POTENTIAL '04 BALLOT QUESTIONS DIE WITH PASSING OF SIGNATURE DEADLINE

By Michael C. Levenson
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
[email protected]

BOSTON, DEC. 3, 2003……Eight proposed ballot questions, addressing concerns ranging from whale-safe fishing gear to the MCAS test, will not appear on the November 2004 ballot after their sponsors failed Wednesday to turn in the 65,825 certified voter signatures required under state law.

A proposed constitutional amendment that would obligate the governor and Legislature to provide universal, affordable health care for every resident of Massachusetts appeared to meet the signature requirement, after the amendment's sponsors strode into the Secretary of State's office in Boston late Wednesday afternoon and dropped off 11 boxes containing what they said were 71,000 voter signatures.

If the amendment is ratified, Massachusetts would become the first state to constitutionally guarantee health care for its residents, roughly almost 600,000 of whom lack health insurance today.

The proposed amendment would compel the Commonwealth to enact laws ensuring that every resident receives health insurance that is comprehensive, affordable, equitably financed, and covers all medically necessary preventive, acute, and chronic health care and mental health care services, and prescription drugs.

To be ratified, the amendment's signatures must be certified by Secretary of State William Galvin, and the amendment must be approved by 25 percent of lawmakers during two successive legislatures. The amendment would then appear before voters on the statewide ballot, in 2006 at the earliest.

Members of the Health Care for Massachusetts Campaign, a group of attorneys, activists, and doctors sponsoring the amendment, said they organized hundreds of volunteers and collected signatures from 343 of the 351 towns in Massachusetts. Committee members said paid signature gatherers were also used.

Dr. John Goodson, the committee co-chairman, said the amendment seeks to redress a discriminatory health care system and establish health care as "a civil rights issue, a human rights issue and a moral issue."

Question 5, an initiative petition in 2000, which also called for universal health care amongst other things, was narrowly defeated, after a costly campaign in which the amendment's sponsors were outspent by business groups who said it would be too costly. Universal care supporters say the state would not need any more money; it would just have to spend more wisely. Critics strongly disagree.

None of the eight proposed ballot questions intended for the November 2004 ballot appeared to meet the 5 pm signature deadline. The questions would have mandated whale-safe fishing gear, abolished the motor vehicle excise tax, allowed school districts to bypass the MCAS graduation requirement, abolished tolls on the Mass. Pike, Tobin Bridge and other roads, allowed Massachusetts to participate in an international affairs council similar to the United Nations, allowed candidates to be nominated by more than one political party, and set up a binding arbitration process for police and firefighter unions.
^Z

< Return to News Room Index