7, 2024. 
 
 
The case was reported by Kafker, J. 
 
 
 
Edmund P. Daley (Elissa Flynn-Poppey also present) for the 
plaintiffs. 
 
Phoebe Fischer-Groban, Assistant Attorney General, for the 
defendants. 
 
 
 
KAFKER, J.  The plaintiffs, a group of Massachusetts 
registered voters, challenge the Attorney General's 
 
1 Kathleen Plath, Cory Patterson, Kathi E. Maino, and Andrea 
Klein. 
 
2 Secretary of the Commonwealth. 
2 
 
certification of Initiative Petition 23-12 (petition or 
initiative) proposing "a Law Requiring the Full Minimum Wage for 
Tipped Workers with Tips on Top."  The plaintiffs contend that 
the petition violates the requirement under art. 48 of the 
Amendments to the Massachusetts Constitution that initiative 
petitions contain only related or mutually dependent subjects. 
 
We conclude that the petition, which would require that 
employers pay the full minimum wage to tipped employees and 
would permit tip pooling among both tipped and nontipped 
employees, forms a "unified statement of public policy on which 
the voters can fairly vote 'yes' or 'no.'"  Weiner v. Attorney 
Gen., 484 Mass. 687, 695 (2020).  Accordingly, we affirm the 
Attorney General's certification of the petition as in proper 
form to be submitted to voters. 
1.  Background.  In 2023, an initiative petition signed by 
at least ten registered Massachusetts voters was filed with the 
Attorney General.  The petition proposes a law, titled "An Act 
to Require the Full Minimum Wage for Tipped Workers with Tips on 
Top."  The Attorney General designated the petition as 
Initiative Petition 23-12. 
Under current State law, the minimum wage for most workers 
is set at fifteen dollars per hour.  See G. L. c. 151, § 1.  
However, a separate law permits employers to pay their tipped 
employees an hourly wage of $6.75.  See G. L. c. 151, § 7, third 
3 
 
par.  The employer can then use any customer tips to cover the 
remaining $8.25 per hour owed to the employee to reach fifteen 
dollars.  Id.  Often referred to as a "tip credit," the statute 
allows employers to, in effect, subsidize an employee's minimum 
wage with customer tips.  Any tips above the minimum wage that a 
tipped employee receives may increase his or her pay above the 
minimum wage.  Employers must make up any shortfall if the 
amount of tips received plus the cash wage of $6.75 is below 
fifteen dollars per hour.  Thus, tipped employees are guaranteed 
the statutory minimum wage of fifteen dollars per hour, but not 
all their tips are "on top of" that minimum wage.  A separate 
provision limits the distribution of customer tips to only "wait 
staff employees," "service employees," and "service bartenders."3  
See G. L. c. 149, § 152A (c).  The law prohibits the pooling and 
 
3 A "wait staff employee" is a person "who prepares or 
serves food or beverages as part of a team of counter staff or 
any other counter employee who:  (i) serves beverages or 
prepared food directly to patrons or who clears patrons' tables; 
(ii) works in a restaurant, banquet facility or other place 
where prepared food or beverages are served; and (iii) has no 
managerial responsibility during a day in which the person 
serves beverages or prepared food or clears patrons' tables."  
G. L. c. 149, § 152A (a).  A "service employee" is "a person who 
works in an occupation in which employees customarily receive 
tips or gratuities, and who provides services directly to 
customers or consumers, but who works in an occupation other 
than in food or beverage service, and who has no managerial 
responsibility."  Id.  A "service bartender" is "a person who 
prepares alcoholic or nonalcoholic beverages for patrons to be 
served by another employee, such as a wait staff employee."  Id.  
  
4 
 
distribution of tips to employees other than those in the three 
defined employee categories.  Federal law also prohibits the 
distribution of tips to "managers and supervisors."4  29 C.F.R. 
§ 531.52(b)(2).   
The result of the current legal scheme is that many service 
workers in tipped industries are sorted into two separate 
compensation structures.  Tipped employees can be paid $6.75 per 
hour, supplemented by tips.  Nontipped employees are paid the 
full statutory minimum wage by their employer but cannot share 
in any customer tips that tipped employees receive.  This 
compensation structure is common in particular in the restaurant 
industry, where employees can roughly be divided into "front-of-
house" or "back-of-house" workers.  "Front-of-house" employees  
-- e.g., waiters, hosts, bussers, etc. -- have direct contact 
with customers, whereas "back-of-house" employees -- e.g., 
cooks, kitchen staff, dish washers, etc. -- do not usually 
interact with or serve customers.  See Betancourt, Hunt, Kwong, 
& Lopez, Building a Better Plate:  Promoting Workplace Equity 
 
4 "Managers and supervisors" are employees "whose duties 
match those of an executive employee."  29 C.F.R. 
§ 531.52(b)(2).  An "executive employee" is someone whose 
primary duty is management, who customarily and regularly 
directs the work of two or more other employees, and who has 
hiring or firing authority, 29 C.F.R. § 541.100(a)(2)-(4), or is 
an employee with at least a twenty percent ownership interest in 
the business "who is actively engaged in its management," 29 
C.F.R. § 541.101. 
5 
 
and Worker Satisfaction in the Los Angeles County Restaurant 
Industry 5 (2023) (student report, University of California, Los 
Angeles).  Reflecting the division between customer-facing and 
noncustomer-facing roles, front-of-house staff typically receive 
tips but are paid lower hourly wages, whereas back-of-house 
staff receive higher (at least minimum) hourly wages but are 
usually not tipped.  Id. at 21.  
The petition proposes a law that would change this 
compensation structure.  First, the proposed law amends G. L. 
c. 151, § 7, to increase gradually the hourly wage employers 
must pay tipped employees up to the full statutory minimum wage.  
Starting January 1, 2025, the required wage would be sixty-four 
percent of the statutory minimum wage and increase by nine 
percent increments each year until reaching the full statutory 
minimum wage on January 1, 2029.  Second, the proposed law 
amends G. L. c. 149, § 152A, to allow employers, if they so 
choose, to pool and distribute tips to all employees, not just 
"wait staff employees," "service employees," and "service 
bartenders," provided the employer pays all employees the full 
statutory minimum wage.5  In sum, all employees would be 
guaranteed the full statutory minimum wage, and tipped employees 
 
5 The prohibition on distributing tips to "managers and 
supervisors" pursuant to 29 C.F.R. § 531.52(b)(2) would remain 
in place.  
6 
 
are guaranteed that any tips they receive are always on top of 
the full statutory minimum wage.  By permitting tip pooling 
among tipped and nontipped employees, the proposed law also 
allows employers to distribute tips among all employees, 
including back-of-house employees who generally do not receive 
customer tips. 
 
In September 2023, the Attorney General certified the 
petition as compliant with the requirements of art. 48 and 
issued a summary of the petition as required under art. 48, The 
Initiative, II, § 3, as amended by art. 74 of the Amendments.  
By January 2024, the proponents of the petition had timely 
gathered and filed sufficient signatures to require the 
Secretary of the Commonwealth to transmit the petition to the 
Legislature, which the Secretary then did.   
 
In February 2024, the plaintiffs commenced this action in 
the county court, claiming that the Attorney General's 
certification of the petition was in error because the petition 
did not, as required by art. 48, contain only related or 
mutually dependent subjects.  On the joint motion of the parties 
and a statement of agreed facts, the single justice reserved and 
reported the case to the full court.  
2.  Discussion.  Before a petition can be presented to the 
Legislature and then put before voters, the Attorney General 
must certify that it meets the requirements of art. 48.  See El 
7 
 
Koussa v. Attorney Gen., 489 Mass. 823, 827 (2022), citing art. 
48, The Initiative, II, § 3, as amended by art. 74.  We review 
the Attorney General's decision to certify an initiative 
petition de novo, keeping in mind "the firmly established 
principle that art. 48 is to be construed to support the 
people's prerogative to initiate and adopt laws."  Colpack v. 
Attorney Gen., 489 Mass. 810, 814 (2022), quoting Oberlies v. 
Attorney Gen., 479 Mass. 823, 829 (2018).   
a.  Related subjects requirement.  Article 48 requires that 
a law proposed by an initiative petition "contain[] only 
subjects . . . which are related or which are mutually 
dependent."  Art. 48, The Initiative, II, § 3, as amended by 
art. 74.  The relatedness requirement, as we have previously 
explained, is carefully designed.6  It allows voters to "express 
[their] will apart from the process of representative 
democracy," but it also recognizes that voters, unlike 
legislators, cannot "modify, amend, or negotiate the sections of 
a law proposed by popular initiative."  Carney v. Attorney Gen., 
447 Mass. 218, 230 (2006), S.C., 451 Mass. 803 (2008).  Voters 
casting a ballot on an initiative petition "cannot 'sever the 
 
6 We have not definitively resolved "whether the mutual 
dependence requirement is separate from or subsumed within the 
relatedness requirement," and need not do so here, as the tips 
initiative readily satisfies the relatedness requirement.  El 
Koussa, 489 Mass. at 837 n.11.       
8 
 
unobjectionable from the objectionable' and must vote to approve 
or reject an initiative petition in its entirety."  Anderson v. 
Attorney Gen., 479 Mass. 780, 786 (2018), quoting Carney, supra.  
Therefore, the related subjects requirement ensures that "voters 
are not placed 'in the untenable position of casting a single 
vote on two or more dissimilar subjects.'"  El Koussa, 489 Mass. 
at 827, quoting Weiner, 484 Mass. at 691.  
To determine whether the subjects of an initiative petition 
satisfy the relatedness requirement, we ask whether "one can 
identify a common purpose to which each subject of an initiative 
petition can reasonably be said to be germane."  Weiner, 484 
Mass. at 691, quoting Hensley v. Attorney Gen., 474 Mass. 651, 
657 (2016).  For there to be a common purpose, there must be 
more than an abstract connection.  See Gray v. Attorney Gen., 
474 Mass. 638, 648 (2016).  More particularly, "[r]elatedness 
cannot be defined so broadly that it allows the inclusion in a 
single petition of two or more subjects that have only a 
marginal relationship to one another," but neither can it be 
construed "too strictly," as doing so would "risk limiting 
initiative petitions to a single subject, a requirement rejected 
by the constitutional convention that approved art. 48."  
Weiner, supra, quoting Abdow v. Attorney Gen., 468 Mass. 478, 
499 (2014).  
9 
 
"Accordingly, in order to balance these concerns, in 
addition to considering whether the subjects of an initiative 
share a common purpose, we have examined two more specific 
questions."  Colpack, 489 Mass. at 815.  We first ask whether 
"the similarities of an initiative's provisions dominate what 
each segment provides separately so that the petition is 
sufficiently coherent to be voted on 'yes' or 'no' by the 
voters."  El Koussa, 489 Mass. at 828, quoting Weiner, 484 Mass. 
at 691.  Second, we consider "whether the proposed initiative 
'express[es] an operational relatedness among its substantive 
parts that would permit a reasonable voter to affirm or reject 
the entire petition as a unified statement of public policy.'" 
Colpack, supra, quoting Hensley, 474 Mass. at 658. 
 
Using this framework, we have determined that multiple 
provisions addressing different issues may nonetheless be 
related if they are part of "an integrated scheme whose various 
provisions serve [a] common purpose."  Colpack, 489 Mass. at 
818.  Thus, in Hensley, we upheld a petition that laid out "a 
detailed plan to legalize marijuana (with limits) for adult use 
and to create a system that would license and regulate the 
businesses involved in the cultivation, testing, manufacture, 
distribution, and sale of marijuana and that would tax the 
retail sale of marijuana to consumers."  Hensley, 474 Mass. at 
658.  The petition also allowed existing medical marijuana 
10 
 
treatment centers to obtain licenses for the recreational sale 
of marijuana.  Id.  We held that "[t]he inclusion of medical 
marijuana treatment centers as potential retailers in the 
commercial market is simply one piece of the proposed integrated 
scheme.  The fact that the initiative's proponents might have 
chosen instead to prohibit medical marijuana treatment centers 
from participation in the retail market does not affect the 
coherence of the proposal as a unified statement of public 
policy that is a proper subject for a 'yes' or 'no' vote."  Id. 
at 659.  See Massachusetts Teachers Ass'n v. Secretary of the 
Commonwealth, 384 Mass. 209, 220 (1981) (concluding that various 
tax limitation and relief provisions were sufficiently related). 
In contrast, we have rejected as unrelated initiatives that 
combine subject matters that are only related at a highly 
conceptual level and that have "no meaningful operational 
relationship."  Carney, 447 Mass. at 220.  In Carney, an 
initiative, titled "An Act to protect dogs," combined expansion 
of criminal sanctions against cruelty to animals with the 
abolition of parimutuel dog racing.  We rejected "the 
aggregation of these two very different sets of laws into one 
petition," concluding that they would require voters to vote on 
two distinct policy questions and not one "uniform" proposal.  
Id.  We likewise rejected as insufficiently related provisions 
that would allow a tax on those persons with an income of more 
11 
 
than $1 million to be spent on either education or 
transportation, as education and transportation were only 
connected on "the broadest conceptual level of public good."  
Anderson, 479 Mass. at 798.  Similarly, we concluded that 
defining the wage and benefit structure of "app-based" rideshare 
drivers was "a substantively distinct policy issue" from 
"limiting the scope of third parties' tort recovery for injuries 
caused by app-based drivers."  El Koussa, 489 Mass. at 836.     
More specific guidance may also be provided by the two 
initiatives we considered in Oberlies, one of which we concluded 
contained related matters and one which did not.  We concluded 
that the initiative requiring hospitals to adopt specific 
patient-to-nurse ratios and to file annual reports of all their 
financial assets contained provisions that presented "only a 
marginal relationship" to one another, the over-all purpose of 
hospital regulation being too broad a conception.  Oberlies, 479 
Mass. at 836.  By comparison, the other initiative petition that 
would both limit the number of patients who could be assigned to 
a single registered nurse and prevent hospitals from reducing 
other staffing in response to this limit were related because 
the workforce reduction restriction was "triggered by the 
implementation of the [patient-to-nurse ratios]."  Id. at 831-
832.  The workforce reduction restriction was operationally 
related because it "anticipat[ed] and address[ed] a potential 
12 
 
consequence of the nurse-patient staffing ratios," i.e., that 
hospitals economically burdened by the need to hire more nurses 
would lay off other healthcare workers in response.  Id. at 832. 
We further explored the operational relatedness requirement 
in Colpack.  In that case, we examined a petition that proposed 
to increase the total number of licenses that any individual 
retailer of alcoholic beverages for off-premises consumption 
could hold and to allow the use of out-of-State drivers' 
licenses as identification for alcohol purchases.  Colpack, 489 
Mass. at 811-812.  At the same time, the petition required that 
all sales of alcoholic beverages be made through face-to-face 
transactions and increased the punishment for violations of the 
liquor laws by basing fines on a retailer's gross receipts for 
all retail sales, rather than on gross receipts for sales of 
alcoholic beverages only.  Id. at 812.  The provisions requiring 
face-to-face transactions and increasing potential fines were 
related because they mitigated the "risk of increased sales to 
underage drinkers posed" by the increase in licenses granted and 
the wider pool of customers who could buy alcohol if out-of-
State drivers' licenses were accepted.  Id. at 819.  
 
Given these parameters, we have no difficulty concluding 
that the initiative here satisfies the relatedness requirement.   
b.  Application of the related subjects requirement.  The 
initiative here would eliminate the existing wage structure in 
13 
 
tipped industries by changing laws that currently allow 
employers to pay certain employees less than minimum wage and 
fill the gap with tips but prevents the sharing of such tips 
with other employees who do receive the minimum wage.  In its 
place, the proposed law requires employers to pay all their 
employees in the tipped industries the minimum wage without 
subsidizing such payment with customer tips.  As all employees 
in tipped industries will eventually receive the minimum wage, 
separate and apart from tips, it further allows the sharing of 
such tips once all the employees are receiving the minimum wage, 
thus recognizing that they are participating in a shared 
economic enterprise.  We conclude that the initiative proposes 
"an integrated scheme whose provisions serve [a] common 
purpose."  Colpack, 489 Mass. at 818.   
The provisions are also operationally related.  The first 
provision ensures that employers pay all their employees the 
minimum wage without drawing on customer tips to do so, while 
the second provision changes the way tips are distributed in 
light of the fact that tipped and nontipped employees would now 
be paid the same minimum wage.  Put differently, "there is a 
logical relationship" between the creation of a uniform minimum 
wage for both tipped and nontipped workers and the allowance of 
tip pooling among all workers in tipped industries.  Colpack, 
489 Mass. at 821 (logical and operational relationship existed 
14 
 
between expansion of alcohol sales licensing provisions and 
increased protection and enforcement measures to prevent 
underage alcohol consumption).   
The relationship of the two provisions at issue here is 
close and comparable to the provisions we found related in 
Oberlies, Weiner, Colpack, and other cases.  See Oberlies, 479 
Mass. at 832 (nurse-to-patient ratio and restriction on 
workforce reduction in response to implementing this ratio); 
Weiner, 484 Mass. at 692 (various provisions lifting 
restrictions on liquor licenses and provisions implementing new 
age-verification requirements and increased funding for 
enforcement of liquor laws); Colpack, 489 Mass. at 818-819 
(increase in liquor licenses and allowance of use of out-of-
State drivers' licenses coupled with face-to-face transaction 
requirement and enhanced fines).  The subject matter of each 
provision -- wages and tips -- is similar.  See Dunn v. Attorney 
Gen., 474 Mass. 675, 682 (2016) (restrictions on certain farming 
practices related to restrictions on sales of products of those 
farming practices); Mazzone v. Attorney Gen., 432 Mass. 515, 
528-529 (2000) (establishment of drug treatment fund, expansion 
of drug diversion program, and use of forfeited money to fund 
drug treatment all related subjects).  There is also an obvious 
operational relationship between the two provisions, both under 
the existing law and the proposed initiative.  See Oberlies, 
15 
 
supra (workforce restrictions operationally related to nurse-to-
patient ratio because restrictions "dictate[] how nurse-to-
patient ratios may be maintained" without compromising other 
staffing); Abdow, 468 Mass. at 501 (operational relationship 
existed between provisions redefining illegal gambling to 
include three forms of gaming that were currently legal and 
regulated by State Gaming Commission).  The scope of activities 
encompassed by the relationship is even narrow, significantly 
more confined than the wider range of related policy decisions 
we allowed to proceed in the initiatives in Hensley and 
Massachusetts Teachers Ass'n.  See Hensley, 474 Mass. at 658 
(initiative proposed legalizing marijuana consumption, 
establishing licensing system for sale of marijuana, 
establishing excise tax, and altering existing medical marijuana 
laws); Massachusetts Teachers Ass'n, 384 Mass. at 220-221 
(petition proposed range of tax policies, including new 
deduction, limit on local tax increases, and limits on local 
spending).  Finally, the petition can in no way be said to "yoke 
together substantively distinct subjects unrelated to a 
consistent public policy."  Colpack, supra at 818.  
 
The plaintiffs argue that the petition does not comply with 
the relatedness requirement because the tip pooling provision 
might undermine what the plaintiffs perceive as the ostensible 
purpose of the minimum wage provision by reducing the amount of 
16 
 
tips that tipped employees stand to receive.  There are a number 
of problems with this argument.  First, it redefines the common 
purpose of the proposed law.  The purpose of the law as derived 
from its provisions is not necessarily to increase compensation 
of tipped employees but to ensure that all employees in tipped 
industries are paid a minimum wage by their employers without 
such wages being subsidized by customer tips.  The customer tips 
will then be available to supplement wages for all employees.   
Second, "[t]he provisions of an initiative petition need 
not be 'drafted with strict internal consistency'" to satisfy 
the relatedness requirement.  Weiner, 484 Mass. at 694, quoting 
Mazzone, 432 Mass. at 528-529.  Indeed, in Weiner and Colpack, 
we held that petitions that both loosened some restrictions on 
alcohol sales while strengthening other restrictions were 
related.  See Colpack, 489 Mass. at 819 ("an initiative petition 
need not focus solely on loosening [or tightening] restrictions 
in order to meet the related subjects requirement of art. 48").  
The same may be true here. 
c.  Logrolling.  The plaintiffs contend that the initiative 
here constitutes prohibited "logrolling," that is, the practice 
of including popular unrelated provisions with unpopular ones to 
ensure the passage of those provisions that would not otherwise 
garner the necessary votes.  Carney, 447 Mass. at 228-229 
(discussing how delegates at constitutional convention spoke of 
17 
 
dangers of logrolling and denounced "the practice of 'hitching' 
alluring provisions at the beginning of an initiative petition 
and burying more controversial proposals farther down").  Here, 
however, the two provisions are related, and neither is 
concealed.  We therefore discern no improper logrolling. 
The plaintiffs make much of the fact that the Legislature 
has considered and ultimately not passed multiple bills that 
would have increased the cash wage for tipped employees and 
eliminated the tip credit.  In particular, the plaintiffs frame 
the inclusion of the tip pooling provision as an improper effort 
to "sweeten the pot" for Massachusetts voters who might not 
otherwise vote to enact a stand-alone law eliminating the tip 
credit.  This approach, according to the plaintiffs, follows the 
approach taken by legislators after multiple versions of the 
stand-alone bill failed in the Legislature:  legislators in 2023 
proposed a new version of the bill that paired the tip credit 
elimination with tip pooling.  See Senate Bill No. 1188 (Jan. 
19, 2023); House Bill No. 1872 (Jan. 19, 2023).  The fact that 
the Legislature has failed to pass the same subjects contained 
in the initiative is, however, of no import.  In fact, that is 
often the very purpose of an initiative.  See Buckley v. 
Secretary of the Commonwealth, 371 Mass. 195, 199 (1976) 
("[Article 48] was intended to provide both a check on 
legislative action and a means of circumventing an unresponsive 
18 
 
General Court.  It presented to the people the direct 
opportunity to enact statutes regardless of legislative 
opposition").  Instead, for there to be logrolling in the 
initiative process, the so-called popular and unpopular items 
must be unrelated.  See Carney, 447 Mass. at 221-222 (provision 
increasing punishment for animal cruelty added to unrelated 
provision seeking to ban parimutuel dog racing after stand-alone 
version of such ban was rejected by voters).  See also Abdow, 
468 Mass. at 502 (contrasting "hitching" of "very controversial" 
parimutuel dog racing ban to more popular criminal laws 
punishing animal cruelty in Carney with initiative that sought 
to ban parimutuel dog racing as one part of several antigambling 
provisions).  We are particularly attentive when the "unpopular" 
item is concealed.  See El Koussa, 489 Mass. at 838 (concealed, 
unrelated provision changing tort liability of app-based 
drivers).  Here, as discussed supra, the provisions are closely 
related and share a well-defined common purpose related to 
ending the existing compensation system common to tipped 
industries. 
Nor is either provision murky, unclear, or buried in such a 
way as to raise concerns about voter confusion.  The petition 
consists of four printed pages and uses a relatively simple 
structure of gradually raising the minimum wage for a period of 
five years.  Unlike the petition in El Koussa, the language of 
19 
 
both provisions is clear and their intended effect can be easily 
understood without needing to carefully parse statutory 
language.  El Koussa, 489 Mass. at 838. 
In sum, the petition clearly presents "a unified statement 
of public policy on which the voters can fairly vote 'yes' or 
'no.'"  Weiner, 484 Mass. at 695.  It does not, as the 
plaintiffs contend, "place anyone 'in the untenable position of 
casting a single vote on two or more dissimilar subjects.'"  
Hensley, 474 Mass. at 659, quoting Abdow, 468 Mass. at 499.     
3.  Conclusion.  The matter is remanded to the county court 
for entry of a judgment declaring that the Attorney General's 
certification of Initiative Petition 23-12 was in compliance 
with the requirements of art. 48. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered.