Here’s how Charlie Baker is voting on the 3 Massachusetts ballot questions
The Republican governor is running for re-election this fall.
Gov. Charlie Baker may be voting for the Republican ticket in next month’s elections, but his positions on the state’s ballot questions are a bit more of a mixed bag.
Massachusetts voters will have three “yes or no” questions on the Nov. 6 ballot. Question 1 proposes to place limits on the number of patients that can be assigned at a time to individual nurses at the state’s hospitals and health centers. Question 2 would create a 15-person volunteer commission to advocate for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. And Question 3 is a referendum on the state’s 2016 transgender rights law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity in places of public accommodation.
Here’s where the Massachusetts governor, running for re-election this fall, stands on the three questions:
Question 1: No
Baker had said he was waiting to take a position on the nurses union-backed question until the release of a cost analysis report by the Health Policy Commission, the state’s health care watchdog agency. But after reading the HPC report, which estimated the measure could cost the Massachusetts health care system between $676 million to $949 million a year, he announced last week that he would vote against the proposal.
The Republican governor cited concerns expressed by smaller hospitals and health care centers that they would be forced to close if Question 1 passed.
“They said to me that they would have a heck of a time, that they did not believe they probably could implement the law, if it were to pass as written, which set off a bit of an alarm bell for me,” Baker told reporters.
Question 2: Yes
The proposal — which would push for an amendment to allow the government to limit how much money corporations, unions, and other artificial entities could spend on elections — hasn’t received as much attention as the other two ballot measures. However, polls have shown a vast majority of Massachusetts voters support the measure. Baker is one of them.
“Governor Baker and Lt. Governor Polito support Massachusetts’ campaign finance laws and any efforts to explore improvements to accountability in the Commonwealth’s elections,” Terry MacCormack, the spokesman for Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito’s re-election campaign, said in a statement to Boston.com.
Question 3: Yes
A yes vote on Question 3 is a vote to uphold the current law, which prohibits discrimination against transgender people in public places like restaurants and stores and ensures that they’re allowed to use restrooms and locker rooms that are consistent with their gender identity.
Baker signed the bill, which he had opposed years earlier, into law in the summer of 2016 after pressure from LGBT rights activists and years of “conversations with a lot of people on both sides of the issue.” He announced his support for Question 3 earlier this month in an op-ed in New England’s largest LGBT newspaper, The Rainbow Times.
“I am troubled that some who oppose this law have organized an effort to repeal it,” he wrote. “While I support the ballot initiative process, I strongly believe that the Commonwealth should reject the repeal effort. I look forward to voting ‘Yes’ on Question 3, to uphold the law at the ballot box this fall. I am confident that voters will join me, to re-affirm that the Commonwealth will not tolerate discrimination against our fellow citizens who are transgender.”
The governor has also personally donated $500 to the Yes on 3 campaign.
