Press Release: 9/4/2025

Four Reform Questions Certified — Rent Control Fight Ahead

This week brought both encouraging progress and troubling news for Massachusetts taxpayers. Attorney General Andrea Campbell certified four critical reform ballot questions, but also greenlit a deeply flawed and unconstitutional rent control scheme.



The Good News



Voters may soon have the opportunity to weigh in on four long-overdue reforms:




  1. Abolishing legislative stipends used to buy loyalty and silence dissent.

  2. Subjecting the legislature to the public records law, ending the culture of secrecy. This is the work around to the Attorney General refusing to enforce the voter approved law to audit of the legislature.

  3. Reducing the income tax rate to 4%, putting money back into the hands of working families.

  4. Strengthening the 62F tax rebate law to prevent Beacon Hill insiders from dodging voter-approved taxpayer protections.



These questions go directly to the heart of government accountability and fiscal responsibility. Their approval to move forward is a major win for transparency, and the taxpayers.



The Bad News



In a reckless, politically motivated move, Attorney General Campbell also approved a government-imposed rent control ballot question. Her decision ignores the Massachusetts Constitution, defies clear precedent from the Supreme Judicial Court, and thumbs its nose at property rights.



The Constitution explicitly forbids ballot questions that take private property without compensation. That is exactly what rent control does. By capping rental income, the government directly strips value from landlords, property owners, and lenders. It’s a textbook example of an unconstitutional taking. This notion is nothing new. In fact, the state’s highest court, the state Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) has already struck down ballot measures for similar concerns, and we feel this one is no different. Only an Attorney General who refuses to enforce the voter approved law to audit the legislature would be willing to refuse to obey the state constitution and allow an unconstitutional government-imposed rent control ballot question to go forward without compensating landlords.



Attorney General Campbell may believe that the SJC needs to sort this out but it’s a missed opportunity for her office to exert her powers to protect the voters from a flawed potential ballot question. The Fiscal Alliance Foundation spent the last three weeks arguing before the Attorney General’s office for why the potential question should be excluded or at the very least reworded to comply with the state constitution. Ultimately, the Attorney General made no changes and allowed it to go forward. Even if she believes these potential ballot questions should automatically go forward, it doesn’t explain why she refused to accept any changes to the language of the ballot question.



Going forward, during the next round of ballot questions for 2028, what will this all mean? Does this mean there is a new standard, a standard without standards, for what the Attorney General will allow to move forward? The Attorney General is also a politician and while we wished she made these decisions as the state’s top attorney, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a politician preferred the political route over the proper legal solution. 



Even setting aside the legal flaws, rent control is disastrous policy. It discourages new construction, pushes units into foreclosure, freezes housing mobility, and worsens the crisis for renters. That’s why Massachusetts voters repealed it back in 1994 and why it has no place coming back in 2026.



What’s Next?



All certified questions now move into the signature collection phase. Only after enough signatures are gathered and the question is officially placed on the ballot can it be legally challenged at the SJC. The good news is that Attorney General Campbell’s decision to allow the potential question to move forward has no legal standing when it’s challenged at the SJC. At that point, the courts, not politicians, will have the final say on whether this unconstitutional scheme belongs before voters. They will look at this from the lens of the law, something the Attorney General could have done as well.



Over the next few weeks, the Fiscal Alliance Foundation will explore all our options for what can be done through a potential legal challenge before the SJC. These types of cases are very time-consuming and costly. We will speak with our state and national allies to determine what is the best approach. We view our job as the taxpayers’ lawyer and we will continue to fight for you, the state’s taxpayers, whenever we can.



Thank you for standing with us. We’ll keep you updated over the next few weeks and months ahead.