Massachusetts Limits on Out-of-State Campaign Contributions Initiative (2020)

Massachusetts Limits on Out-of-State Campaign Contributions Initiative
Election date November 3, 2020
Topic Campaign finance
Status Not on the ballot
Type State statute	Origin Citizens
List of Massachusetts measuresMassachusetts Question 1Massachusetts Question 2Submit

The Massachusetts Limits on Out-of-State Campaign Contributions Initiative (#19-08) did not appear on the ballot in Massachusetts as an indirect initiated state statute on November 3, 2020.

Measure design

This initiative would have enacted the following limitations on political contributions from out-of-state individuals and political action committees:

• It would have prohibited any candidate for state or local office or the candidate's committee from accepting any contribution or an aggregate of contributions more than $100 from a political action committee based outside of the state.
• It would have prohibited any ballot question committee from accepting a contribution larger than $15,000 from a political action committee based outside of Massachusetts.
• It would have prohibited any ballot question committee from accepting a contribution larger than $100 from any person who is not a resident of Massachusetts.
• It would have limited the total of all contributions to candidates or candidate committees from a person who is not a resident of Massachusetts to $1,000 in a calendar year.

Text of measure

Ballot summary

The final ballot summary for the measure was as follows:

Initiative 19-08 ballot summary

“ This proposed law would limit monetary contributions that state, county, or local political candidates or ballot question committees could accept from political action committees organized outside Massachusetts or from individuals who reside outside Massachusetts. Under the proposed law, candidates could accept single contributions of up to $100 from political action committees organized outside Massachusetts or up to $100 per year from individuals who reside outside Massachusetts. Individuals who reside outside Massachusetts could not give more than $1,000 total to Massachusetts candidates in one calendar year. Ballot question committees could accept single contributions of up to $15,000 from political action committees organized outside Massachusetts or single contributions of up to $100 from individuals who reside outside Massachusetts. ”

Full text

The full text of the measure is available here.

Sponsor

PassMassAmendment sponsored this initiative and another initiative concerning the definition of corporations and political spending.

A similar initiative was filed by PassMassAmendment targetting the 2018 ballot but did not qualify for the ballot.

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing the initiative process in Massachusetts

In Massachusetts, the number of signatures required to qualify an indirect initiated state statute for the ballot is equal to 3.5 percent of the votes cast for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election. No more than one-quarter of the verified signatures on any petition can come from a single county. The process for initiated state statutes in Massachusetts is indirect, which means the legislature has a chance to approve initiatives with successful petitions directly without the measure going to the voters. A first round of signatures equal to 3 percent of the votes cast for governor is required to put an initiative before the legislature. A second round of signatures equal to 0.5 percent of the votes cast for governor in the last election is required to put the measure on the ballot if the legislature rejects or declines to act on a proposed initiated statute. Signatures for initiated statutes in Massachusetts are collected in two circulation periods. The first period runs from the third Wednesday in September to two weeks prior to the first Wednesday in December, a period of nine weeks. If the proposed law is not adopted by the first Wednesday of May, petitioners then have until the first Wednesday of July (eight weeks) to request additional petition forms and submit the second round of signatures.

The requirements to get an initiated state statute certified for the 2020 ballot:

• Signatures required (first round): 80,239 signatures
• Signatures required (second round): 13,374 signatures
• Deadline (first round): The deadline to submit the first round of signatures to the secretary of state was December 4, 2019. Signatures needed to be submitted to local registrars by November 20, 2019.
• Deadline (second round): The deadline to submit the second round of signatures was July 1, 2020.

If enough signatures are submitted in the first round, the legislature must act on a successful petition by the first Wednesday of May. The measure only goes on the ballot if the legislature does not pass it and if the second round of signatures is successfully collected.

Details about this initiative

• Nick Bokron filed this initiative on July 29, 2019.
• PassMassAmendment is sponsoring this initiative.
• The initiative was cleared to circulate on September 4, 2019.
• Petitioners did not collect enough signatures by the November 20, 2019 deadline.

See also

2020 measures

• 2020 ballot measures
• Campaign finance on the ballot
• Elections and campaigns on the ballot

Massachusetts

• Massachusetts ballot measures
• Massachusetts ballot measure laws
• Campaign finance requirements in Massachusetts
• Campaign finance requirements for Massachusetts ballot measures

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls

External links

• Massachusetts filed initiative petitions
• Initiative Peittion #19-08 full text

Sponsors

• PassMassAmendment website