Massachusetts residents proposed a record-breaking number of potential ballot questions this year, and almost all of them survived a constitutional review by Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office.
That means voters could be deciding on a wide mix of consequential policy matters in the 2026 state election, from housing to taxes to election reforms.
Campbell on Wednesday announced that 44 of the 47 initiative petitions filed last month meet ballot-eligibility standards set under the state constitution.
Four of those are proposed constitutional amendments that could not go before voters until 2028. Proposed constitutional amendments take a longer path to the ballot, with additional hurdles. State lawmakers must sign off twice on a suggested amendment, over multiple years, before the idea can have a chance to go before voters. The other 40 initiative petitions propose new laws that could land in front of voters next year.
Those 40 potential questions include several that speak directly to elections and government. Various measures would allow voters to register on Election Day, require voters to show ID at the polls, adopt a nonpartisan system for primary elections, change how state lawmakers get paid, and extend the Massachusetts public records law to cover both the Legislature and the governor’s office.
Other proposals would undo the state law allowing the sale of recreational marijuana, institute a statewide cap on annual rent increases, repeal the MBTA Communities multifamily zoning law, and lower the state’s 5% income tax rate to 4%.
“I don’t think there’ll be that many at the end of the process, so I don’t think voters will have more than a half a dozen questions to address,” Christopher Anderson, president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council, told GBH News. “But it is an interesting indication that the Legislature really is not the source and summit of major-impact policy changes in Massachusetts — either good or bad, depending on your perspective.”
Anderson is part of a coalition that backs both the income tax question and another that would change the law that limits how much revenue the state can collect each year, with the goal of sending more money back to taxpayers.
Anderson said the state budget has grown more quickly than household incomes, as families and businesses grapple with high costs.
“We’ve got to do something different,” he said. “And the population here is demanding a voice, and we want to give them a voice to exercise where their preferences lie.”
The ballot-question field will narrow, possibly dramatically, before voters have their say in November 2026. Some groups filed multiple versions of the same question and will settle on final language later on, moving ahead with only one iteration.
Some questions will face legal challenges that could knock them out of contention, and some campaigns will fail to collect the tens of thousands of voter signatures necessary to secure a spot on the ballot, or will simply drop out of the process.
Lawmakers, too, can end a ballot push by passing an initiative themselves or putting forward a compromise that satisfies the proponents.
Ballot questions can inspire intense and expensive campaigns.
Greg Vasil, CEO of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, said in a statement Wednesday that the real estate industry plans to fight the question seeking to limit annual rent increases “every step of the way.” He called rent control “a flawed, harmful policy.”
And the Fiscal Alliance Foundation suggested a possible challenge coming for the rent-stabilization question, describing Campbell’s certification as “legally unsound.”
The backers of that measure, though, say they are excited to get to work gathering signatures. Ballot campaigns must submit almost 75,000 signatures to state officials by early December to advance to the next stage of the process.
“Massachusetts needs basic protections against excessive rent hikes to keep people in their homes, support working families, and stabilize our communities,” New England Community Project executive director Noemi “Mimi” Ramos said in a statement. “By coming together to win modern rent stabilization, we can keep Massachusetts home for all of us.”
