THROWBACK: QUESTIONABLE PAST
A history of ballot initiatives in Mass, from capital punishment to cannabis
The logic behind the Massachusetts ballot initiative process is as simple now as it was 100 years ago: Sometimes, when our elected officials refuse to do their jobs and move on important — well, not always important, at least not to everyone, but more often than not — issues that warrant attention, the people of the Commonwealth are able to take it upon themselves to act through referenda. This November, for example, voters will make critical decisions about slot parlor additions (Question 1), charter school expansion (Question 2), farm animal containment (Question 3), and marijuana legalization (Question 4).
But it wasn’t always like this. To quote a 2007 faculty paper out of the UMass Dartmouth School of Law: “The kernels for initiatives and referendums were planted early … Massachusetts, with some puffery, claims to be the first state to use a public referendum as the proposed first Massachusetts constitution was offered to and then rejected by voters in 1778.” For the following century and then some, however, “those early seeds lay dormant … until the fourth constitutional convention of 1917, when labor unions and Progressives joined to push for greater control over the legislature.”
