Efforts to subject the Legislature to outside scrutiny, reform the role of standardized MCAS tests, allow cities and towns to regulate rent levels, and reshape rights and benefits for on-demand drivers took steps Wednesday toward potentially being decided by voters in 2024.
After months of noncommittal answers and behind-the-scenes whispers, the outer limits of the ballot question universe became clear as the deadline arrived for supporters to file measures they want to bring to the ballot box.
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Altogether, 42 ballot questions were filed by the 5 p.m. deadline Wednesday, proposing 38 laws that could be decided at the 2024 ballot and four Constitutional amendments that could be decided in the 2026 election, according to Attorney General Andrea Campbell's office.
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Another 12 questions had been filed in late 2022 with a goal of reaching the 2024 or 2026 ballot.
Supporters filed multiple versions of the same question on several topics, including nine versions of a revived app-based driver question and eight versions of a proposed law requiring voter identification. Filing multiple drafts with minor differences is a common strategy campaigns use to keep their options open while they figure out which draft has the best chance of legal and political success.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association followed through on one of two initiatie petitions it had been weighing. Activists with the union joined with educators, parents and recent graduates to file a measure that would uncouple the MCAS exam from graduation requirements, but MTA opted against pursuing a ballot question related to higher education funding and affordability.
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MTA officials said the union's board of directors still needs to decide at a meeting Sunday whether to launch a full campaign behind the initiative petition, which would keep the standardized tests in place but no longer require students to pass the exam to graduate.
Their proposal is similar to one filed a few days before the deadline by Shelley Scruggs, a Lexington woman who said she wants to eliminate the graduation requirement on behalf of her 15-year-old son.
Rep. Mike Connolly, a Cambridge Democrat, filed a ballot question that would grant cities and towns a range of new "tenant protection" options, including the ability to impose rent control, which voters banned statewide via a 1994 ballot question.
"This afternoon, acting in my personal capacity as a renter, I filed a petition with 15 residents of Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston to preserve the option of a 2024 ballot question relative to lifting the ban on rent control and enabling local tenant protections. More to come!" Connolly, who has a similar but broader bill (H 1304) pending before the Housing Committee, tweeted Wednesday afternoon.
Previous efforts to reverse the ban or revive the policies in a handful of specific communities have failed to gain momentum with legislative leaders.
Other questions filed by Wednesday's deadline would gradually increase the minimum wage for tipped workers to the same as the general minimum wage, limit political spending by "foreign-influenced businesses," and halt the state's gas tax when gasoline prices are above a certain threshold.
One proposed constitutional amendment would once again allow Bay Staters incarcerated on felony offenses to vote in state and federal elections. In 2000, voters approved a constitutional amendment disenfranchising incarcerated felons by a margin of 64 percent to 36 percent.
A pair of measures seek to decriminalize psychedelic substances such as psilocybin mushrooms.
Proponents said the measures, which are backed by the New Approach group that helped secure passage of similar ballot questions in Colorado and Oregon, would give Bay Staters access to new substances that can treat mental health issues.
"A growing body of research from some of the nation's most respected medical research institutions shows that psychedelics hold tremendous promise in treating depression, end-of-life anxiety, and other serious mental health challenges," said Massachusetts General Hospital psychiatrist Franklin King, who was one of the first voters to sign the initiative petition. "Evidence is likewise clear that the current legal scheduling of naturally occurring psychedelic compounds such as psilocybin is neither appropriate nor scientifically based."
The Bay Staters for Natural Medicine group said it supports the version of the two ballot questions that would allow for home cultivation of mushrooms for personal use.
Campaigns that want to put a proposed new law before voters in 2024 or a proposed constitutional amendment in 2026 needed to file their measures by the end of the day Wednesday. But not every question submitted will make it to the ballot, and recent history shows only a few typically survive every cycle.
Campbell's office will now review each measure and either certify, which keeps a proposal moving forward in the process, or decline to certify, which ends its progress. Those decisions are not based on how Campbell herself or her deputies feel about the merits of the policies, but instead on whether the questions comply with a set of requirements in the state Constitution governing initiative petitions.
