Massachusetts Whale-Safe Determination and Fishing Equipment Ban Initiative (2020)
| Massachusetts Whale-Safe Determination and Fishing Equipment Ban Initiative | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Election date November 3, 2020 | |
| Topic Hunting and fishing and Environment | |
| Status Not on the ballot | |
| Type State statute | Origin Citizens |
The Massachusetts Whale-Safe Determination and Fishing Equipment Ban Initiative (#19-09) was not on the ballot in Massachusetts as an indirect initiated state statute on November 3, 2020.
This initiative would have required the secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to provide a written determination with scientific findings concerning whether certain fishing gear—specifically pot and trap gear—was whale-safe. It would have also required that the director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries only grant licenses for equipment determined to be whale-safe by the secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. It would have banned the use of any pot or trap fishing gear that uses a rope extending from the equipment to the water surface except for during the active retrieval of the pot or trap.[1][2]
Text of measure
Full text
The full text of the measure is available here.
Path to the ballot
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.
Stages of this initiative
- Richard Max Strahan filed this initiative.[2]
- The measure was declined approval for signature gathering on September 4, 2019. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey's office found that materials submitted by proponents did not contain the required signatures of 10 registered voters.[3]
See also
External links
Footnotes
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