As organizers of ballot questions push to get their proposals before Massachusetts voters in November, it's anticipated that millions of dollars will be spent in the campaigns. However, exactly how much is being spent or who is funding the campaigns is largely unknown.
That's according to Gin Dumcius, who wrote about the issue for the Commonwealth Beacon.
Gin Dumcius, reporter: If you're a candidate — whether you're an incumbent or a challenger or someone in an open race — you have to file on a regular basis monthly, and you have to declare where you got the money from whom, and then you also have to show ... what you spent it on. Whether it's polling or get-out-the-vote efforts, those all have to be declared.
And ballot committees also have to declare that information, but they don't have to do it as frequently. As an example, so far into this year, ballot question committees — which they're either opposed or supporting a ballot question — they haven't reported anything yet and they don't have to until September 6. Which, when you think about how much money is flying around already with some of these ballot questions, is a fascinating difference, especially in this age of money and politics.
Kari Njiiri, NEPM: Who are generally the largest spenders behind these ballot questions.
It's typically businesses or wealthy individuals or unions. And that's for the simple fact that they have the resources, they have the money and also the interest in spending it.
Any idea as to why this reporting requirement was made differently from, say, for political candidates?
This is speculation, but I think it's just ballot questions did not draw as much attention decades ago as they do now. Secretary of State Bill Galvin, he said in another interview with WBZ, he said ballot questions have become a money pit. You know, a lot of money pouring in, a lot of interests looking to shape policy through ballot questions. So I think it just wasn't contemplated when the laws were first written that we'd be talking about this much money and these kind of weighty policies.
Jeff Foster — he's the head of Common Cause Massachusetts, they're a nonpartisan advocacy group that promotes greater government transparency voting reforms — I asked them about this issue, and he said voters have a right to know who is trying to influence the outcome of an election. And with these ballot questions inviting huge amounts of money from both in state and out of state, more frequent reporting requirements and earlier deadlines for reporting would strengthen democracy. The public becomes more aware. It's more fair play for everybody.
It seemed like the rideshare app industry would be heavily financing a question that defines drivers as independent contractors. But a settlement with the attorney general's office last week took that off the table. Which other questions do you think will be heavily financed this year?
Well, there's the question that is seeking to legalize psychedelics that's already seen quite a bit of money come in from various sources, including the Boston-born actress Eliza Dushku. She donated some money to the campaign. We know this because, at the end of last year, they had to tally up everything and file it in January. So that's the number from January. But again, we're flying blind between January and beginning of September.
In terms of other potential ballot questions, unions are trying to allow Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize. So it's a question of whether that gets resolved by the Legislature or it goes to the ballot, and that means Uber and Lyft will or could be spending to defeat it. That is unclear right now exactly what Uber and Lyft and any other app-based companies will do. But you have to think that they're not going to be really thrilled with the idea of letting app-based workers unionize.
There's also the MCAS ballot question. That's also expected to draw a lot of money from the teacher’s union that wants to decouple it from, you know, making it a graduation requirement. And business and education groups are saying that's a bad idea.
