Question 1: Make records of the governor’s office and the state legislature public records.
Explanation: The records of the state legislature and governor’s office are currently exempt from the state public records law, unlike those of other government agencies. And if approved this question would make them subject to that law and open to public scrutiny. There would be two remaining exemptions to the law, still shielding the governor’s office’s records relating to the formation of policy and communications between legislators and their constituents regarding access to public services, so it doesn’t go quite far enough. But it’s a big step in the right direction, and it should end the legal roadblock put up by the state legislature that has stopped the state auditor from auditing the state legislature (required by the 2024 ballot initiative approved by voters).
ULMA Position: Yes
Question 2: Allow employees of the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS) to engage in collective bargaining practices.
Explanation: Libertarians have zero objection to voluntary unionization or other forms of collective bargaining in the private sector as long as all the participants are willing and not coerced. But permitting government employees to unionize simply creates yet another lobby against the public interest to continue ever more exorbitant funding of government programs. If voters believe public defenders and prosecutors and their staff are underpaid, they can instruct their legislators to increase their pay the normal way.
ULMA Position: No
Question 3: Abolish political party primaries in state elections and in its place create a giant all-party primary with only the two top vote-winners appearing on the general election ballot in November.
Explanation: This question would basically eliminate third party candidates from the general election ballot. California has adopted this election method, and often the two-top vote winners are in the same party, depending upon the district both are Democrats or both Republicans, giving voters no real choice in the general election.
ULMA Position: No
Question 4: Create same-day voter registration statewide.
Explanation: This question would enact same-day voter registration statewide, which would increase the risk of voter fraud in elections. Anyone could walk into any voting booth on election day and register on the spot. There really isn’t a need for same-day voter registration to allow greater access to voting by citizens.
ULMA Position: No
Question 5: Put more honest restrictive limits on state taxation maximums.
Explanation: Massachusetts voters created a law by ballot initiative in 1986 limiting how much the Commonwealth of Massachusetts could increase taxes on residents from year to year. The law said the state couldn’t increase taxes faster than the average increase of salaries and wages over the past three years (using the previous year’s taxes as a base level). But when the state adopted the 4% “millionaires tax” in 2022, the money collected from that law was exempted from the upward limit of taxation. If this question is passed, the state’s taxation will be at least somewhat tamped down, giving working people a little break in their state tax bill.
ULMA Position: Yes
Question 6: State funding for a “Nature for All Fund” to promote nature conservation.
Explanation: This question would use tax dollars, not private funds willingly given, to promote environmental conservation of land in Massachusetts. The slightly mitigating news is that it doesn’t raise taxes, but takes existing sales tax revenue from the sales of sporting goods, RVs and golf courses for the proposed fund. So all other state programs will now be crying for more money, as this revenue stream is taken from them. The ballot initiative also creates a new 15-person state commission to decide what to do with this new eco-slush fund.
ULMA Position: No
Question 7: Ban cities and towns statewide from using zoning ordinances or other regulations to prevent property owners from building single-family homes in residentially zoned lots of 5,000 square feet or more lot size.
Explanation: This ballot initiative would allow property owners to build homes on their own land, even if meddling local officials scheme to prevent the construction of new houses in their town, as they do now using local ordinances and regulations. A right to build law like this would increase housing availability and likely put downward pressure on exorbitant housing prices. On the other hand, it violates subsidiarity by taking decision-making from cities and towns and centralizing the regulatory power of construction in the state, though in this case for a pro-property rights cause.
ULMA Position: No position – vote your conscience
Question 8: Repeal marijuana legalization in Massachusetts.
Explanation: This question would eliminate legalized cannabis in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as well as restore the ban on citizens growing their own marijuana. Legalization of marijuana has taken drug gangs out of the marijuana business and kept people who enjoy a drug less dangerous than the also legal alcohol out of prison and out of the court system.
ULMA Position: No
Question 9: Uphold Massachusetts’ draconian 2024 gun law.
Explanation: State legislators significantly infringed on gun-owners’ rights with the 2024 gun law, banning some so-called “assault rifles,” enacting statewide electronic gun registration, requiring serial numbers for guns, and many more restrictions. This ballot question is worded in the reverse, perhaps with the perverse intent to confuse voters and keep the law on the books, because a “no” vote will repeal the law and a “yes” vote will not change that 2024 law now on the books.
ULMA Position: No (A no vote will repeal the law)