Voters have passed several major laws by initiative in past elections. A 2016 initiative legalized marijuana, and a 2022 initiative created a tax on millionaires.
By JAMIE PERKINS/The New Bedford Light, Associated Press
10 minutes to read
This year, eight initiative petitions are likely headed to voters on the November ballot. The Legislature, which had a chance to approve the measures last month, opted not to approve any of them, requiring ballot committees to gather additional signatures this month.
Massachusetts voters have passed several major laws by initiative in past elections. A 2016 initiative legalized marijuana, and a 2022 initiative created a tax on millionaires.
But as the number of initiatives on the ballot has increased, lawmakers have grown frustrated with the system. House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka criticized the ballot measure process in February, with Mariano describing it as “fraught with peril.” And the Legislative committee tasked with voting on potential initiatives — some of which targeted the Legislature — held a series of tense hearings in March.
Several elected officials and scholars have called for reform to the ballot measure process.
The Massachusetts Legislature is not the only state government critical of the initiative process. An increasing number of states have attempted to restrict the practice.
Still, direct democracy advocates say ballot measures serve as a check and balance on representative government.
“We believe that representative government is one of the most fundamental, best ways to govern,” said Dane Waters, founder of the Initiative and Referendum Institute. “But lawmakers, for whatever reason, whether through personal interest or conflict, sometimes just choose not to do things, and there needs to be a mechanism for the people to hold them accountable.”
What is an initiative?
Ballot initiatives allow citizens to adopt laws or constitutional amendments, depending on the state. Massachusetts permits both.
The ballot measure process emerged during the Populist and Progressive movements in the 1890s and early 1900s because the reformers believed state governments were controlled by moneyed special interests rather than the people.
In 1912, an Oregon initiative gave women the right to vote. A 1996 California initiative banned affirmative action. In 2012, Maine voters legalized same-sex marriage.
Initiative petitions can be direct or indirect, depending on the state. Direct initiatives are placed on the ballot without any legislative say. Indirect initiatives — Massachusetts’ approach — are first presented to the Legislature. The process of how a state legislature handles an indirect petition varies by state.
In every state with an initiative process, citizens must collect signatures to qualify for the ballot, though the requirements vary by state.
Initiatives are distinct from referendums, which ask voters to accept or reject legislation recently adopted by the Legislature.
Which states allow initiatives?
Twenty-three states have some form of initiative process, the majority of which are in the West. According to Waters, many of these states entered the union during the Progressive Era and were “more prone to want to have that mechanism versus states that had been around since the founding of our nation.”
Eastern states with initiative processes include Massachusetts, Florida and Maine, though those states tend to have more stringent processes.
From 1904 to 2024, California had the most initiatives (396), followed by Oregon (379), with approval rates of 35% and 36%, respectively. Colorado (259), North Dakota (202) and Washington (192) follow.
“If you were to factor out California and Oregon, I think it would probably represent like 30% to 40% of all the initiative usage ever,” Waters said.
He added that no state stands out as more likely to respond to ballot proposals with a legislative compromise.
“I respect representative government, but I seriously am hard pressed to find a single legislature that is supportive or sympathetic to the people using the process,” Waters said.
New Bedford lawmakers support ballot measure process
Despite legislative leaders’ opposition, several New Bedford lawmakers told The New Bedford Light they don’t view the ballot measure process as a threat.
Rep. Antonio F.D. Cabral, D-New Bedford, said ballot measures are a “useful democratic barometer” that informs the Legislature of residents’ priorities.
“At the core of our democracy is the belief that every resident deserves a meaningful voice in the decisions that shape their lives,” Cabral said in a written statement. “The ballot initiative process is an alternative avenue, alongside direct engagement between constituents and their elected officials, and stands as a valuable component of the democratic system in Massachusetts.”
Rep. Christopher Hendricks, D-New Bedford, said the ballot measure process can “nudge the Legislature sometimes in the right direction, where it otherwise wouldn’t happen.” He pointed to the Fair Share Amendment, which voters passed in 2022, creating an additional tax on millionaires.
Rep. Christopher Markey, D-Dartmouth, echoed this sentiment, using the 2016 initiative that legalized marijuana as an example.
Hendricks and Markey both argued that some issues are too complex to be decided at the ballot box, including a proposal to cut the state income tax from 5% to 4%, which the Supreme Judicial Court recently struck from the ballot.
“I think when you start to get into technical bills, where there’s a lot of issues, it’s really difficult for someone to understand the entire bill and understand the nuances that (lawmakers) get,” Markey said. “We get lots of meetings with people in special interest groups and advocacy groups so that we can learn the pluses and minuses of a particular bill in more detail.”
Waters disputes this commonly used argument.
“For democracy to work, you have to have faith in the voters,” he said. “If you’re going to trust voters to choose among a candidate, then you have to have faith in them that they can choose among an issue.”
Rep. Steven Ouellette, D-Westport, said that as long as a question is legal and constitutional, the Legislature should institute it. “Unless there’s some kind of legal issue argument, we are planning on going forward with what the people want,” he said.
Rep. Mark Syvlia, D-Fairhaven, told The Light that the ballot measure process is “important,” but that he appreciates that the Legislature has a chance to weigh in on the questions.
“(The Legislative review educates) the public about what a ballot question does and doesn’t do, and also identifies for the Legislature where there may be an opportunity to enact a potential ballot initiative that would be really beneficial,” Sylvia said.
He said he believes that the Legislature didn’t approve any of the November questions because of their substance, not out of disdain for the initiative process.
Massachusetts’ approach
Massachusetts has one of the most difficult initiative processes in the country.
The process begins with 10 petitioners who submit a proposed law or amendment to the attorney general for approval.
If the initiative is certified, petitioners must collect signatures equal to 3% of the total votes cast for governor at the last election — 74,574 signatures for the November 2026 election.
Massachusetts only allows indirect initiatives. If lawmakers don’t pass the initiative, petitioners must collect additional signatures — 0.5% of the gubernatorial votes, or 12,429, for the November election.
Initiatives for constitutional amendments require only one round of signatures, but must be approved by two consecutively elected legislatures.
Waters pointed to North Dakota — which has an indirect initiative process — as one of the easiest states to place a question on the ballot.
Massachusetts limits how many signatures can come from one county, but North Dakota has no distribution requirements.
According to Waters, signatures in North Dakota are presumed valid, but in Massachusetts, they must be certified.
Petitioners in North Dakota have one year to collect signatures — significantly more time than in Massachusetts, where petitioners have nine weeks to collect the first round of signatures and eight weeks in the second round.
Threats to the ballot measure process
Waters and other direct democracy advocates warn of growing threats to the ballot measure process.
“There’s been this full frontal attack in trying to make the process more difficult,” Waters said, noting that many ballot measure requirements don’t apply to the legislative process.
A 2026 report from the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center says states are “deploying a shared and increasingly sophisticated playbook to limit voter power.”
Several states have tried to regulate the signature gathering process, restricting how and where petitioners can collect signatures.
Lawmakers in states including Arizona, Florida and North Dakota have adopted or proposed supermajority requirements for citizen-led initiatives — meaning at least 60% of voters must approve them.
Other states have adopted single-subject rules, which “grant courts and officials wide discretion,” according to the report.
According to Waters, the threat to ballot measures stems from “an inherent conflict between lawmakers and the people.”
“Lawmakers typically … don’t like the people messing with them when they’ve been elected to enact laws,” he said.
In 2023, just months before Ohio voters were to decide on a measure to keep abortion legal in the state, legislators held a special election to try to raise the total signatures requirement, require signatures from each of the state’s counties, and raise the approval threshold to 60%. (Voters rejected the rule change, then approved the abortion-rights measure.)
After Nebraska and Missouri voters overwhelmingly passed paid sick leave initiatives in 2024, both state legislatures adopted bills to undermine the measures.
Critics call for reform
Lawmakers, scholars and the attorney general have called for various reforms to the state’s initiative process.
In March, the Massachusetts Senate passed a bill seeking to limit paid signature gatherers, including a prohibition on paying workers based on the number of signatures collected.
Ten states prohibit ballot committees from using paid signature-gathering firms, and Sylvia said he would be open to Massachusetts doing the same after reviewing the practice’s impact.
“(Paying signature gatherers) doesn’t feel democratic to me,” he said.
Markey also said paid signature gatherers undermine the grassroots nature of the process, but Ouellette argued that it’s not a problem as long as it’s done legally.
“When you need 1,000 or 10,000 signatures, that’s a lot of work,” Ouellette said.
Waters of the Initiative and Referendum Institute shares Ouellette’s view.
“We pay Uber drivers, we pay people to pick up our laundry, we pay dog walkers … Why is it wrong to pay people to collect signatures?” Waters said. “It doesn’t matter who collects the signatures. The reality is, only Massachusetts voters get to vote on it.”
Instead, Waters suggested other reforms to make the ballot measure process more accessible, including extending circulation periods and allowing digital signatures.
Criticism of Massachusetts’ initiative process — Article 48 in the state constitution — has intensified since a 2024 initiative law granted State Auditor Diana DiZoglio authority to audit the Legislature’s performance. Many experts and most lawmakers say the question violated the state constitution’s separation of powers.
Ballot measures can’t infringe on certain constitutional rights — such as freedom of speech — or involve excluded subjects. But the attorney general can’t weigh in on whether the questions propose laws that would violate the state constitution.
Instead, she certifies the proposal if it is in proper form, isn’t similar to initiatives from the past two elections, and adheres to subject matter regulations. Her office also writes a summary of the proposal, which appears on the ballot. Attorney General Andrea Campbell said in May that the process should change to allow her office to analyze the proposal’s legality.
Sylvia shares this view, noting that petitioners would benefit from knowing earlier in the process whether their question is constitutional. He pointed to the unresolved question about the audit and to a proposal to reform legislative stipends, which the state’s Supreme Judicial Court deemed unconstitutional in May.
The House, the Senate, or the governor can request an advisory opinion from the Supreme Judicial Court about a ballot proposal before it goes to voters.
In mid-June, the court struck a proposed income tax cut from the November ballot, because the justices concluded that the attorney general’s summary of the initiative proposal was “significantly misleading.” Taxpayers for an Affordable Massachusetts, one of the supporters of the tax cut initiative, said afterward that it will consider “advocating for procedural reforms” for ballot preparations.
Jerold Duquette — a political scientist who lives in Massachusetts and teaches at Central Connecticut State University — has also pushed for Article 48 reforms. However, he doesn’t advocate for eliminating the initiative process.
Since the audit question passed, Duquette and other experts have argued that the state constitution should be amended to exclude ballot questions that concern constitutional provisions about legislative functioning and the separation of powers.
Duquette noted that ballot question committees are not solely at fault for the trouble with Article 48.
“The politicians, journalists, and newspaper editors who play along without giving sufficient critical attention to the constitutional questions raised by experts share blame with the sponsors of constitutionally questionable ballot measures,” he said.
This year’s initiatives
This November, voters will likely consider eight initiative petitions on the ballot.
They include: • repealing the law that legalized recreational marijuana • applying the public records law to the Legislature and governor’s office • creating an “all-party” primary ballot system • allowing voters to register on Election Day • overriding local zoning laws to reduce barriers to single-family starter homes • changing the method of calculating the state tax revenue limit • giving Committee for Public Counsel Services workers the right to collectively bargain • redirecting sales tax on sport and outdoor recreational equipment into a conservation fund
Their second-round signatures, which were due June 17, need to be certified by the Secretary of State in July. Legislative compromises could result in a ballot committee agreeing to withdraw a proposal before then.
Three other initiative questions were rejected from the ballot due to Supreme Judicial Court decisions: rent control, an income tax cut, and reform of legislators’ stipends.
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This story was originally published by The New Bedford Light and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.