Mass. legislature sets up new committee to vet the blizzard of 2026 ballot questions

The Legislature on Thursday agreed to appoint a 10-person joint committee to consider 11 initiative petitions that could go before voters in November.

State House Speaker Ron Mariano, D-3rd Norfolk, and Senate President Karen Spilka, D-Middlesex/Norfolk, will each name four people to the committee, according to an order adopted by both chambers.

Minority Leaders Rep. Brad Jones, R-20th Middlesex, and Sen. Bruce Tarr, R-1st Essex/Middlesex, will each name one person.

While it has numerous joint committees that are familiar with particular subject matters, the Legislature in 2024 also created a single committee to review all potential ballot measures. Lawmakers in 2024 did not act on any of the measures, letting voters decide their fate.

A historic 12 questions could go before voters in 2026, with 11 filed as bills, according to the Legislature's site. They are still being processed by the House Clerk's office and are not yet posted online. The final question would not propose a new law and instead calls for the repeal of the 2024 gun law.

The Legislature's deadline to enact initiative petitions is May 5 and petitioners and lawmakers have a chance to potentially come up with compromises over the next three months.

If lawmakers don't address the measures by then, petitioners have to collect 12,429 more signatures and file them with local election officials 14 days before the first Wednesday in July (July 1), and with Secretary of State William Galvin's office by the first Wednesday in July in order to secure access to the Nov. 3 ballot.

The measures in play would:

• implement all-party state primaries,

• establish statewide rent control, subject most records of the governor and Legislature to the public records law,

• allow people to register and vote on Election Day, reduce the state's personal income tax rate from 5% to 4%,

• reform the Legislature's stipend system,

• roll back recreational cannabis use, "legalize starter homes,"

• direct funding from the sporting goods sales tax to conservation,

• enable Committee for Public Counsel Services employees to unionize, and

• limit how much revenue the state can collect in a given year.  

Committee members were not named. The House will name members next week, Mariano's office said.

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