SJC nixes the rent control question, sinking hopes of affordable housing advocates

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Who has the greatest influence in shaping the decisions that voters will make when they cast ballots later this summer and fall? Is it the candidates who run for office and the petitioners who organize ballot questions? Is it the state officials who make the first call about what can or cannot stay on track? Is it the voters themselves?

Based on the way the last week or so has gone, it seems like the most direct influence is coming from a group of seven: Kimberly Budd, Frank Gaziano, Scott Kafker, Dalila Argaez Wendlandt, Serge Georges Jr., Bessie Dewar and Gabrielle Wolohojian -- better known as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Close behind them could be another group, this one a quintet: Ernest Sarason, Joe Boncore, Jed Nosal, Kaitlyn Sprague and Joseph Eisenstadt -- perhaps you know them as the State Ballot Law Commission.

In two rulings this week, the SJC cleared one marquee ballot question and killed another, this on the heels of the prior week's bombshell ruling that scuttled an income tax cut question elected Democrats feared would be catastrophic to their spending plans. Late Friday afternoon, two Republican candidates for statewide office were waiting to learn how the commission would rule in challenges to their nomination papers -- including whether they will be allowed to continue their campaigns.

On Monday, the court rejected a challenge to the all-party primary proposal, clearing for the Nov. 3 ballot a measure that would do away with the current party primary system in favor of a single September contest open to all candidates and voters, with the top two vote-getters advancing to the general election.

On Tuesday, the justices dashed the hopes of tenant advocates and other supporters of rent control, ruling that an exemption for religious facilities "impermissibly" made religion a factor in the statewide rent control question. It was a narrow, almost technical defect based on one fragment of the proposed law, but it nonetheless ended a high-profile petition backed by 157,000 signatures.

For Attorney General Andrea Campbell, the rent control decision was the latest in a string of rebukes from the court. The SJC has now said Campbell should not have certified the rent control question or an attempt to overhaul the legislative stipend system for the ballot in the first place, and that she summarized the income tax question so poorly that it could not fairly be put before voters. Supporters of those questions had devoted extensive amounts of time and money to get to this late stage in the process.

"We had six challenges, we got three wrong. I think that's a great record," Campbell told reporters Tuesday after an appearance on GBH Radio. During that radio interview, she said she thinks it is "incumbent upon me and the team to go back and to ensure that we continue to improve our processes, our analysis."

"That being said, no one should expect us to get a perfect result. No organization could," the AG said, citing the "record number" of 47 ballot initiatives her office reviewed this cycle while her office was also enmeshed in legal warfare with the Trump administration.

The nine-question slate that has survived (Wednesday is the ultimate signature-filing deadline) will likely define the fall election: bids to implement all-party state primaries, subject most records of the governor and Legislature to the public records law, allow people to register and vote on Election Day, roll back recreational cannabis use, steer millions from the state's sporting goods sales tax to conservation efforts, ease zoning rules by allowing for single-family homes on smaller lots, allow collective bargaining for employees of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, require tax refunds if state revenues hit a new limit, and repeal the state's 2024 gun law.

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Boston Mayor Michelle Wu offered the week's sharpest take on why the ballot is so crowded. At a MASSterList and News Service event Wednesday, she argued the raft of questions shows that frustration with an "inactive" Legislature has reached "a boiling point."

"It's not because all of a sudden people, you know, decided it was a fun hobby to collect tens of thousands of signatures," the mayor said. At another point during Wednesday's event, she said what Boston needs is "our state legislators ... to help drive us forward, not put up more obstacles for us to overcome."

The rent control crowd made the same argument a few hours later, less diplomatically. A day after the SJC ruling, supporters rallied on the State House steps — cardboard cutouts of Dunkin' cups and Fluff jars used as protest props — chanting "do your job" and demanding lawmakers pass a local-option bill by July 31. 

"This fight is still on," organizer Mimi Ramos said, vowing a 2028 return if necessary.

A second ballot drama unfolded in the State Ballot Law Commission's hearing room, where commissioners spent the week weighing whether Republican lieutenant governor candidate Anne Manning Martin and attorney general candidate Michael Walsh submitted hundreds of fraudulent nomination signatures. Witnesses described signatures copied in identical order from a Republican voter list — including some from voters who were already dead — and a signature gatherer, Joe Bronske, who invoked his Fifth Amendment right rather than answer for the discrepancies.

Late Friday, the commission ruled both candidates ineligible to appear on the September primary ballot. The decisions can be appealed to the Superior Court or Supreme Judicial Court and the deadline to appeal is Wednesday.

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This week concluded the July 1 start to a new fiscal year closing in and without action on any state budget -- not the $63.4 billion fiscal year 2027 annual budget or the $7.7 billion temporary budget Healey filed Monday and asked to have back on her desk by Friday. That interim budget will stay on ice in the House Ways and Means Committee for the weekend, at least.

The earliest that any budget could reach Healey's desk is now June 29, two days before the start of fiscal year 2027. So an interim budget of some size seems inevitable, given the governor's 10-day period to review legislation that reaches her desk.

Last year, the Legislature passed its compromise budget on Monday, June 30 -- the earliest an annual budget reached the governor's desk since 2016 -- and she acted on it Friday, July 4. The last time a governor here was able to sign a budget into law before the fiscal year began was in 2010.

HAPPY RETIREMENT: A fixture at the State House since he began as a House page in 1988, Casimir "Chip" Zigulis retired this week, capping a 38-year career in public service. Chip was a regular on the floor for House sessions, and could often be found shuttling papers between the House and Senate or making the rounds among various State House offices and the fourth-floor cafe. Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen called him "the Forrest Gump of the State House," noting the times he took on tennis great Monica Seles in a friendly match, did pushups on Boston Common with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and had a cameo in "Good Will Hunting."

Ask your Senator to support S. 1114 and S. 1124 for Clean Slate legislation because an old CORI should not mean a lifetime of blocked opportunities.

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