How the ballot question to cut Massachusetts’ income tax fell apart over email

Politics admin June 20, 2026 0 Comments

How the ballot question to cut Massachusetts’ income tax fell apart over email

In emails last August, a top lawyer in Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office traded proposed wording for a summary of a ballot question to cut Massachusetts’ state income tax with an attorney representing the authors of the proposal.

At Assistant Attorney General Grace Gohlke’s invitation, Kevin Martin, a Goodwin Procter attorney, suggested language that did not mention an indirect but critical outcome of the ballot question: that it would also slash the tax rate on long-term capital gains.

Required by the state Constitution, the summary is a critical component of the ballot process in Massachusetts. It is supposed to represent a fair and concise summation of the initiative and not improperly tip voters in one direction or the other.

But in the back and forth, Gohlke and Martin settled on wording that, likely unbeknownst to them, spelled the end of the tax cut proposal.

At one point, Gohlke suggested language saying the proposal would “not” change the capital gains tax rate. Martin countered by suggesting only using “positive descriptions.”

Then in one critical exchange, Gohlke suggested it was “important to explain” how a large tax category that includes wages and salaries is defined as “excluding” long-term capital gains income.

“Hi Grace,” Martin responded the next day, Aug. 21, 2025, giving a thumbs up. “That summary works well for proponents, thanks so much.”

On Thursday, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court determined the summary was so fundamentally flawed that the court struck the explosive question from the November ballot. In its ruling, the court said the summary was “significantly misleading” because the ballot proposal would in fact result in a similar reduction in taxes on long-term capital gains, to 4 percent, as it would to income taxes.

The high court’s finding sent shockwaves through the state’s business and political circles, which had been gearing up for a lengthy and expensive fight between top unions in Massachusetts and business groups pressing the case that the state is too expensive for residents and businesses alike.

A spokesperson for Campbell said Friday the state’s lawyers found it difficult to succinctly summarize a large category of state taxes known as Part B income in a ballot question summary. Her office also cast blame on the proponents, saying they never mentioned that one effect of the petition would be cutting the tax rate on long-term capital gains.

The summary sparked a lawsuit earlier this year from a group of eight community organizers backed by Raise Up Massachusetts, an advocacy organization that successfully pushed another tax measure in 2022 known as the “millionaires tax‚” a 4 percent surtax on annual income in excess of $1 million.

Massachusetts divides taxable state income into three categories — Parts A, B, and C. The first two cover interest, dividends, short-term investment gains, wages, and salaries. Part C covers long-term capital gains. By state law, the tax rate for long-term capital gains is linked to the rate for Part B income, with some exceptions.

In an interview with the Globe, Martin acknowledged that the tax rate on capital gains is “clearly” linked to the rate for Part B income, the large category that includes wages.

But he said there are many references to Part B income throughout state law.

“So if you started including all of them, it’s no longer a summary,” he said. “And the court has made clear before … you don’t actually have to include all of the statutory cross references.”

Martin also defended the attorney general’s office, in part.

“I think it was a fair summary that the court should have left on the ballot. I know Grace acted in good faith,” Martin said.

“The frustrating aspect of it is that I think we would have won if [attorney general’s office] had just taken the [summary] we had proposed,” he said. “But I don’t think they were acting in bad faith in coming up with their own proposal.”

Opponents of the state income tax reduction jumped on the ruling Thursday and the email exchange between Martin and Gohlke, which opponents had included in their own filings as part of the lawsuit.

“The proponents, who represent wealthy individuals with a wealth of knowledge of the tax code, had every opportunity to point out this error and urge the attorney general to correct it,” said Andrew Farnitano, a spokesperson for the “Protect Massachusetts’ Future” campaign. “They declined to do so.”

The setback at the high court is the latest ballot question-related headache for Campbell, a first-term Democrat who has already spent more than a year fending off attacks from state Auditor Diana DiZoglio over a separate voter-approved initiative that gave DiZoglio the legal authority to audit the state Legislature. That law has been tied up in constitutional disputes between DiZoglio and lawmakers and, in recent months, a court fight involving both sides and Campbell.

Separately, justices at the Supreme Judicial Court cast doubt earlier this year on a ballot question Campbell’s office certified that would have asked voters to reshape the leadership stipends that legislators collect. The court said the measure covered internal legislative procedures that fell outside the scope of the ballot question process.

Campbell herself has openly voiced frustration with the ballot initiative process and suggested that the ballot question reviews should be reworked to allow her office to weigh in on whether proposals are constitutional.

“Nowhere in our analysis and certifying the question do we have to ask, ‘Is this constitutional?’ … which is ridiculous,” Campbell said last month, according to the State House News Service. “So you have folks voting on something where the implementation of it could be unconstitutional, parts of it. And how do you explain that to a voter who’s going and exercising their civil right to vote?”

Another summary Campbell’s office produced is also under the SJC’s microscope. In that case, an opposition campaign is challenging a ballot question seeking to implement statewide rent control.

In that dispute, opponents of the ballot question argued Campbell’s summary does not inform voters the measure would repeal existing law prohibiting rent control and replace it with a law that does the opposite.

Conor Yunits, a spokesperson for the opposition campaign, said the ruling in the income tax case makes him “cautiously optimistic” that the high court will side with his group.