Ballot questions protecting points from legislative audits to classifying rideshare drivers as unbiased contractors cleared a serious hurdle Wednesday when organizing teams stated they’d sufficient signatures to advance towards potential placement on the 2024 poll.
Attorney General Andrea Campbell licensed 34 poll questions and proposed constitutional amendments in September, kicking off a roughly three-month race to gather greater than 75,000 signatures handy into native election officers.
An industry-backed group seeking to classify rideshare drivers working for corporations like Uber and Lyft as unbiased contractors eligible for some advantages collected sufficient signatures, a spokesperson stated.
“We will have more to say after Thanksgiving but we have plenty of signatures,” a spokesperson for the poll query marketing campaign advised the Herald. “Well over the threshold.”
Another query that will grant drivers for Uber and Lyft the proper to unionize additionally cleared the signature hurdle, in accordance with representatives of the United for Justice poll initiative committee. Supporters are additionally pushing lawmakers to move a associated proposal on Beacon Hill.
“The ballot initiative and the related Rideshare Driver Justice bill currently before the Legislature both deal specifically with making sure rideshare industry drivers have the right to collective bargaining, just as the state has granted to home care and childcare workforces who similarly may not report to a single worksite but do the same work everywhere,” United for Justice stated in an announcement.
After the signatures are turned in to native election officers, they’re as a consequence of Secretary of State William Galvin’s workplace by Dec. 6. Galvin certifies the signatures after which passes the questions on to the Legislature, which has a possibility to move the proposal, amend it, or take no motion.
If lawmakers don’t move the proposal by May, poll query campaigns want to gather practically 12,500 extra signatures to file with native officers in June and state officers in July to make it onto the 2024 statewide poll.
A proposal that will grant the state auditor the facility to audit the Massachusetts Legislature additionally cleared the 75,000-signature hurdle Wednesday, handing Auditor Diana DiZoglio a win after a authorized effort to pressure the Legislature to open its books was stymied by Campbell.
DiZolgio stated her poll query committee submitted “the necessary amount of signatures.”
“Our campaign resonates with the people of Massachusetts because they want our leaders to fix the numerous, simultaneous crises our Commonwealth is facing – whether that’s in housing, healthcare, transportation, mental health, addiction or others,” DiZoglio stated in an announcement. “Beacon Hill can’t proceed its closed-door, opaque operations with a lot at stake.
Campbell licensed the poll query in September however dominated earlier this month that the Massachusetts state auditor doesn’t have the authorized authority to audit the Legislature with out consent.
In the training world, the state’s largest instructor’s union stated it collected greater than 130,000 signatures for a poll query that will take away the state’s MCAS check as a commencement requirement for highschool college students.
Massachusetts Teachers Association President Max Page stated the variety of signatures gathered “underscores a growing discontent with the current educational assessment system and a collective call for change.”
“With over 130,000 signatures, the public’s voice is loud and clear: They stand with educators against high-stakes testing,” Page stated in an announcement.
Another query that will legalize using psychedelics for folks 21 and older additionally cleared the signature threshold however might run into points after native elections officers discovered “union bugs printed” on their signature sheets.
“Signatures on sheets with extraneous markings or alterations are disallowed,” a spokesperson for Secretary of State William Galvin stated in an announcement.
Backers of a poll query that will enable tipped employees to earn the minimal wage in Massachusetts, $15 an hour, stated they gathered over 100,000 signatures forward of Wednesday’s deadline.
But a proposal that will have repealed the state’s 1994 ban on lease management fizzled out earlier this month, with the poll query’s major supporter, Rep. Mike Connolly, saying the marketing campaign had solely collected 10,175 signatures, properly wanting the practically 75,000 wanted to advance.
The finish of the poll query push got here after Connolly stated he confronted opposition from the Homes For All Coalition, a gaggle that features a native union and advocacy teams.
“Leaders of the coalition spoke out against our decision to file the petition and called on elected officials, donors, and local leaders to not support our effort,” Connolly stated in an announcement. “They maintained that rent control cannot win at the ballot box in 2024, and they publicly demanded that we withdraw our petition.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”