Get ready for a long ballot.
The Massachusetts House, Senate, and governor are responsible for the vast majority of what becomes law in the Commonwealth, but they’re not the only ones with that power. Individuals can also propose changes to state law or the state Constitution, and if supporters manage to navigate a thicket of procedural hurdles and win support from a majority of voters, their measure becomes law, just the same as anything that followed the more traditional path through Beacon Hill.
This election season, frustrated advocates and influential groups turned to the process with gusto. Nine statewide ballot questions will go before voters in November, tying a record last set in 1994. The measures in the mix range across a host of weighty topics, from tax rebates to recreational marijuana to elections administration.
Here’s what you need to know about each question:
Ballot Question 1: Expanding the public records law
This question asks voters whether Massachusetts should extend the public records law to cover the Legislature and governor’s office.
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Ballot Question 2: Union for public defenders
This question asks whether workers with the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS) — which offers legal representation to criminal defendants who cannot afford a lawyer — should be able to collectively bargain.
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Ballot Question 3: All-party primaries
This question asks whether Massachusetts should replace the existing partisan primary election system with a single “all-party primary” in which all candidates appear on the same ballot and the top two vote-getters advance, regardless of their party affiliation, to the November general election.
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Ballot Question 4: Election Day voter registration
This question asks whether prospective voters should be able to register and cast a ballot during the same trip to the polls on Election Day.
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Ballot Question 5: Changing the state tax cap
This question asks whether the formula for calculating the limit on state tax collections should be altered, increasing the likelihood that Massachusetts owes money back to taxpayers at the end of a fiscal year.
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Ballot Question 6: Conservation funding
This ballot measure asks whether money collected from the sales tax of sporting goods purchases should be directed to a state fund for conservation activities like acquiring land, bolstering resilience against storms, and expanding public access to outdoor recreation.
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Ballot Question 7: Starter homes
This question asks voters if the state should relax zoning regulations for single-family homes in areas served by public water and sewer systems, streamlining the permitting process to build on smaller lot sizes.
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Ballot Question 8: Recreational marijuana
This question asks voters whether to repeal the law that legalized the sale and use of recreational marijuana, and whether to create civil penalties for the possession of one to two ounces of marijuana.
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Ballot Question 9: Gun laws
This veto referendum asks voters to decide whether to keep or repeal a 2024 state law creating an array of new firearms regulations. In this case, backers of the repeal are pushing for a “no” vote to reject the current law and opponents are pushing for a “yes” vote to keep it in place.
Read the full explainerThis article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
