On December 6th, 2018 the state office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) held a public hearing on the future of the Union Loophole in Massachusetts.

What is the Union Loophole exactly? In Massachusetts, for-profit businesses cannot give money to political candidates, committees, and parties at all—not directly, and not indirectly through a political action committee (PAC). But unions—including unions from outside the state—can give up to $15,000 to a single candidate and can also create political action committees to give even more. That makes Massachusetts one of six states that ban businesses—but not unions—from giving to parties, committees, and candidates.

We applaud the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial court on the wisdom of its decision to strike down the Proposition 80 ballot question that sought to remove our state constitution’s protections from unequal taxation. Massachusetts is one of only eight states that have a flat state income tax, which continues to keep our state economically competitive.

The voters of the Commonwealth wisely rejected graduated tax income proposals five times in the last fifty years. On its own merits, the idea of a graduated tax income tax is a consistently unpopular idea to the residents of Massachusetts. In trying to make the idea more popular by earmarking money for special interests, the radical proponents of this legislation ultimately sowed their own defeat.

With the long looming threat of this economic nightmare now passed, the hard working citizens of Massachusetts can finally breath a sign of relief. Our economy will continue to grow, unfettered by the economic malaise and constant budget woes that continue to plague our only neighbor to adopt such a progressive tax scheme: Connecticut.

The Fiscal Alliance Foundation was proud to have played a part in challenging the constitutionality of this ballot question before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. We will continue to pursue our mission of educating the citizenry of our state and increasing awareness about the public benefits to be derived from greater fiscal responsibility, transparency, and accountability in government.

Did you happen to see the recent op-ed written by Paul Gangi, MassFiscal Program Director, which appeared over the weekend in Commonwealth Magazine?

The Fiscal Alliance Foundation and its sister organization, the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, teamed up and successfully influenced the outcome of changes to our state campaign finance regulations. Although none of the proposed changes would impact our work, we felt it was important to “push back” and defend the important rights of freedom of speech and association.

"The United States Supreme Court has consistently upheld the rights of members of non-profit organizations to remain private. Many of these decisions stem from the 1950s and 1960s, where the importance of ensuring that pro-civil rights non-profits could maintain the confidentiality of their membership rolls was readily apparent. This right to association stems from the fact that non-profits do not advocate for the election or defeat of candidates for office, but rather advocate for issues. While this distinction can sometimes create confusion for non-experts of campaign finance law, they are legally distinct and different.

Our main concern was ensuring that that OCPF’s regulations are objective, not subjective. For example, while the previous regulations provided certain “safe harbor” provisions for donors, giving them the opportunity to establish that certain donations to non-profits were not intended to be used for political purposes (and thus that their identity need not be publicly disclosed), the proposed revised regulations would have done away with this provision. Had the proposed regulations been approved as drafted, they would have provided OCPF with broad powers to make unilateral determinations regarding donor intent, and to mandate disclosure of donors — without even giving donors a chance to defend themselves by presenting evidence that their contributions were not intended to support activities that require donor disclosure."

Click here to read the entire article in Commonwealth Magazine.