SJC nixes Millionaires tax question

Justices bar question from ballot as Legislature struggles with ed. funds

Yawu Miller

Yawu Miller is the former senior editor of the Bay State Banner. He has written for the Banner since 1988.... VIEW BIO

In a major blow to education and transportation advocates, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court has blocked the so-called millionaires tax from appearing on the November ballot.

The Fair Share Amendment, advanced by the labor and
community group-backed coalition Raise Up Massachusetts, would have hiked the tax rate on income above $1 million from 5.1 percent to 9.1 percent and dedicated the estimated $1.9 billion raised to public schools, colleges and universities and state transportation such as roads, bridges and public transit.

“We are incredibly disappointed that a few wealthy corporate executives and their lobbyists brought this lawsuit that blocked the right of Massachusetts voters to amend our state’s constitution,” a spokesman for Raise Up Massachusetts said in a press statement. “It is stunning that these business groups would overturn the will of the more than 157,000 voters who signed petitions to qualify the Fair Share Amendment for the ballot, and of two overwhelming majorities in consecutive Constitutional Conventions.”

The SJC ruling affirmed the argument made by attorneys for a coalition of business groups who asserted that the state’s constitution does not allow for ballot questions to combine unrelated issues. In this case, the Fair Share Amendment would have raised the tax on income over $1 million and simultaneously directed the revenue to transportation and education.

“We are unable to discern a common purpose or unified public policy that the voters fairly could vote up or down as a whole,” wrote Associate Justice Frank M. Gaziano in the majority opinion. “The two subjects of the earmarked funding themselves are not related beyond the broadest conceptual level of public good. In addition, they are entirely separate from the subject of a stepped rather than a flat-rate income tax, which, by itself, has been the subject of five prior initiative petitions.”

The SJC’s nixing of the ballot question could put added pressure on the Legislature to find new sources of revenue. In public education, the Legislature’s Foundation Budget Review Committee found that the state has been under-funding school districts by more than $1 billion. Its funding formula for schools, which took effect in 1993, did not allow for the rapid increase in the cost of health care and the escalating costs of educating students with special needs.

On the transportation side of the ledger, the MBTA has seen its state funding slashed substantially in recent decades and has a maintenance backlog of $7.3 billion. Plagued by frequent delays and equipment failures, the system is struggling to keep up with growing demands for alternatives to the region’s traffic-clogged roadways.

To advance a new version of the Fair Share Amendment that does not combine issues, Raise Up Massachusetts members would have to start over on the four-year process of amending the state’s constitution — first gathering a sufficient number of signatures of registered voters who support the effort, then obtaining support from the Legislature during two constitutional conventions before being placed on the ballot a year after the second of those. Because of the timing of the constitutional conventions, the next time the question could appear on the ballot would be 2022.

Barbara Madeloni, outgoing president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which backed the ballot measure, said her union would continue to press for increased education funding.

“As educators, we must continue to organize through our unions and within our communities to secure the funding that is vital for our students to succeed and thrive,” she said in a statement. “We will continue to build bridges to parents and other residents who value public schools and public higher education. Our efforts will be fierce and determined — and they will ensure that we win the schools and colleges our communities deserve.”

Other questions Raise Up has put on this November’s ballot include a measure that would raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour and a measure that would mandate paid sick days and family leave. The Retailers Association of Massachusetts is advancing a ballot question that would lower the state’s sales tax from the current 6.25 percent to 5 percent, a move that could cost the state $500 million in annual revenue.