House · Democrat
Brian S. Dempsey
Data through FY2026; built October 19, 2026.
Residence
Haverhill
First elected
House 1990
Prior public offices
City Council (1988-1991, vice-president-1989, president-1990)
Occupation
Legislator/Insurance Broker
Left office
resigned (July 19, 2017); successor elected in special election November 7, 2017
| Session | Chamber | District | Lines | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 189th (2015–16) | House | 3rd Essex | 2011 lines | |
| 190th (2017–18) | House | 3rd Essex | 2011 lines |
Posts and stipends
Brian S. Dempsey was paid $60,250 in leadership and committee stipends from 2016 to 2017.
| Session | Posts | First year | Second year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 189th (2015–16) | W&M Chair | not available | $25,000 |
| 190th (2017–18) | W&M Chair (to Jul 2017) | $35,250 | not available |
Posts: the Legislature’s leadership and roster records as compiled for this project; where those name no post, the member’s committee chair, vice-chair and ranking roles from the Legislature’s member profiles. Stipends: additional compensation in the Comptroller’s payroll data (CTHRU dataset 9ttk-7vz6), 2016–2026; 2026 is the year to date. Stipends for 2015 are not available. Base salary is not included.
The district
3rd Essex on its 2011 lines: 1 city or town, 46,404 residents (2020).
Percentages are each place’s share of the district’s 2020 residents; for a town split between districts, the share of the town inside this one follows.
Population-weighted Fairness Index of the district’s cities and towns: 58 for all state aid and 64 for discretionary money (50 is a fair share).
Local earmarks are counted three ways. District money uses the first, clauses that name a place in the district; the second table adds organizations located in the district (placed in the district) and state facilities located there (everything placed). Three ways to count a local earmark.
| Session | District | Dollars | In corrective clauses | Per resident per budget, rank | Without corrective clauses, rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 189th (2015–16) | 3rd Essex | $390,000 | $44,000 | $8.40 · 13th of 160 | $7.45 · 18th of 160 |
| 190th (2017–18) | 3rd Essex | $1.2M | $205,000 | $12.41 · 4th of 160 | $10.20 · 7th of 160 |
District money is where enacted earmarks land, by the place a clause names, mapped to districts by 2020 population; it is not attributed to the member and does not include leadership’s base-text money that names no place. Ranks are of district money per resident among the chamber’s districts, 1 = most. “In corrective clauses” is the part carried by a Ways and Means chair’s corrective amendments, which is leadership’s money; the last column gives the per-resident figure and rank without it. Sessions are labeled by the General Court that enacted each budget. Per-resident figures use the district as drawn for each session (2011 lines through the 192nd General Court, 2021 lines from the 193rd), so they will not equal a session’s dollars divided by the resident count above.
| Session | District | Placed in the district | Per resident per budget, rank | Everything placed | Per resident per budget, rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 189th (2015–16) | 3rd Essex | $797,000 | $17.18 · 5th of 160 | $797,000 | $17.18 · 5th of 160 |
| 190th (2017–18) | 3rd Essex | $1.7M | $18.85 · 7th of 160 | $1.7M | $18.85 · 7th of 160 |
Budget amendments
Brian S. Dempsey filed no budget amendments of their own in FY2017–FY2026; the two Ways and Means corrective amendments filed in the chair’s name are leadership’s.
Filed as Ways and Means chair; leadership corrective amendments: two amendments, with $2.2 million in enacted items matched to them (189th and 190th General Courts). This is leadership’s money moved through the chair’s amendments; it is not counted in the member’s own amendments or items. Items that name places in the district are included in the district money below.
The amendment corpus covers every amendment filed to the House and Senate budgets, FY2017–FY2026. Leadership shapes the budget mostly through base text and conference, which no member is credited with here.
Bills sponsored
Brian S. Dempsey filed 3 bills as lead sponsor in these sessions; one was enacted on its own. In completed sessions, 33% of their lead bills were enacted on their own, against chamber medians of 6% to 7% for the same sessions.
Most bills die in every legislature, and many policies pass inside other bills; the chamber median for the same session is the fair comparison.
| Session | Chamber | Lead bills | Enacted | No action | Enacted rate | Chamber median | Cosponsored |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 189th (2015–16) | House | 3 | 1 | 2 | 33% | 6% | 0 |
| 190th (2017–18) | House | 0 | 0 | 0 | no bills filed | 7% | 0 |
Enacted bills as lead sponsor
- H3330 (189th): An Act exempting the position of deputy police chief in the city of Haverhill from the civil service law · Chapter 24 of the Acts of 2015
Outcomes are the furthest point each bill reached in the record. “Folded into an enacted bill” means the history names the enacted bill that absorbed it. “Passed both branches; no chapter recorded” means the bill was enacted by both branches and laid before the Governor, with no chapter or veto in the history; in the 194th General Court such bills are shown as laid before the Governor (pending). The 194th General Court is in session until January 2027, so its open bills are pending, not dead, and its rates (*) are not comparable with completed sessions. Chairs and leaders control the calendar, which raises their rates. Source: malegislature.gov bill histories.
Recorded votes on accountability measures
Brian S. Dempsey cast 21 yes-or-no votes on the 21 accountability roll calls in this file (four yes, 17 no).
| Date | Measure | Vote | Chamber result |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 25, 2017 | Recommit the 2017 pay-raise bill (H.58) to Ways and Means | No | Yeas 35, nays 125 |
| January 25, 2017 | Amd 3 (Lyons): legislators' raise not effective until next General Court | No | Yeas 40, nays 120 |
| January 25, 2017 | Amd 5 (Lyons): cap the increases at 4% | No | Yeas 36, nays 124 |
| January 25, 2017 | Engrossment of the pay-raise bill (stipend increases) | Yes | Yeas 116, nays 44 |
| January 26, 2017 | Enactment of the pay-raise bill | Yes | Yeas 116, nays 43 |
| February 2, 2017 | Override of Gov. Baker's veto of the pay-raise bill | Yes | Yeas 116, nays 43 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 1.0 (Geoff Diehl): Text of the proposed House amendment (Representative Diehl) to the House Bill relative to Rank and File (House, No. 2017) | No | Yeas 34, nays 124 |
| February 2, 2017 | Sustain the Chair's ruling (point of order, Mr. Mark) against Diehl amd 2, Speaker term limits | Yes | Yeas 123, nays 33 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 3.0 (Bradley H. Jones, Jr.): 24 Hour Time Frame for Bills to Be Acted On | No | Yeas 35, nays 124 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 4.0 (Bradley H. Jones, Jr.): Access to Information | No | Yeas 35, nays 124 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 9.0 (Bradley H. Jones, Jr.): Emergency Scheduling of Hearings | No | Yeas 38, nays 121 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 10.0 (Bradley H. Jones, Jr.): Equal Representation on Ethics Committee | No | Yeas 35, nays 124 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 15.0 (Bradley H. Jones, Jr.): Inoculators | No | Yeas 37, nays 122 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 16.0 (Bradley H. Jones, Jr.): Local Aid Resolution | No | Yeas 38, nays 121 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 27.0 (James J. Lyons, Jr.): Defining and Limiting Informal Session | No | Yeas 34, nays 124 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 20.0 (Shaunna L. O'Connell): Public access to House financial accounts audits | No | Yeas 34, nays 125 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 21.0 (Shaunna L. O'Connell): Public access to committee votes | No | Yeas 41, nays 118 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 5.0 (Bradley H. Jones, Jr.): Local Aid Resolution | No | Yeas 37, nays 122 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 11.0 (Bradley H. Jones, Jr.): Committee Roll Calls on Website | No | Yeas 38, nays 121 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 13.0 (Bradley H. Jones, Jr.): Reports of Conference Filing Deadline | No | Yeas 37, nays 122 |
| February 2, 2017 | Amendment 14.0 (Shaunna L. O'Connell): Public access to committee votes | No | Yeas 38, nays 121 |
Votes marked “contested meaning” are rules-package and public-records passage votes; reform advocates were on both sides of them. Descriptions are the project’s plain summaries of each question, or the question as recorded for rules-package roll calls; the official record is on malegislature.gov. Votes are facts; no score is computed.
Campaign money in
Brian S. Dempsey’s committee reported $282,000 in contributions of $250 or more in years the member served, 2015–2018.
| Year | Contributions |
|---|---|
| 2015 | $98,000 |
| 2016 | $148,000 |
| 2017 | $36,000 |
| 2018 | $0 |
| Kind | Total | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Individuals | $244,000 | 86% |
| Political committees and PACs | $31,000 | 11% |
| Unions and associations | $8,000 | 3% |
| Employer reported | Share |
|---|---|
| A named employer | 69% |
| Self-employed | 15% |
| Retired | 2% |
| Homemaker or at home | 6% |
| Not reported or withheld | 7% |
Not counted as contributions: $12,000 in other receipts of $250 or more in the same years (candidate loans and the candidate’s own money, transfers, refunds, bank interest and aggregated small receipts).
The same committee also reported $0 in years the member was not in the Legislature (2019), for example while running for another office. Those receipts are not in the totals above.
| Employer or organization | Kind | Total | Contributions |
|---|---|---|---|
| EVERSOURCE | individuals, by employer | $8,000 | 8 |
| STATE POLICE ASSOCIATION OF MA | individuals, by employer | $7,500 | 13 |
| WHITTIER HEALTH NETWORK | individuals, by employer | $5,000 | 10 |
| MINTZ LEVIN | individuals, by employer | $3,750 | 10 |
| HORIZON BEVERAGE | individuals, by employer | $3,500 | 4 |
| RUBY WINES | individuals, by employer | $3,500 | 6 |
| TRINITY AMBULANCE | individuals, by employer | $3,250 | 7 |
| BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD OF MA | individuals, by employer | $3,250 | 8 |
| LAMAR ADVERTISING | individuals, by employer | $3,000 | 3 |
| NSTAR | individuals, by employer | $3,000 | 3 |
Source: Office of Campaign and Political Finance, itemized receipts of $250 or more since 2015; OCPF filer record: Dempsey Committee (CPF 11853). Individuals are grouped by the employer they reported; no individual contributor is named, and an employer field that is a person’s name is withheld. Massachusetts bars business contributions to candidates. Employer shows affiliation, not instruction.
Sources
Every figure traces to a public record.
- Massachusetts Legislature, members, districts and roll calls
- Budget amendments and enacted budgets, FY2017–FY2026
- CTHRU payroll, Office of the Comptroller (stipends)
- Office of Campaign and Political Finance
- District lines: Acts of 2011 and 2021; Census 2020 block populations
- Official profile (prior offices, occupation)
- Election statistics (first elected, residence)
- Leaving office (press/secondary: Wikipedia)
- Leaving office (election statistics)
Facts only: posts, stipends, sponsored amendments, enacted items, roll-call votes and district money. No score or grade is computed. Associations shown here are not evidence of cause. Method.