Massachusetts Prohibit Use of Electric Shocks on Persons with Disabilities Initiative (2020)

Massachusetts Prohibit Use of Electric Shocks on Persons with Disabilities Initiative
Election date November 3, 2020
Topic Healthcare
Status Not on the ballot
Type State statute	Origin Citizens
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The Massachusetts Prohibit Use of Electric Shocks on Persons with Disabilities Initiative (#19-05) did not appear on the ballot in Massachusetts as an indirect initiated state statute on November 3, 2020. Initiative sponsors submitted signatures to the secretary of state on December 4, 2019, but did not submit the required amount of verified signatures to place the ballot question before the legislature.

The measure was designed to prohibit administering electric shocks to persons with disabilities to punish them or change their behavior unless used by a law enforcement officer during an arrest or as part of voluntary electrical convulsive therapy.

Text of measure

Ballot summary

The final ballot summary for the measure was as follows:

Initiative 19-05 ballot summary

“ This proposed law would prohibit the use of electric shocks on any person with a physical, intellectual, or developmental disability for punishment, behavior modification, or for any reason other than medical resuscitation or for electroconvulsive treatment to which the person has consented. This prohibition would not apply to authorized law enforcement officers engaged in law enforcement duties. The penalty for violating the proposed law would be imprisonment for not more than two-and-a-half years in a house of correction or five years in state prison. The penalty for a second or subsequent violation would be imprisonment in state prison for not more than ten years. The proposed law states that, if any of its parts were declared invalid, the other parts would stay in effect. The proposed law would take effect on January 1, 2021. ”

Full text

The full text of the measure is available here.

Sponsor

Initiative sponsor Daniel Farnkoff said the measure would make it illegal for those who are not law enforcement officers "to give painful electric shocks to the disabled as punishment or to change their behavior, which occurs at a facility in Canton, MA, called the Judge Rotenberg Center. Staff monitor imprisoned autistic individuals through video equipment and can remotely administer electric shocks if they disobey commands, act out, etc."

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

• The initiative was cleared to circulate on September 4, 2019.
• Initiative sponsors submitted signatures to the secretary of state on December 4, 2019, but did not submit the required amount of verified signatures to place the ballot question before the legislature.

See also

2020 measures

• 2020 ballot measures
• Healthcare on the ballot

Massachusetts

• Massachusetts ballot measures
• Massachusetts ballot measure laws

News and analysis

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

External links

• Massachusetts filed initiative petitions
• Initiative 19-05 full text