Boston, MA – The Ballot Spending Transparency Act, sponsored by Senator Sal DiDomenico and State Representative Dan Ryan, was introduced for the first time this legislative session in both the Massachusetts House and Senate as H.868 and Senate as S.507. This legislation would increase transparency in the reporting process for campaign spending on statewide ballot questions.

Currently, the reporting schedule for ballot question spending includes an eight month long ‘unmonitored’ window where donations and expenditures go completely unreported, only being published just 60 days before the election. This legislation would strengthen ballot question transparency by subjecting ballot question funds to the same reporting process used by all state and county elected official campaigns. Ballot campaigns would have to appoint a bank to file monthly reports on their behalf, thereby eliminating the ‘unmonitored’ window.

“Massachusetts voters deserve to know, in real time, who is funding the ballot questions that will impact their lives,” said Geoff Foster, Executive Director of Common Cause Massachusetts. “The Ballot Spending Transparency Act will empower voters with this valuable information, ensuring big-money special interests can’t go undetected when they try to buy their preferred policies.”

In the past 10 years, or six election cycles, Massachusetts ballot campaigns have received over $340 million for an average of $57 million each election cycle. 36% of those contributions, or $123 million, were received during the unmonitored eight-month window.

Under current law, Massachusetts has no limit on how much money wealthy, sometimes out-of-state, special interests can spend on ballot questions. Massachusetts consistently ranks among the states raising the highest dollar amounts for ballot questions, and the state spends more than the national average on ballot question campaigns.

“Ballot questions are a great tool for empowering the public to vote directly on statewide policies, but it is vitally important that our voters know which people and organizations are funding these policy proposals,” said Sen. Sal DiDomenico. “I am proud to file this legislation that will close a hole in our campaign finance law and ensure our residents have all the information they need to make an educated decision when voting on a ballot question.”

With so much money coming into statewide ballot questions, this legislation will take much-needed steps to ensure stronger transparency with ballot campaign contributions and expenditures attempting to influence public policy.

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