CLT
UPDATE
Thursday, August 7, 2003
Smokers stalked by tax headhunters;
11 petitions filed by deadline
As troubling is its utter unfairness. Only union leaders' narrow political interest is funded by the payroll deduction, paying for radio ads, for instance, supporting new taxes.
Why not allow all manner of political causes to be funded this way? For that matter, why not let candidates use payroll deductions to raise funds for their campaigns? The potential for abuse exposes the folly of allowing the deduction for political purposes at all.
A Boston Herald editorial
Wednesday, August 6, 2003
Union checkoff is unfair
The Massachusetts Revenue Department is stepping up efforts to collect excise taxes from people buying cigarettes on the Internet, tracking down scofflaws through the companies that deliver the cigarettes to them.
The state is threatening to take harsh action against those who don't pay the cigarette excise tax of $1.51 a pack, warning that those who fail to turn over the money may have a lien placed on their assets, their property seized, or their income garnished. Forty residents had final collection notices hand-delivered to their homes in June....
Governor Mitt Romney has taken more interest in collecting Internet sales taxes of all sorts than his predecessors. Under Romney, Massachusetts has joined a group of states working on Internet taxation issues. The governor hasn't taken a formal position yet....
Last fall, the Revenue Department asked hundreds of Internet cigarette retailers to turn over the names of their Massachusetts customers, but only 10 have complied. In May, the agency issued an administrative summons to an unidentified delivery company, demanding the names of Massachusetts customers to whom it delivered cigarettes for Internet
retailers....
Officials at UPS and Federal Express, the nation's two largest private delivery companies, said they had not been contacted. A UPS spokesman said his firm would fight efforts by the Revenue Department to collect the names of its customers. "We keep confidential information confidential," said David Bolger. "We are not a tax collector. We are a delivery service provider."
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, August 6, 2003
State turns up heat on cigarette tax scofflaws
Enforcement bid aims for Internet buyers
Two independent interest groups filed petitions with the Attorney General's office Monday to have questions placed on the statewide November 2004 ballot that would outlaw popular commercial fishing gear and abolish the auto excise tax.
The second initiative, led by Republican activist Jack E. Robinson would abolish the 75-year-old auto excise tax, administered by local governments. Robinson estimated through an informal polling of Massachusetts residents that nearly 85 percent of people asked would support the elimination of the auto tax.
State House News Service
Tuesday, August 5, 2003
Initiative petitions would ban gill nets, wipe out excise tax
Another grassroots group, Citizens Against Tolls, has launched an initiative petition effort Wednesday to eliminate tolls on the Tobin Bridge and Massachusetts Turnpike, west of the Route 128 junction. In addition, the petition would reduce the five member Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board to three members. The members would be the state Treasurer, state Secretary of Transportation and Construction, and state Secretary of Administration and Finance. The measure additionally seeks to reform the appeal process for violators of the turnpike's Fast Lane toll payment system.
A petition co-signer, Republican activist Ian Bayne, said the effort is tied to wishes of voters to pay lower taxes. Noting support for last year's non-binding [sic - it would have been binding] question to repeal the income tax, Bayne said, "people think there's too much money being taken out of our pockets." He added: "It's a terrible inconvenience to have to stop and throw money in a bowl to get home. It's dangerous, and it stops traffic."
State House News Service
Wednesday, August 6, 2003
Health care, MCAS and tolls
added to list of possible ballot questions
Meeting today's 5 p.m. deadline, nine groups have filed initiative petitions for proposed laws or constitutional amendments with Attorney General Tom Reilly's Office for inclusion on the Commonwealth's 2004 and 2006 ballots.
Office of Attorney General Tom Reilly
August 6, 2003
AG Reilly's office receives initiative petitions
proposing 11 laws and 3 constitutional amendments
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
If you're a smoker buying your cigarettes
out-of-state run for the hills, the tax Gestapo is hunting you down and
taking no hostages! They've got the rack waiting for you. Now that
Massachusetts has the highest tax on cigarettes in the country ($1.51 a
pack), tracking down smokers who buy out-of-state where they can still
afford it has become a revenue department jihad. The state must ratchet
up its intimidation and persecution if it is to squeeze smokers dry of
every cent in taxes it can extract.
Though "cigarette tax revenues were up nearly 63 percent in fiscal 2003 to $37.2
million" even without the dragnet to hunt down those outlaw
tax-evaders, besieged smokers, that is still not enough. But what other
class is so easily victimized?
This was to be anticipated. When taxes become
unbearable they are avoided. When enough evade, it becomes not only
profitable to hound them down -- even "have a lien placed on their assets, their property seized, or their income
garnished" -- but Government must make an example of its power.
Exiled smokers huddled outside lounge and restaurant entrances are the
perfect unsympathetic target.
Warning: This is just a warm-up exercise for taxing
all of us for any Internet and catalogue purchases we make without
paying the state's sales tax, which apparently even Gov. Romney is
considering these days. No doubt in keeping with his No New Taxes
promise he'll again call the new tax a "user fee." If the
state can intimidate delivery businesses into providing confidential
information on private out-of-state purchases there's nothing to stop
them from coming after you next.
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Rumor had it recently that there would be no
initiative petitions filed this year, largely due to the Legislature's
recent and regular arrogance in ignoring or overturning the will of the
voting majority. We at CLT decided it is a waste of time, money and
months of intense labor to pursue this fading constitutional right until
something changes on Beacon Hill, like a turnover of a majority of
arrogant, defiant legislators.
In a letter yesterday , the state attorney general's
office reported:
For the 2002 statewide election, 27 initiative
petitions were submitted, with only two making it to the ballot. In
2000, six of 33 initiative petitions submitted made it to the ballot.
In 1998, two of 26 petitions submitted made it to the ballot; only one
of 26 proposed ballot initiatives went before voters in 1996; and, in
1994, seven of 42 initiatives submitted appeared on the ballot.
The eleven petitions filed this year apparently
reflect either a new satisfaction level with the Beacon Hill status quo
or a broad recognition of the new futility by organizations which
regularly use the process. CLT is among the latter.
But it's good to see the process at least is still on
life support if not actively alive so the public muscle isn't allowed to
entirely atrophy. Many, like the two proposals by a Peabody man to instruct
the Legislature to support One-World Government, will never get the
signatures and make it to the ballot and shouldn't.
There are two tax/toll initiatives filed: Jack E.
Robinson's auto excise tax repeal and yet another attempt to repeal
tolls on the MassPike.
"The hated auto excise tax could meet its
demise, under another proposed ballot question to exempt cars and
trailers from all excise taxes, personal property taxes and local option
sales taxes," the Boston Herald reported today ("Ballot question would let municipalities skip MCAS" by Elisabeth J. Beardsley).
If sufficient signatures can be collected and this one makes it onto the
2004 ballot, my money's on it easily passing ... for whatever that's
worth any more.
You can find more information on the auto
excise tax repeal petition and signature drive at Axe
the Auto Tax.
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Chip
Ford |
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, August 6, 2003
A Boston Herald editorial
Union checkoff is unfair
You've got to admire the guy's chutzpah. Unfazed by organized labor's much ballyhooed but overrated political muscle, Gov. Mitt Romney is challenging the practice of state employee unions using state resources to run a political fund-raising operation.
This is a somewhat different twist on the "paycheck protection" fight that embroiled states in the late 1990s, but its reasoning is just as compelling.
The 50-cent weekly payroll deduction for the unions' political action committee is voluntary. But it's administered by the state comptroller and state law prohibits political fundraising on state property, or using public resources.
As troubling is its utter unfairness. Only union leaders' narrow political interest is funded by the payroll deduction, paying for radio ads, for instance, supporting new taxes.
Why not allow all manner of political causes to be funded this way? For that matter, why not let candidates use payroll deductions to raise funds for their campaigns? The potential for abuse exposes the folly of allowing the deduction for political purposes at all.
That only 4,630 of the state's 37,000 eligible employees participate also speaks volumes about the rank and file's support for the union leaders' political agenda.
The money involved here is not huge, but the symbolism is. Organized labor's political power, even when wielded improperly, has long gone unchallenged on Beacon Hill. Romney has picked a reform fight that he should win.
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The Boston Globe
Wednesday, August 6, 2003
State turns up heat on cigarette tax scofflaws
Enforcement bid aims for Internet buyers
By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff
The Massachusetts Revenue Department is stepping up efforts to collect excise taxes from people buying cigarettes on the Internet, tracking down scofflaws through the companies that deliver the cigarettes to them.
The state is threatening to take harsh action against those who don't pay the cigarette excise tax of $1.51 a pack, warning that those who fail to turn over the money may have a lien placed on their assets, their property seized, or their income garnished. Forty residents had final collection notices hand-delivered to their homes in June.
Bob Kalell, director of the Revenue Department's audit division, said the goal of the enforcement effort is to collect money owed the state and to protect Massachusetts-based cigarette wholesalers and retailers from unfair competition. He said most consumers who buy cigarettes on the Internet are trying to evade taxes and cut their costs.
"They're fully aware of what they're doing and we're trying to make them aware of what their responsibilities are," Kalell said.
Revenue Department officials say they don't know how much revenue their aggressive enforcement effort will yield. Many analysts suspect rising cigarette tax rates are leading more and more smokers to New Hampshire or to the Internet to buy cigarettes, but to date the state's enforcement effort has brought in only $83,038.
Many consumers are under the mistaken impression that items purchased over the Internet are tax-exempt. Kalell said many Internet cigarette retailers add to the confusion by claiming tax-exempt status in ads. Kalell said the state is only attempting to collect unpaid cigarette excise taxes, but may pursue uncollected use taxes -- the equivalent of the 5 percent sales tax -- in the future.
Governor Mitt Romney has taken more interest in collecting Internet sales taxes of all sorts than his predecessors. Under Romney, Massachusetts has joined a group of states working on Internet taxation issues. The governor hasn't taken a formal position yet.
Massachusetts hiked the excise tax on cigarettes from 76 cents to $1.51 a pack last year. At the same time, the Legislature ordered the Revenue Department to aggressively collect tobacco excise taxes from those buying cigarettes across state lines. Many Internet retailers, particularly those on Indian reservations, sell their packs at cut-rate prices without collecting excise and sales taxes.
Last fall, the Revenue Department asked hundreds of Internet cigarette retailers to turn over the names of their Massachusetts customers, but only 10 have complied. In May, the agency issued an administrative summons to an unidentified delivery company, demanding the names of Massachusetts customers to whom it delivered cigarettes for Internet retailers.
The delivery company turned over the names of 5,082 customers, whom the Revenue Department is now contacting. The agency has even developed a special excise tax return (Form CT-11) for smokers buying cigarettes on the Internet.
Revenue Department officials declined to identify the delivery company that provided the information, and said they would probably contact other delivery firms.
Officials at UPS and Federal Express, the nation's two largest private delivery companies, said they had not been contacted. A UPS spokesman said his firm would fight efforts by the Revenue Department to collect the names of its customers. "We keep confidential information confidential," said David Bolger. "We are not a tax collector. We are a delivery service provider."
The enforcement effort and the state's higher cigarette taxes are having an impact on cigarette sales here. The number of tax stamps sold, which tracks the number of packs sold, fell nearly 15 percent in the fiscal year which ended June 30, according to the Revenue Department. However, cigarette tax revenues were up nearly 63 percent in fiscal 2003 to $37.2 million, reflecting the excise tax increase.
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State House News Service
Tuesday, August 5, 2003
Initiative petitions would ban gill nets, wipe out excise tax
By Amy Lambiaso
Two independent interest groups filed petitions with the Attorney General's office Monday to have questions placed on the statewide November 2004 ballot that would outlaw popular commercial fishing gear and abolish the auto excise tax.
Wednesday marks the official deadline for filing petition language to be approved by the AG.
Green World, a national group protecting the interests of endangered species, is sponsoring an initiative to prohibit the use of gill nets, drift nets, or "any other kind of gear that basically suspends a curtain of mesh material" by a commercial fisherman. It would also require the Secretary of the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs to regulate and examine and license all commercial fishing gear annually to ensure the safety of whales and sea turtles....
The second initiative, led by Republican activist Jack E. Robinson would abolish the 75-year-old auto excise tax, administered by local governments. Robinson estimated through an informal polling of Massachusetts residents that nearly 85 percent of people asked would support the elimination of the auto tax.
An excise tax is charged on every registered vehicle in the state, based on the assessed value of the car. According to the question's sponsoring committee, Axe the Auto Tax, the tax is based on 90 percent of the car's value and drops on a sliding scale to 10 percent of the value when the car is five years old. After the fifth year, the tax is set at 10 percent of value for the remaining life of the car, with a minimum excise tax of $5.
Robinson said the average car owner pays roughly $300 per year for the auto tax.
All auto tax bills are paid to local cities and towns and placed in the municipalities' general fund. According to the Department of Revenue, nearly $598 million was collected from the auto excise tax in fiscal year 2002, the most recent data available.
"Cities and towns can afford to do away with it," said Robinson. "What we're really trying to do is take the car out of the tax base."
The petition, labeled the "Motor Vehicle Tax Relief Act of 2004," would exempt "motor vehicles and trailers from excise tax, personal property tax and local option sales tax."
Currently, Robinson said 11 states have no auto excise tax. Washington abolished the tax by initiative petition last year. California is considering elimination of the tax on this year's ballot.
The AG's office has until Sept. 3 to examine the exact language on the two petitions filed by the close of business Tuesday. After Sept. 3, sponsors of questions Attorney General Thomas Reilly deems fit for the ballot must file their paperwork with Secretary of State William Galvin's office. Copies will then be made available for registered voters to sign, including petitions for use by paid signature gatherers.
Groups must collect the required 65,825 voter signatures, based on voter turnout from the last gubernatorial election, by Nov. 19 to keep their initiatives on track for the 2004 ballot.
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State House News Service
Wednesday, August 6, 2003
Health care, MCAS and tolls added to list of possible ballot questions
By Michael P. Norton
Universal health care proponents are adopting a new strategy - amending the state constitution - in their bid to force change in Massachusetts.
Rather than proposing a new law, which the Legislature could alter or ignore even if adopted by voters statewide, a coalition on Wednesday filed a proposed constitutional amendment with Attorney General Thomas Reilly's office. The legal deadline is today. The coalition includes lawyers from high-powered Boston firms, doctors from major hospitals, the head of the state's Democratic Party and top advocates for nurses and the homeless.
The amendment would make access to health care a constitutional right. Advocates hope that if it's adopted - the earliest it could reach the statewide ballot would be 2006 - the amendment would make it the "obligation and duty" of the Legislature to enacts laws to implement it.
"This would be a very exciting thing if we could pull this off and we're hoping to do just that," sad Dr. John D. Goodson of Newton, a Massachusetts General Hospital internist and associate professor at Harvard Medical School. "This is a big deal It's a huge challenge."
The amendment was one of several ballot proposals filed with Reilly's office before Wednesday's 5 pm deadline. In addition to plan filed Tuesday to abolish the auto excise tax and ban certain types of fishing nets, proposals filed today would wipe out specific varieties of tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike and allow school districts to circumvent the statewide requirement that students pass the MCAS exam to be eligible for a diploma.
Goodson said health coverage these days is unfairly determined by one's socio-economic status.
"We have public education because John Adams wrote that into the Constitution," he said. "This is the next step in that process. We chose the constitutional route because we felt that this was at that level of social commitment. This is really a major part of the social contract, so to speak."
The amendments calls for passage of laws that "will ensure that no Massachusetts resident lacks comprehensive, affordable, equitably financed health insurance coverage for all medically necessary preventive, acute and chronic health care and mental health care services, prescription drugs and devices."
The amendment is not accompanied by a price tag for universal care. The cost of health care for most Massachusetts residents is covered by employer-sponsored insurance plans, taxpayer-funded health care programs and by surcharges on insurers, hospitals and the state that pay for care to the uninsured.
There are 408,000 people, or more than 7 percent of all Massachusetts residents, without health insurance in 2002, according to the latest official state estimate. Many activists believe that number is higher.
Critics of universal care proposals have argued its costs are prohibitive and it's never been clear whether the government or employers would be charged with delivering coverage. Goodson says coverage can be provided to all merely by shifting billions of dollars away from administration and towards actual care.
Barbara Waters Roop of Boston, a policy analyst, attorney and former general counsel in the economic affairs secretariat of the Dukakis administration, said the constitutional amendment addresses concerns of all the stakeholders in the health care system.
Employers and insurers are troubled by rising costs. Those with insurance face higher costs and fear the loss of benefits. Emergency rooms are overcrowded. Practitioners are saddled with paperwork. People without insurance are nervous about getting sick. And health care providers are losing money.
"This is really designed to address the very serious interests of many, many different interest groups," said
Roop. "This is something that government, both state and federal, have been grappling with for decades. There is a broad dissatisfaction with the system in its present form. We just seem unable to come up with a solution. It's a hard, hard problem to solve and it's my hope that this will create momentum to come to some kind of solution that makes our health care system accessible to everyone and sustainable."
To reach the ballot in 2006, amendment sponsors must gather 65,825 registered voter signatures by November and then get their amendment approved by 50 of the 200 members of the state Legislature sitting in a Constitutional Convention both in 2004 and again in the 2005-2006 session. It's an intentionally lengthy process. Goodson said activists are just now gearing up organizationally.
Sponsors of initiative petition language filed this week hope to get on the ballot in 2004.
Transportation and Education Initiatives
Another grassroots group, Citizens Against Tolls, has launched an initiative petition effort Wednesday to eliminate tolls on the Tobin Bridge and Massachusetts Turnpike, west of the Route 128 junction. In addition, the petition would reduce the five member Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board to three members. The members would be the state Treasurer, state Secretary of Transportation and Construction, and state Secretary of Administration and Finance. The measure additionally seeks to reform the appeal process for violators of the turnpike's Fast Lane toll payment system.
A petition co-signer, Republican activist Ian Bayne, said the effort is tied to wishes of voters to pay lower taxes. Noting support for last year's non-binding [sic - it would have been binding] question to repeal the income tax, Bayne said, "people think there's too much money being taken out of our pockets." He added: "It's a terrible inconvenience to have to stop and throw money in a bowl to get home. It's dangerous, and it stops traffic."
The petition's lead sponsor, Newton resident Alisia Jezierny, said turnpike tolls were originally designed to pay for the construction of the toll road. "Twenty years later, the tolls are still there," Jezierny said. "This is going to make everybody's life a little easier."
Jezierny said there will be a future effort to abolish tolls on the turnpike within the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Highway System jurisdiction, an entity created by the Legislature in 1997 to oversee the eastern portion of the turnpike. The so-called Boston Extension includes 15 miles from the Route 128 intersection to Logan Airport, and through the Sumner/Callahan and Ted Williams tunnels.
Turnpike officials count on toll revenues collected west of Rte. 128 to pay for operation and upkeep of the road out to the New York border. Tolls collected east of 128 pay for that road's maintenance as well as the turnpike's portion of the Big Dig's financing.
According to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, $108.5 million in tolls was collected in 2002 on the western portion of the Mass Pike. Those revenues are used for operation and maintenance, debt service from building the Pike, and capital improvements, such as paving and resurfacing, said spokesman Doug
Hanchett.
Also on Wednesday, a group of 16 MCAS opponents filed initiative petition language that would bring graduation requirements back to the local level, allowing for a fairer "assessment of our student's academic achievement," said the lead sponsor, Granby resident Wayne Masse.
The petition, if it reaches the voters and gains their approval, would allow graduation requirements to be determined by the individual school committees. "What has happened is they've taken a child's entire education, with all the ups and downs, and are lumping it into one test," Masse said. "We need a more broad-based assessment where more things are taken into account, and it is based on their abilities, not their inabilities."
The Class of 2003 was the first class required to pass the MCAS exam to receive a state-sponsored diploma. School districts can opt to grant local certificates to students not achieving a passing score on the MCAS exam, good for entrance into community colleges and some forms of the military.
According to the Department of Education, 55,810 students in this year's graduating class passed the MCAS exam, while 4,178 students have not achieved the 220 passing score.
"We think where we've set the standard is important," said Kimberly Beck, spokeswoman for the Department of Education. "We've seen, by and large, students can make the standard and we think where we are is a better place for students to be."
Paul Anderson of Peabody on Wednesday filed constitutional amendment language calling for the Legislature to vote to join a Commonwealth of Democratic Nations comprised of all free nations. Anderson said the new tier of international government could address global problems and peacekeeping around the word. Anderson is a member of the Washington-based Association to Unite Democracies.
The More Choices, More Voices Campaign has also launched a movement to change elections, allowing more than one party to endorse a candidate during any election. Rand Wilson, heading the campaign, said the change would repeal a more than century-old state law that prohibits different political parties from endorsing another candidate.
"This allows citizens dissatisfied with the platform of the major parties, but don't want to waste their vote, a chance to express themselves while forming coalitions," Wilson said. "One of the biggest concerns voters have is about wasting their vote or being a spoiler," but this won't result in either.
Wilson said this initiative will encourage more political participation by voters who are typically "scared off" by hearing their vote will be buried by the dominant two-party candidates.
The initiative is sponsored mainly by local labor unions and community organizations, Wilson said, and will likely be supported by the Democratic and Republican Parties hoping to increase its voter base.
On Monday, two other prospective ballot campaigns filed ballot proposal. Those initiative petitions would eliminate the automobile excise tax and require the use of fishing gear that is safe for whales.
The attorney general will now review the initiatives to make sure that what they propose is constitutional. After he certifies them, signature gathering can begin.
Two initiatives were under last-second review as the 5 pm deadline for submission came and went today. One four-page initiative, filed by the head of the Professional Fire Fighters of Mass., deals with binding arbitration for police officers and fire fighters. The second, on casino gambling, may not have enough original signers to qualify, an AG spokesman said.
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Office of Attorney General Tom Reilly
August 6, 2003
AG Reilly's office receives initiative petitions
proposing 11 laws and 3 constitutional amendments
Certification Decisions Due On September 3
BOSTON -- Meeting today's 5 p.m. deadline, nine groups have filed initiative petitions for proposed laws or constitutional amendments with Attorney General Tom Reilly's Office for inclusion on the Commonwealth's 2004 and 2006 ballots.
Among the 11 proposed initiatives for the 2004 ballot are acts to allow local school officials to set graduation requirements, eliminate the motor vehicle excise tax, eliminate the collection of tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike west of Route 128 and on the Tobin Bridge, allow candidates for public office to be nominated by more than one political party, and establish binding arbitration in contract negotiations of fire fighters and police officers. One initiative petition to legalize casino gambling in the Commonwealth was filed but fell short of the required 10 signatures. Some initiative petition sponsors submitted more than one version of a petition on the same topic.
Also filed were three proposed constitutional amendments for the 2006 ballot: one amendment to require the Commonwealth to provide comprehensive and affordable health insurance for state residents and two versions of an amendment to allow Massachusetts residents to exercise their right of self-government through a federal union of democratic nations.
A list of all the petitions and their contact persons is attached. To view the list and complete text of each petition, please visit
AG Reilly's website, then look under Government Access and then Initiative Petitions, or
directly visit.
"These petition initiatives provide citizens with an important opportunity to directly create or change laws in our Commonwealth," AG Reilly said. "My office will conduct a thorough constitutional review of these proposed questions to decide whether they are eligible to go before the voters in the upcoming statewide elections."
Today's filing deadline is only the start of the process to get the proposed laws on the ballot for next year's statewide election. According to state law, AG Reilly's Office will decide after a comprehensive review whether the initiative petitions meet constitutional requirements and can be certified to file with the Secretary of State. The deadline for certification is Wednesday, September 3. The personal policy views of the Attorney General or any members of AG Reilly's Office play no role in the certification decisions. AG Reilly's Office welcomes public input on whether a petition may be legally certified.
Following certification, proponents are required to gather and file the signatures of 65,825 registered voters by December 3, 2003. Once the requisite signatures are obtained, the proposal is sent to the state Legislature to enact before the first Wednesday in May 2004. If the Legislature fails to enact the proposal, its proponents must gather another 10,971 signatures from registered voters by early July 2004 to place the initiative on the 2004 ballot.
The process for proposed constitutional amendments is different, requiring approval by at least 25% of the Legislature in 2004 and then again in 2005-06 before appearing on the November 2006 ballot.
The Massachusetts Constitution requires that proposed initiatives be in the proper form for submission to voters, not be substantially the same as any measure on the ballot in either of the two preceding statewide elections, contain only subjects that are related or mutually dependent, and not involve subjects that are specifically excluded from the ballot initiative process by the state Constitution.
For example, a petition cannot be approved if it relates to religion, religious practices or religious institutions; the powers, creation or abolition of the courts; the appointment, compensation or tenure of judges; a specific appropriation of funds from the state treasury; or if it infringes on other protected constitutional rights, such as trial by jury, freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
Voters who take issue with AG Reilly's certification decisions can ask the Supreme Judicial Court for a review - a process that will be expedited with the help of AG Reilly's Office. The AG's certification decisions are almost always upheld.
The initiative petition process was established in 1918 when the voters in the Commonwealth approved Article 48 of the state Constitution.
For the 2002 statewide election, 27 initiative petitions were submitted, with only two making it to the ballot. In 2000, six of 33 initiative petitions submitted made it to the ballot. In 1998, two of 26 petitions submitted made it to the ballot; only one of 26 proposed ballot initiatives went before voters in 1996; and, in 1994, seven of 42 initiatives submitted appeared on the ballot.
Assistant Attorney General Peter Sacks of AG Reilly's Government Bureau will coordinate the certification review.
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NOTE: In accordance with Title 17
U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or
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information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For
more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
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