The Boston Globe
Sunday, December 29, 2002
Measure targets ballot drives
Required signatures would rise to 100,000
By Joanna Weiss
Globe Staff
The citizens' initiative petition, a process that created
the Clean Elections Law and nearly wiped out the state income tax last month, would become more
difficult for residents to use under a bill filed by a state senator.
Stanley C. Rosenberg's bill would sharply increase the
number of certified signatures required to put a question on the ballot, raising it for the next
election cycle from 72,000 to 100,000.
Rosenberg, an Amherst Democrat, said he was inspired by a
recent national study finding that initiative petitions are open to manipulation by wealthy
special-interest groups. He said the bill would bring the law in step with the
realities of today's ballot drives, which increasingly rely on paid signature-gatherers and large out-of-state financial donations.
The measure, which requires a change in the state constitution and approval by
voters, would also tighten financial reporting requirements for initiative
petitions, ordering swifter disclosure of large donations.
But if it gains momentum in the Legislature - an open
question, since lawmakers are expected to be embroiled in a budget crisis - the bill could also
set off a debate over whether the initiative process, which has helped shape
Massachusetts law since 1917, is still a useful or necessary tool. Some
government watchdogs and advocacy groups see the bill as a veiled attempt by
lawmakers to kill the process outright, since it has produced results that
legislators don't like.
The Legislature has recently resisted funding the Clean
Elections Law, and it froze the income tax rollback voters passed in 2000, noted
Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited
Taxation, a group that has helped to pass some of the most prominent ballot measures in recent state
history.
Now, she said, lawmakers seem to have decided that "just
ignoring the petition after it passes isn't going to be enough forever. Therefore, they felt they should
probably get out there now and drive a stake through its heart."
And Pam Wilmot, director of Common Cause Massachusetts,
notes that the mere threat of citizen-driven initiative petitions, which differ from
Legislature-introduced referendums, has been useful in persuading the Legislature to
create a state Ethics Commission and implement other reforms.
"It's the best way to make law when you have tons of support
for an issue and the Legislature's just not listening," she said.
But with higher signature requirements, she said, the
process could become so arduous that only people who could afford to pay signature-gatherers would be
able to put questions on the ballot.
Rosenberg admits that he is no fan of the initiative
process; he would prefer nonbinding advisory questions to guide lawmakers about public sentiment. But
he said he believes voters across the state want to keep ballot petitions in place.
"This is fine-tuning," he said. "If I wanted to kill it, I
would have filed a bill to repeal it."
Initiative petitions are responsible for some of the most
dramatic changes in Massachusetts law in the last few decades. In 1980, voters statewide passed
Proposition 2½, a measure that limits increases in local property tax rates. In
1994, they passed a measure that ended rent control in Boston and Cambridge.
This past November, voters faced two initiative petitions.
They approved an initiative financed by California millionaire Ron Unz to replace bilingual
education with English immersion classes. And they rejected a bid, spearheaded by Libertarian
gubernatorial candidate Carla Howell, to eliminate the state income tax. But that measure received more support than many
political analysts had predicted, startling some lawmakers.
Some critics of the process point to the income tax vote -
which opponents said would have wreaked further havoc on the budget - to explain what's wrong
with the initiative process. Voters aren't always fully aware of the financial
impact a ballot question will have, Rosenberg said.
"We are making more and more complicated laws and more and
more simplistic, one-sided bills," he said. "A very simplistic title and message is all
they usually use to get people to sign at the supermarket to get it on the ballot.
And then once it's on the ballot, you're halfway there."
But Anderson said it's hardly easy to get initiative
petitions on the ballot. The current state law requires signatures from 3 percent of the number of votes
cast in the most recent gubernatorial election, plus another one-half of 1
percent if the Legislature chooses not to take up the bill on its own. But to
discourage legal challenges to the validity of signatures, which she said have
become commonplace, her group now tries to collect twice as many signatures
as it needs.
During a petition drive, she said, "you just forget about
having a life. It's constant 40, 80 hours a week, weekends. That's when you're out petitioning,
you're organizing. You just don't do anything else."
The proposed bill, cosponsored by Representative Robert P.
Spellane, a Worcester Democrat, would change the requirement to 2.5 percent of the
number of registered voters, a higher number.
It would also change the way the ballot questions, and the
publicly disseminated information about them, are written.
Drafting of the questions has become a controversial
process, as opponents have accused one another of manipulating the wording to get desired results.
Currently, the secretary of state and attorney general are
responsible for the wording of ballot questions and informational summaries. The bill would create
a commission, filled with members of advocacy and watchdog groups, that
would hold public hearings and vote on the wording.
But Wilmot said that process itself would be vulnerable to
logistical difficulties and political machinations.
Spellane said the bill would also address the mechanics of
signature-gathering, requiring groups to collect signatures for one initiative petition at a time. This
winter, an Arizona-based company collected signatures for a drive to protect
horses from slaughterhouses at the same time it was gathering signatures for a
drive to ban gay marriage - prompting some residents to complain, after the
fact, that they didn't know which petition they were signing.
"We're trying to prevent mistakes like that from happening,"
Spellane said. "We're looking to inform the public more of what goes into these petitions."
Spellane said supporters of the bill have collected support
from at least a dozen House members. Because changing the number of signatures required would
mean a change to the state constitution, it would need a public vote to pass.
Wilmot said advocacy groups will work to fight some measures
of the bill, while supporting increased financial disclosure requirements.
And on her own group's Web
site, Anderson has already put out a call for action, complete with a quote from Revolutionary
War hero John Paul Jones: "We have not yet begun to fight."
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The Hampshire Gazette
Tuesday, December 3, 2002
Ballot question concerns
By Mary Carey
Staff Writer
The limitations of the ballot question process are more
apparent now than ever to some lawmakers, including state Sen.
Stanley C. Rosenberg, an Amherst Democrat.
Because he has been a member of the Senate leadership for
the past five years, Rosenberg has rarely filed bills of his own so that he wouldn't seem to use his
position to promote his own legislation.
This year, however, he plans to file two bills that will be
considered in the next legislative session, both having to do with an enduring concern of his: citizen
participation.
One would form a committee to study why voter turnout
continues to decline in Massachusetts.
The other would fine-tune the process by which citizens
write and approve their own laws as outlined in Article 48 of the state constitution.
There are no limitations now on paid signature gatherers;
there are very few limitations on how much money can be spent by proponents or opponents of a
question; and there isn't much of a process for deciding how a ballot question
should be worded.
The three statewide ballot questions this year illustrate
these and other potential pitfalls of the system in Rosenberg's view. Question 2, for instance, is
a case in which an individual targeted Massachusetts as a high-profile state in
which to pass a referendum, gaining a foothold to promote the cause nationally,
Rosenberg said.
Question 2, which was approved by a majority of voters,
eliminates bilingual education in favor of "sheltered immersion" in English. The referendum was
heavily financed by Silicon Valley millionaire Ronald Unz who was behind a
similar question approved in California.
As a further example of outside influence, Rosenberg cites
the group seeking to ban the slaughter of horses for consumption, which sought to put a question
banning that practice on the ballot.
The intent of the ballot question process is to give
citizens a way of enacting legislation if they think the government is unresponsive, said Rosenberg, who
sees the horse question as being irrelevant in Massachusetts. "Show me the
problem," he said.
Furthermore, Rosenberg pointed to confusion caused by the
same Phoenix-based company gathering signatures on petitions supporting the horse
question and another that would ban gay marriage in Massachusetts.
The group Save Our Horses said paid signature gatherers
duped voters into thinking they were signing the horse meat question when they were actually
signing the gay marriage question.
Rosenberg would subject the whole ballot question process to
more rigorous guidelines similar to those that political candidates now have to observe, with
greater disclosure of who is contributing how much money. And he would like
to have a commission appointed to help the secretary of state who now determines whether a question is fairly worded.
Finally, Rosenberg believes there is a problem with a
statewide vote on laws that only affect some populations or regions, such as the 1996 ballot question
which resulted in the banning of certain beaver traps.
The people of eastern Massachusetts, who outnumber the
western Massachusetts population by 10 to 1, may never have seen a beaver and are
even less likely to have a family of them cause flooding in their yard, but they
overwhelmingly approved the question, Rosenberg said.
"It was an emotional vote for them," he said. "They had no
practical experience with it."
State Rep. Stephen Kulik, D-Worthington, points to another
example of a question in 1994 to end rent control.
"There were only three communities, Brookline, Boston and
Cambridge, which had rent control and yet the whole rest of the state got to abolish it," Kulik said.
"The referendum process has been badly misused and I strongly support a
thorough review."
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The MetroWest Daily News
Sunday, December 29, 2002
Editorial
A pay raise legislators don't deserve
On Beacon Hill, the new year and a new administration are
coming in on the heels of another drop in state revenues. Numbers announced this week put this
year's state budget another $100 million in the hole, which may prompt
another round of service cuts and state employee layoffs.
Thanks to a constitutional amendment adopted in rosier
economic times, the new year will also bring something state legislators neither need nor deserve: a
pay raise.
The amendment, approved by voters in 1998, made sense at the
time. Legislative salaries had been a political football for years. The amendment took
the power to raise their salaries away from the legislators, instead instructing
the governor to adjust the raises every two years based on changes in the
state's median household income. There were no complaints two years ago
when, with state government awash in revenue and household incomes rising,
Gov. Paul Cellucci raised legislators' pay by 7 percent, to a base pay for state
representatives of $50,123.
Things are very different today. Faced with an unprecedented
drop in revenues, the Legislature has raised taxes and cut spending. State employees
have faced layoffs and unpaid furloughs. Acting Gov. Jane Swift has refused to
pay contracted salary increases to thousands of workers in the state higher
education system. The next year promises more of the same, and the image of
lawmakers taking a pay raise while cutting spending elsewhere is an embarrassment for politicians, an
outrage for taxpayers.
The mechanics of the pay raise pose practical as well as
political problems. While it is assumed median household incomes have increased in the last two
years, the U.S. Census won't have official figures until next fall. Cellucci used an
estimate derived by his staff, but given the circumstances, Gov.-elect Mitt
Romney - Swift apparently will pass the buck to her successor - will be
tempted to lowball any such estimate. The legality of that or other options,
including whether the Legislature can itself override the amendment's process,
will require further study. Meanwhile, lawmakers are advised to consider
turning down the raise or turning it over to charity.
But there's another pay raise the Legislature can, and
should, repeal. In 2000, lawmakers doubled their expense accounts on the pretext that under the rules
of the new Clean Elections system, campaign funds couldn't be used for office
expenses and constituent services. But the extra expense money wasn't limited
to incumbents running as Clean Elections candidates, nor was it restricted to
office expenses or monitored in any way. For all practical purposes, it was a pay
raise worth $300 a month for each legislator, peddled as compensation for the
hardships posed by campaign finance reform.
Last year, the Legislature all but killed the Clean
Elections reforms and its leaders intend to finish the job this year. But they haven't returned the
backdoor pay raise. What was a thinly-disguised cash grab then looks even
more craven now. Given the state of the state budget, and the Legislature's
underhanded handling of Clean Elections, the least the lawmakers can do is
repeal this $720,000 sweetening of their expense accounts.
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The Boston Herald
Sunday, December 29, 2002
Placing right bet on casinos:
Mitt brings a welcome skepticism to the table
by Wayne Woodlief
[Excerpt]
... So, thanks to Romney for slowing down this runaway gambling
train.
And maybe while he's at it, he can perform another feat of
fairness. See, legislators would get a roughly 7 percent pay raise, tied to the (usually rising)
median household income in Massachusetts, under the state constitution. But
the governor has to determine the amount of the raise. Aides to Swift say
she'll probably leave that hot potato on Romney's desk as she exits office this week.
A revenue crisis with layoffs of other state officials
looming is no time for these guys to get a raise. That's surely not what Romney had in mind when he
promised to "clean up the mess on Beacon Hill."
So teach 'em a lesson right off, Mitt. Let it be known
you'll go along with a pay raise, maybe - about the same time they implement the final phase of that tax
cut the voters also approved in 1998. [sic - 2000]
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The Patriot Ledger
Saturday, December 28, 2002
Prescription tax to be passed on;
Buyers to pony up for $1.30 levy
By Julie Jette
The Walgreens drugstore chain has joined CVS in planning to
pass on to customers a $1.30 state-mandated tax on most prescriptions.
The tax, approved by the Legislature as part of the budget,
is designed to raise $36 million for prescriptions paid for by Medicaid, the state's health care
program for the poor. It takes effect New Year's Day.
The fee will be imposed on any prescription filled by a
licensed retail pharmacy in Massachusetts, including mail-order pharmacies, long-term care pharmacies
and hospital pharmacies that provide outpatient drugs.
The $1.30 tax would be imposed from January to the end of
March, according to regulations the state is proposing. After that, it would be reduced to 65 cents
on each prescription.
The only prescriptions not subject to the fee are those
filled by Medicaid or Medicare.
Since Medicare does not have a comprehensive prescription
drug benefit, most Medicare patients will pay the tax. The Medicare exemption applies only to
people who receive prescription benefits through Medicare HMOs or those
buying the few drugs covered by Medicare.
CVS spokesman Todd Andrews said Friday that the company,
which has about 300 pharmacies in the state, has contacted insurance companies that offer drug
benefits to see if they would cover the cost.
"At this time, no prescription insurance (company) plans to
pay for this tax on behalf of its beneficiaries," Andrews said.
CVS and Walgreens said that with insurance companies
refusing to pay, they have no choice but to pass the tax onto customers.
"It's something that's going to have to be passed on to the
customer in the end," said Walgreens spokesman Michael Polzin.
A hearing on the implementation of the tax will be held
Monday at 9:30 a.m. at the headquarters of the Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, at 2
Boylston St., Boston.
But a spokeswoman for the division said the hearing will be
used to gather comments on the way the tax will be levied, not on whether it will be levied.
"The important thing to keep in mind is this is not a debate
over whether the pharmacy assignment will happen," said Heather Shannon, a spokeswoman for
the division. "The Legislature said that it would happen, they made that
decision."
The state does need approval from the federal government to
impose the tax, but a spokeswoman for the Division of Medical Assistance said that approval is
expected shortly.
The state's $6 billion Medicaid program has been hard hit by
budget cuts as the state has struggled to cope with sharply declining revenues.
Some 50,000 chronically unemployed people will lose their
MassHealth health insurance in April because of the cuts.
Benefits to those who are still covered have also been cut.
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The Boston Globe
Sunday, December 29, 2002
Some options to beat new prescription tax
By Bruce Mohl
Even as anger mounts over a new state prescription tax that
takes effect Wednesday, consumers are looking for ways to avoid it.
BJ's Wholesale Club, which operates three pharmacies in
Massachusetts and plans to open a fourth early next year, has announced that it intends to swallow
the tax and not pass it along to customers. It's unclear whether other
pharmacies will follow suit.
Consumers also can avoid the tax by buying their prescription drugs through
the mail. Mail-order purchases not only have lower insurance copayments but
sidestep the tax because the companies filling the prescriptions are generally
located outside Massachusetts.
The prescription tax was enacted in this year's state budget
to offset the rising cost of Medicaid, the state-administered insurance program for the poor and
disabled. The tax is supposed to raise $36 million a year, but since all state
money spent on Medicaid is matched by the federal government, it would
eventually yield $72 million.
Under state rules, the tax is being assessed on pharmacies
for all non-Medicaid and non-Medicare prescriptions they fill, an estimated 55 million a year.
With just six months left in this fiscal year, the tax is
being set at $1.30 initially. It is scheduled to drop to 65 cents when the next fiscal year starts July 1.
CVS Corp., the state's largest pharmacy chain, announced a
little over a week ago that it intended to collect the tax directly from consumers along with their
insurance copayments. A CVS spokesman said the chain views the new fee
much like a sales tax and decided to collect it in the same way.
Brooks Pharmacy and Walgreens, the second and third-largest
pharmacy chains in the state, have declined to say what they intend to do.
But, when I called individual Brooks and Walgreens stores in
the Boston area, officials at the pharmacies said they would be charging consumers the tax.
Independent pharmacies have indicated they will probably pass the tax along
to consumers as well.
BJ's is bucking the trend so far. The company, which
operates pharmacies at its stores in South Attleboro, Danvers, and Stoneham, and plans to open another
in Framingham next month or in February, said it plans to absorb the fee to
distinguish itself from its competitors.
"This is another way to offer our members value," said BJ's
spokeswoman Julie Somers. "We see this as a great opportunity."
Charles Burnett, who oversees pharmacy operations for Costco
Wholesale Club, said the company was investigating the new tax to determine whether the
state had the legal authority to impose it.
"In many cases, we don't even make a profit of $1.30 per
prescription, and I'm not going to fill a prescription below cost," Burnett said.
Many consumers are angry about the new tax. Sallie Cote of
Marblehead said she is furious the state would tax something as essential as prescription drugs.
Don Davenport, a consultant and registered pharmacist who lives in Springfield, said the
timing couldn't have been worse.
"Our political leaders, while promising to lower the cost of
prescription drugs, have done the exact opposite while at the same time effectively punishing those
who need prescriptions the most - the elderly, the ill, and those who can least
afford to pay," Davenport said.
Other state residents immediately began looking to mail
order purchases as a way around the tax. Officials at the state's Division of Health Care Finance and
Policy, which is holding a hearing on the tax tomorrow, said it only applies to
prescriptions filled by pharmacies licensed by the state of Massachusetts.
Officials at the three major health plans in the state -
Blue Cross Blue Shield, Tufts Health Plan, and Harvard Pilgrim - said their mail-order prescriptions
are filled out of state and therefore exempt from the tax.
Mail-order prescription drug purchases, which work well for
maintenance drugs, also save on the cost of copayments. Blue Cross-Blue Shield, for
example, charges a copay for a 30-day supply of a drug purchased at a pharmacy but only one copay for
a 90-day supply purchased through the mail. The copay savings tend to be less at other health plans.
Medicaid copay rises
Medicaid recipients may be exempt from the new prescription
tax, but starting Wednesday they will be hit with a $1.50 increase in their prescription drug
copayment.
Officials involved with the Medicaid program say the
copayment, which is rising from 50 cents to $2 per prescription, will be a burden on some patients,
particularly those who fill multiple prescriptions at the same time.
But pharmacies say the copayment increase will hurt them the
most. Under federal law, pharmacies cannot withhold medications from Medicaid recipients
who say they cannot afford the copayment.
Pharmacists say that a significant number of Medicaid
recipients don't pay the current copayment, and that 30 percent to 40 percent of them will not pay the
higher fee.
Pharmacies say they will have to absorb that loss, although
a state handout to Medicaid recipients indicates a "pharmacy may use any legal way to collect the
money you owe."
Andrea of Canton, who asked that her last name not be used,
said the Medicaid copay should be mandatory. She said Medicaid recipients should pay their fair
share, particularly at a time when the state is hitting everyone else with a tax
to finance the insurance program.
"We are only asking that they take a little bit out of their
pocket," she said.
CLT asserts authorship
Last week's item about the tax-me-more provision in the new
state tax forms said the idea originated with Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, but
Citizens for Limited Taxation in Massachusetts says it first came up with the
concept.
Chip Ford, CLT's director of operations, said he came up
with the idea in 2000 after tax-cutting Question 4 passed.
The idea was to give those who wanted to pay more the
ability to do so, he said.
