The Supreme Judicial Court today decided that a proposed ballot question that would have outlawed dog racing, and would also have increased criminal penalties for offenses relating to dog fighting and other forms of animal cruelty, violated the “relatedness” provision of Article 48 (the provision of the state Constitution governing ballot questions). Therefore, it held, the question cannot appear on the ballot.
Article 48 (as amended) requires that all the parts of a particular ballot question be “related” or “mutually dependent.” The Court concluded that abolishing dog racing on the one hand, and increasing criminal penalties for animal abuse on the other, did not have enough of a “meaningful operational relationship” to pass muster under Article 48. A voter, the Court held, might reasonably want to increase penalties for holding illegal dog fights, but might not want to abolish a highly-regulated industry that provides a number of jobs for Massachusetts residents. Therefore, the Court held, the ballot question should not have been certified, and cannot appear on the ballot.
I hope that the petitioners are able to get sufficient signatures for the separate items. I’d love to see what the voters think about each of those issues.
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A friend of mine owns greyhounds. He hates dog racing — he’s seen firsthand, over and over again, what poor conditions the greyhounds are in when their racing owners are no longer interested in them.
of why the T should get more funding. They could improve the Suffolk Downs station and nobody would show up at Wonderland.
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Plus no one gets killed.
That’s what I read the headline as when I was scrolling down the page đŸ™‚
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I personally would have supported all parts of the canine rights question (as far as I remember it) but I know there had been some debate from the libertarian-wing of the Green-Rainbows about the part relating to injuring police dogs, so I can easily see why the court might have decided this way.
This question felt to me like “we fell just short of a majority in 2000, so we’ll throw in a bunch of unrelated stuff in order to scour up the few remaining votes we need.” I think the SJC was right to strike it down.