History
Massachusetts’ Populist Party adopted a resolution in 1895 calling for
statewide initiative and referendum. In 1900, State Representative Henry
Stirling introduced one of the first I&R proposals; Socialist State
Representative James Carey introduced another in 1901. In 1905, Mrs. Ella
0. Marshall organized the Massachusetts Referendum League to push for
I&R, but results were slow to come.
After a decade of unsuccessful attempts, the Massachusetts Direct
Legislation League hired Henry Stirling to organize support for I&R
throughout the state. The Progressive and Democratic parties, by now
staunch supporters of I&R, used this issue with some success against the
Republicans in the electoral campaigns of 1912.
In 1913 the legislature approved a bill establishing a procedure for
advisory initiatives to be placed on the ballot by voters in any of the
state’s senatorial or representative districts; I&R advocates used the
procedure in 1914, 1915, and 1916 to get “straw votes” throughout the
state showing public support for I&R.
In 1915 Governor David I. Walsh, a Democrat who was the first Irish
Catholic elected to statewide office in Massachusetts, formed the Union
for a Progressive Constitution to push for a state constitutional convention
to consider various reforms, with I&R as a priority. The legislature passed a
bill in 1916 authorizing such a convention, if the voters approved it - which
they did, in November 1916.
The convention met in 1917 and passed the I&R amendment by a
vote of 163 yeas, 125 nays, and 30 delegates not voting. Conservative
opposition to I&R, led by former state attorney general Albert E. Pillsbury of
Wellesley and railroad counsel Charles F. Choate of Southborough, was
strong enough to force numerous compromises in the final version:
compromises that even today make the Massachusetts initiative
procedure the nation’s most cumbersome and complicated. Submitted to
the voters for ratification on November 5, 1918, the amendment passed
by a narrow margin.
The first initiative to win voter approval was a 1920 measure defining
cider and beer as non-intoxicating liquors, and thus exempt from
Prohibition. Other successful early initiatives included measures to end the
ban on Sunday sports events (1928), repeal the state’s Prohibition law
(1930), reform candidate nominating procedures (1932), and regulate
animal trapping (1930).
On the 1948 ballot was a controversial initiative to legalize
contraceptives, which was opposed by the Catholic Church, and three
labor relations measures sponsored by employers and bitterly opposed by
organized labor: a “Right to Work” initiative, a law regulating strikes, and a
third measure regarding the election of union officers. The four initiatives
provoked an extraordinarily heavy Democratic turnout, which not only
defeated all the initiatives but also swept Republican incumbents out of
office.
The Democrats gained a majority in Massachusetts’ lower house for
the first time in the state’s history, tipped the balance of power in the
senate, and ousted Republican Governor Robert Bradford. The initiative
that got the most favorable vote, though it still lost was on the
contraceptive issue: 43 percent of the electorate said “yes.”
In 1964, voters passed an initiative statute reducing the powers of the
governor’s Executive Council. The state’s most famous initiative was the tax
cutting “Proposition 2 1/2.” Dog and cat lovers made successful use of the
initiative process in 1983 by proposing a measure to ban research on
these animals. The legislature, responding to an initiative petition signed
by a record 145,170 voters, passed the initiative in December of that year,
thus eliminating the need for it to go on the 1984 ballot. A 1986 initiative
mandating cleanup of toxic waste dumps, sponsored by the
Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MassPIRG), became the
most popular initiative in the state’s history, garnering 73 percent approval.
In 1994, a term limits initiative was adopted only to have it thrown out
several years later by the state supreme court. The court ruled that term
limits can only be imposed if the state constitution were amended and
since the term limits imposed in 1994 were done statutorily, they were
unconstitutional.
In 1998, state voters adopted a campaign finance reform initiative
that called for the public funding of campaigns. However, the state
legislature, as of April 2002, had still refused to fund the initiative.
Excerpted from the Initiative & Referendum Almanac by M. Dane Waters.