ALONG WITH ELECTING candidates to statewide and local offices, voters will be asked to decide four ballot questions in November. Two of them – whether to raise income tax rates on high earners and whether to repeal a law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses – are fairly clear-cut, even if the arguments of […]
Ballot Questions
Posted inThe Download
Ballot question would shift profits from insurers to dentists
WHY ARE MASSACHUSETTS dentists and orthodontists spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a campaign to change the rules governing dental insurance? Evan Horowitz, executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University, has the answer in a report released Thursday: money. A November ballot measure – Question 2 – would require […]
Posted inPolitics
Ballot question would shift profits from insurers to dentists
WHY ARE MASSACHUSETTS dentists and orthodontists spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a campaign to change the rules governing dental insurance? Evan Horowitz, executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University, has the answer in a report released Thursday: money. A November ballot measure – Question 2 – would require […]
Posted inBallot Questions, Health, Politics
Abortion rights gaining currency in down-ballot races
WITH POLLS showing Massachusetts voters highly concerned about abortion rights, candidates for office – even for down-ballot jobs that seemingly have little to do with the issue – are coming up with ways to demonstrate it’s a high priority. Tanisha Sullivan, a Democratic candidate for secretary of state, made abortion rights a centerpiece of her […]
Posted inThe Download
After 2020 ballot question, Right to Repair still tied up in court
IN NOVEMBER 2020, Massachusetts voters passed a ballot question that would expand the state’s Right to Repair law. Three-quarters of voters agreed that car manufacturers need to give telematic data – data obtained by the manufacturer through a wireless transmitter in a car – to independent repair shops if the information is needed to do […]
Posted inEconomy
After 2020 ballot question, Right to Repair still tied up in court
IN NOVEMBER 2020, Massachusetts voters passed a ballot question that would expand the state’s Right to Repair law. Three-quarters of voters agreed that car manufacturers need to give telematic data – data obtained by the manufacturer through a wireless transmitter in a car – to independent repair shops if the information is needed to do […]
Posted inBallot Questions, Courts, Health Care, Opinion
Why the Kansas ballot question on abortion matters
MANY PEOPLE ACROSS the United States are devastated by the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, which overturned a half century of precedent and abolished the federal constitutional right to abortion. For years, many activists have channeled that despair into fighting for change at the federal level, for instance, by pressing Congress to pass laws that […]
Posted inThe Download
Who knew campaign questionnaires were so controversial?
A clarification has been added to this story. What started out as a bid for greater transparency in the race for auditor has suddenly become, strangely enough, a battleground in the fight for abortion rights. Christopher Dempsey, a Democratic candidate for state auditor, put out a press release recently saying he was posting on his […]
Posted inBallot Questions, Courts
SJC quickly dismisses lawsuit over dental ballot question
THE SUPREME JUDICIAL Court quickly dismissed a lawsuit brought by opponents of a ballot question regulating dental insurance that sought to change the ballot question summary submitted by proponents. With a deadline looming this week for Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin to begin printing the information book that is sent to voters, the court […]
Posted inPolitics
Dental ballot question summary challenged on ‘false statements’
THE OPPONENTS of a ballot question that would regulate dental insurance are asking the Supreme Judicial Court to force Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin to change the wording of a summary submitted by proponents of the question because it allegedly contains a false statement. “This case is about whether the Secretary of the Commonwealth […]