"The Massachusetts Joint Election Laws Committee will hear HB 1830 and SB 13 on March 23, Wednesday, at 1:30 p.m. These are identical bills to increase the number of signatures for a statewide initiative from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 7% of the last gubernatorial vote. Currently, the Massachusetts statewide initiative process to change ordinary laws requires fewer signatures (as a percentage of the state’s population) than any other state.
The Massachusetts initiative process was used successfully in 1990 to qualify an initiative that cut the number of signatures for statewide minor party and independent candidates from approximately 50,000 signatures, to 10,000 signatures. Probably that measure could never have qualified for the ballot if Massachusetts had had a 7% requirement for initiatives."Definition of initiative: In a modern representative democracy, most laws are enacted by legislatures—the representatives of the people—rather than by the people themselves. The initiative is an alternative process through which citizens themselves propose and vote on new laws directly. In states that allow use of this process, proponents, after drafting a proposal, generally must collect signatures in order to place their measure on the ballot.
Floyd Feeney "Initiative" The Oxford Companion to American Law. Kermit L. Hall, ed. Oxford University Press 2002. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press David Weller. 20 March 2011
Massachusetts: How to contact your own Joint Election Laws Committee concerning Bill H01830 and Bill S00013
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