Galvin warns Beacon Hill: A ‘watershed’ year for ballot questions ahead
Voters fed up with the snail’s pace of progress on Beacon Hill and the Legislature’s lack of transparency could have a big year at the ballot box in 2026.
That was the word from the state’s top elections official on Wednesday as reformers raced to meet a key deadline that would move them one step closer to letting the voters have their say on issues ranging from rent control to all-party state primaries.
“I think it’s kind of a watershed,” Massachusetts Secretary of State Bill Galvin, who’s backing a question that would allow same-day voter registration on Election Day, told MassLive in a phone interview.
“There’s an opportunity that people are taking to go around the Legislature,” he said.
In September, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell’s office gave the green light to 40 proposed laws and four proposed constitutional amendments.
That kicked off a two-month frenzy to collect more than 74,000 signatures to submit to local elections officials this week.
And if you’ve been shopping at your local Market Basket or Big Y this fall, then you’ve probably either seen, or talked to, the battery of volunteers and workers trying to reach that critical threshold.
As of Wednesday, “it’s obvious that most are going to succeed in getting on the ballot,” Galvin told MassLive.
The questions “reflect a broad diversity of issues” that span the ideological spectrum, Galvin said.
Another question that appears set to clear the hurdle is one that would change the way legislative stipends are calculated, WBUR-FM reported.
State lawmakers get extra pay, in addition to their base pay, if they hold leadership positions. That often can result in a pay bump of tens of thousands of dollars.
Another would make the Legislature and the governor’s office subject to the state’s open records law.
Speaking to reporters after an unrelated event on Wednesday, Gov. Maura Healey did not directly answer when she was asked whether she’d support such a change in state law.
“I’d have to see what that looks like,” Healey said, adding that she has “tried to make this office as transparent as possible. So we’ll see what comes to the ballot.”
Assuming they clear Wednesday’s hurdle, petition backers have until Dec. 3 to submit their signatures to Galvin’s office.
The Boston Democrat will then review them and hand them over to the Legislature, which has until May to vote them into law, amend them, or take no action at all.
If lawmakers punt and take no action, campaigners will have to gather 12,249 more signatures, submit them to local officials by June 2026, and then to state officials by July of that year , to get onto the November ballot.
And that’s only half the battle. If 2024 is any indication, a sharp-elbowed and very expensive campaign for hearts and minds will follow.
This week, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, for instance, strongly signaled that she had reservations about the rent control question, which would limit rent increases on most apartments to 5% or less.
“I wish that the ballot initiative had been just a pure local option, repeal the ban on cities taking action and let each city do what they need to do,” Wu told WGBH-FM’s Boston Public Radio program . “Because conditions can be quite different in each municipality depending on your local economy, and the mix of commercial, residential and all that.”
And even if voters do eventually approve a question, there’s also no guarantee of final action. Consider state Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s year-long fight to get Beacon Hill to comply with an overwhelmingly approved question authorizing her to audit the Legislature.
Wednesday was a big day for government reform all around.
Election law reformers were visible at the State House on Wednesday, where they made their case to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Election Laws , which heard testimony on proposals dealing with “ranked choice” voting, among other measures.
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