House · Democrat

James M. Cantwell

Former member, served 2015–2018 in the sessions covered here · 4th Plymouth

Data through FY2026; built October 19, 2026.

Residence

Marshfield

First elected

House 2008

Prior public offices

Assistant District Attorney for Norfolk County 1995-1998; Selectman, Town of Marshfield 1996-1999

Occupation

Legislator; Small Business Owner

Left office

left to become Massachusetts State Director for U.S. Senator Ed Markey (March 28, 2018)

Seats held, General Courts 189–194 (the FY2017–FY2026 budgets)
Session	Chamber	District	Lines	Note
189th (2015–16)	House	4th Plymouth	2011 lines
190th (2017–18)	House	4th Plymouth	2011 lines

Posts and stipends

James M. Cantwell was paid $19,039 in leadership and committee stipends from 2017 to 2018.

Posts and stipends by session (stipends by calendar year)
Session	Posts	First year	Second year
189th (2015–16)	No post recorded	not available	$0
190th (2017–18)	Vice chair, Joint Committee on the Judiciary	$15,000	$4,039

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

4th Plymouth on its 2011 lines: 2 cities and towns, 41,773 residents (2020).

Marshfield 62% · Scituate 38%, 84% of the town

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: 36 for all state aid and 57 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.

District money, first measure: enacted earmarks in clauses naming a place in the district, by session (district money, not the member’s)
Session	District	Dollars	In corrective clauses	Per resident per budget, rank	Without corrective clauses, rank
189th (2015–16)	4th Plymouth	$7,000	$0	$0.17 · 146th of 160	$0.17 · 144th of 160
190th (2017–18)	4th Plymouth	$259,000	$0	$3.10 · 109th of 160	$3.10 · 108th 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.

The same district on the other two measures, by session (enacted; includes any corrective-clause money)
Session	District	Placed in the district	Per resident per budget, rank	Everything placed	Per resident per budget, rank
189th (2015–16)	4th Plymouth	$7,000	$0.17 · 152nd of 160	$7,000	$0.17 · 152nd of 160
190th (2017–18)	4th Plymouth	$859,000	$10.28 · 17th of 160	$859,000	$10.28 · 19th of 160

Budget amendments

James M. Cantwell sponsored 34 budget amendments in FY2017–FY2026, asking for $26.3 million in all.

Amendments sponsored

FY2017–FY2026 budgets

Adopted, known outcomes

17%

3 of 18

Chamber rate, same ask sizes

46%

expected at the chamber’s rates

Of the 18 with a known outcome, three were adopted (17%). At the chamber’s adoption rate for amendments of the same size, about eight (46%) would have been.

No enacted item is strongly matched to an amendment this member filed.

Strong matches: 0 enacted items, $0 (the member’s share where several amendments claim one clause). A further one weaker text match is not listed; attribution is inferred from amendment text and is less certain there. House attribution is inferred throughout, because the House adopts most amendments inside consolidated amendments.

13 outcomes are inferred by matching amendment text to the House’s consolidated amendments, because the House records most amendments only as “Consolidated A–G.” Ask size is the larger of the earmark dollars and the line-item change an amendment requests; bands: no dollar amount, under $50,000, $50,000–$250,000, $250,000–$1 million, $1–5 million, $5 million or more. Leadership’s unattributed base-text and corrective-amendment money is never assigned to a member. The comparison describes outcomes; it is not a measure of merit.

Bills sponsored

James M. Cantwell filed 117 bills as lead sponsor in these sessions; two were enacted on their own. In completed sessions, 2% 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.

Bills filed as lead sponsor, by session and outcome
Session	Chamber	Lead bills	Enacted	Folded into an enacted bill	Sent to study	Reported favorably, then died	No action	Enacted rate	Chamber median	Cosponsored
189th (2015–16)	House	57	2	1	38	14	2	4%	6%	211
190th (2017–18)	House	60	0	0	38	13	9	0%	7%	357

Enacted bills as lead sponsor

H3599 (189th): An Act authorizing the town of Scituate to convey certain land · Chapter 26 of the Acts of 2016
H4704 (189th): An Act establishing a sick leave bank for Mary Katherine Sheehan, an employee of the Trial Court · Chapter 317 of the Acts of 2016

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

James M. Cantwell cast 21 yes-or-no votes on the 21 accountability roll calls in this file (four yes, 17 no).

Roll calls on rules, audits, public records, term limits and pay
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

James M. Cantwell’s committee reported $149,000 in contributions of $250 or more in years the member served, 2015–2018.

By year (years in the Legislature)
Year	Contributions
2015	$59,000
2016	$37,000
2017	$52,000
2018	$0

By kind of contributor
Kind	Total	Share
Individuals	$128,000	86%
Political committees and PACs	$20,000	13%
Unions and associations	$1,000	1%

Individuals’ money by the employer they reported
Employer reported	Share
A named employer	60%
Self-employed	19%
Retired	6%
Homemaker or at home	10%
Not reported or withheld	6%

Not counted as contributions: $500 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, 2020, 2024), for example while running for another office. Those receipts are not in the totals above.

Largest employers and organizations
Employer or organization	Kind	Total	Contributions
SUCCESS REAL ESTATE	individuals, by employer	$3,250	5
NEPONSETT CIRLCE AUTO BODY	individuals, by employer	$3,000	4
JACK CONWAY REALTOR	individuals, by employer	$2,500	4
VERTEX ENVIRONMENTAL	individuals, by employer	$2,500	3
WATD FM RADIO	individuals, by employer	$2,250	5
TOWN OF MARSHFIELD	individuals, by employer	$2,100	5
OBM CAPITAL	individuals, by employer	$2,000	2
SHORELINE AVIATION	individuals, by employer	$1,850	6
PLYMOUTH BAY ORTHOPEDICS	individuals, by employer	$1,750	2
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS MA PAC	committee or PAC	$1,500	3

Source: Office of Campaign and Political Finance, itemized receipts of $250 or more since 2015; OCPF filer record: Cantwell Committee (CPF 14781). 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.

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.