A Democratic state lawmaker from Roxbury spent nearly $6,500 out of her campaign account last year on personal expenses — including at a salon and on food deliveries — in violation of state law, according to public records and campaign finance regulators.
State Representative Chynah Tyler must pay the state $6,000 under a settlement agreement released by the Office of Campaign and Political Finance on Tuesday.
State regulators said they identified $5,664 in campaign money Tyler used for her “personal use.” That included at least $4,500 in spending last spring and summer that the five-term Democrat failed to document even after regulators asked for bills, invoices, and other records.
In addition, Tyler, has already reimbursed her campaign account for $830 in other “erroneous personal expenditures” that she herself admitted to, including $223 at a hair-braiding salon, $100 on a AAA membership, and several Uber Eats orders, campaign spending records show.
The personal spending accounted for a significant share of her campaign costs in 2025, a non-election year during which she reported spending just under $40,000. And between April and June, when officials said Tyler did not account for $4,500 in expenses, her campaign reported spending $6,190 in total, records show.
FEATURED VIDEO
Elected officials and candidates are allowed to use their campaign accounts for a range of purposes as long as they can show it’s for the “enhancement of [their] political future” and is not “primarily for personal use.” Under those rules, state lawmakers have used campaign funds to pay for swanky dinners, visits to cigar lounges, and luxury car leases.
Campaign finance regulators said that Tyler’s failure to document thousands of dollars in purchases “creates a presumption that the expenditure was made for personal use.”
Officials said Tyler also broke a series of other campaign finance rules when she filed late disclosures, took donations exceeding state-mandated limits, and failed to “keep detailed records,” according to the settlement.
Tyler did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. In a response included in the six-page agreement with state regulators, Tyler said she gave birth to a child in “winter 2025 and experienced limited mobility during that time, which impacted my ability to personally oversee certain campaign finance activities.”
Advertisement
She said during that time, however, she continued to meet with constituents, “community leaders and other qualified professionals,” though she did not say how those meetings related to specific expenditures by her account.
“These meetings were in compliance with [campaign finance law], consistent with my commitment to transparency and adherence to all legal obligations related to campaign contributions and expenditures,” Tyler said in the statement.
Tyler was first elected in 2017 to succeed long-time representative Gloria Fox in a district rooted in Roxbury. She is currently the House vice chair of the Legislature’s committee on state administration and regulatory oversight, and in the past led the growing Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus.
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.
State Rep. Chynah Tyler spent campaign funds on personal expenses
