WHAT WAS SHAPING up to be perhaps the buzziest ballot measure of the cycle, with Massachusetts residents barraged with millions of dollars of ad spending by both sides, will not go before voters after all. After a last-minute $175 million settlement that establishes new rights for Uber and Lyft’s app-based drivers while leaving their labor […]
Ballot Questions
Posted inPolitics
Last-minute $175m Uber, Lyft settlement throws wrench in ballot fight
The same day the state’s high court gave the go-ahead to an array of ride-share-focused ballot questions, Attorney General Andrea Campbell announced a sweeping settlement with Uber and Lyft that could upend a buzzy ballot fight.
Posted inBallot Questions
SJC green-lights tipped wages ballot measure
A ballot initiative that would raise the minimum wage for tipped workers and let employees pool tips cleared the state’s highest court, with justices concluding the petition’s language is just fine to put before voters.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: Cain skips vote | Anonymous donor | Ballot title battle
Quincy City Councilor Ian Cain, who recently called his rival for the Republican US Senate nomination, John Deaton, evasive for brushing off a call to debate, did some evading of his own this week, skipping a council vote on the massive pay raise approved for Quincy’s mayor.
Posted inBallot Questions
Top Dem says talks occurring on rideshare, MCAS question alternatives
The Legislature last month ruled out acting on any of the 2024 ballot questions as proposed by the petitioners, but lawmakers have not ruled out the idea of intervening to keep some of the questions from being decided this fall by voters.
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SJC appears open to letting tipped-worker question go to ballot
MULLING A CHALLENGE to a tipped-wage initiative proposed for the November ballot, justices of the Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday seemed skeptical of arguments that they should keep the measure away from voters. The potential ballot initiative, which would require businesses to gradually raise the pay of tipped workers until it reaches $15 an hour […]
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SJC probes ‘relatedness’ for app-based driver ballot petitions
THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT on Monday began to tackle an assortment of potential 2024 ballot measures that would establish the status and rights of app-based drivers. Initiative petitions put forth by Big Tech and union groups alike are being challenged for allegedly trying to cram too many unrelated subjects into a single measure presented to […]
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DiZoglio targets Uber, Lyft with supercharged hypothetical audit
The analysis estimated the on-demand ride platforms would have owed the state about $266 million in combined workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, and the paid family and medical leave payments over the past decade if their tens of thousands of drivers were treated as full employees.
Posted inOpinion
DiZoglio likely to prevail, but the constitution will limit range of her legislative audit
The constitutional concept of separation of powers ensures that no branch of government becomes too powerful at the expense of the others. However, the Legislature’s separation of powers concern here is at tension with the auditor’s mandate to provide checks and balances against the legislative branch.
Posted inBallot Questions
Audit-the-Legislature ballot effort sees slim majority support
A slim majority of Massachusetts residents support a potential ballot question that would grant state Auditor Diana DiZoglio the power to probe the inner workings of her former colleagues in the Massachusetts Legislature, according to a CommonWeath Beacon/GBH News poll.