By now, every last one of you likely have a copy of the book we can’t call a bestseller because it was mailed to you for free. And while millions of us will act on its contents this fall, chances are good that few will ever read it, certainly not all the way through.
This widely distributed and ignored 88-page tome is Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s guide to the 2026 ballot questions, all nine of them. And whether or not anyone wades through it, the questions it describes may be the single biggest factor in this election’s outcome.
Even before this year’s record-setting crop, ballot questions were already well-established lynchpins of Massachusetts political culture.
Forty-six years after voters approved Proposition 2 1/2, which forces local governments to get voter approval before jacking up property taxes, it remains a political third rail, the bete noire of municipal officials, liberals and labor, fiercely protected by taxpayers and legislators who dare not defy them.
Voters struggle to name any of Gov. Maura Healey’s achievements, and the Republican brand is widely reviled here. But ballot questions like the “millionaire’s tax” in 2022 and the legislative audit in 2024 drew impressive support and continue to dominate local political discourse.
And here’s guessing some of the 2026 questions will be a key prism through which swing voters will dope out their candidate choices.
Speaking of doping out, it seems unlikely a majority of voters will throw away the easier access to their favorite vice that legal recreational marijuana offers (Question 8). What’s next - a ban on DraftKings?
Same-day voter registration (Question 4) is probably a slam dunk. So is forcing more public access to records generated by the Legislature and Governor’s office. And more money to create and preserve open space and natural resources (Question 6)? See Question 8.
You won’t see too many sentient politicians trying to hitch their wagons to those horses. But some of the others have the potential to either boost or deflate candidates.
Cash-strapped voters chafing under their tax burden may well gravitate toward backers of Question 5, which would trigger refunds of rising state tax collections more frequently. Then again, public employee unions may get traction for their perpetual warnings about service cuts from the relatively small rebates Question 5 offers.
That’s what happened in 1990, a landmark year of local voter backlash, when the tax-slashing Citizens for Limited Taxation petition was routed, 60-40%, just a decade after the passage of Proposition 2 1/2. Instead, they elected petition supporter Bill Weld governor and gave him a veto-sustaining minority of Republicans senators to work with. Could a similar dynamic benefit Mike Minogue?
With housing affordability topping the voter concern charts, Question 7 would lower the minimum lot size for single-family homes to 5,000 square feet and, its backers argue, puncture the suburban NIMBY gimmick of requiring far higher lot sizes. (Lincoln, home of the jaw-dropping 80,000 square foot minimum, we’re looking at you.) Voter support for that one would be unlikely to help Minogue, who wants to scrap Charlie Baker’s MBTA Communities Act and other state encroachments on local zoning fiefdom.
And there’s hot-button potential in Question 9, a rare veto referendum that would repeal the two-year old state gun control law expanding the ability of courts, schools and doctors to enforce “red flag” disarmament of potentially-dangerous gun owners and cracking down on ghost guns and bump stocks, among other provisions.
During a WBZ-TV debate on the issue, gun-rights advocate Toby Leary sparred genially with law supporter Ruth Zakarin but sounded Trumpy at times, calling “safety” a “co-opted term” and describing “assault weapon” as “a made-up propaganda term to invoke fear in people.” Meanwhile, a recent UMass poll finds the “yes” vote preserving the law leading 70-22%, with even half of Republicans joining 63% of independents in support.
Healey is for it, Minogue against. That might not turn out so AAOK, even if most voters don’t bother to open Galvin’s not-so-little red book.
