In several ways, the battle over ballot questions this year pitted Massachusetts voters against the Legislature. And on several of those questions, the voters won — at least for now.
The sheer number of ballot questions was its own commentary on public dissatisfaction with the Legislature’s unwillingness or inability to get the job done. The nine measures tied a record set in 1994, and let’s not forget that a dozen initiative petitions were headed for the ballot before the state’s highest court invalidated two of them and found a third one unconstitutional in an advisory opinion. (The latter — an effort to reform the Legislature’s leadership loyalty-boosting stipend system — found new life as a nonbinding public policy question on the ballot in 21 cities and towns.)
Question 1, which will bring the Legislature and the governor’s office under the state’s public records law for the first time, won overwhelmingly. At its core, it is a direct “take-that” slap at the Legislature (as well as a governor who has often been prickly about parting with what should be public information). Its passage ends the state’s outlier status nationally.
But lawmakers, with a near paranoid aversion to the kind of sunlight the ballot law envisions, have their own rewrite of it waiting in the wings. The House version is a sham of a proposal that would have the effect of undoing much of what voters just approved as it relates to the Legislature.
Another hit with voters was Question 4, allowing same-day election registration. The initiative was born of Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s years-long frustration with getting this relatively simple concept — in effect in 24 other states and the District of Columbia — passed by the Legislature. When the House just couldn’t bring itself to pass it, Galvin spearheaded this end-run around that legislative roadblock.
One sure way to get lawmakers’ attention is to cut into the amount of money they have to throw around, especially on their pet projects in their usual and thoroughly nontransparent way. That is what Question 6, which passed handily, is intended to do. It would divert a portion of the sales tax collected on sporting goods, recreational vehicles, and golf courses into a fund dedicated to natural resource conservation. And who doesn’t want to protect wildlife and wildernesses? It’s the ultimate feel-good kind of ballot question. Problem is, it could be as ephemeral as the leaves left on the trees — subject to the whims of a Legislature that still controls the entirety of the state budget.
Question 5, changing the way the state calculates its annual revenue cap, may have been a tad arcane, but it would have been certain to do two things — put more money back in taxpayers’ pockets via tax rebates and leave less for lawmakers to spend. On this one, the Legislature might have won: Though votes were still being counted this morning, the measure looked headed for defeat.
Of course, the ultimate whack upside the head for legislators was Question 3, the all-party primary, with its potential to increase competition, especially at the legislative level, where it’s most needed. This year only 57 of 200 legislative seats were contested. But done in from the left, who didn’t trust its well-heeled backers, and party regulars of both parties, who feared it would dilute their power, it went down soundly to defeat.
Not unexpectedly, Massachusetts voters opted to keep the state’s nearly decade-old recreational marijuana law — itself a product originally of a 2016 voter ballot effort (as later amended by the Legislature). So with the election in our rear-view mirror, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
Rachelle G. Cohen is a Globe opinion writer. She can be reached at rachelle.cohen@globe.com.