FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BOSTON, MA (June 18, 2026) – The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s leading small business advocacy association with more than 5,000 members in the Commonwealth, this morning released the following statement decrying the decision by the Supreme Judicial Court to remove the tax relief ballot question from the ballot this November. 

“Massachusetts small business owners are deeply disappointed that citizens of the Commonwealth no longer have the ability to seek tax relief at the ballot box as they face a legislature passing policies that make the state less and less affordable,” said Christopher Carlozzi, NFIB’s Massachusetts State Director. “The hostility of opponents towards tax relief, which NFIB strongly supports, has been relentless. The referendum process is designed for this very purpose, when state lawmakers refuse to hear the legitimate concerns of citizens dissatisfied with bad policies, in this case an ever-increasing tax burden with no legislative relief in sight. The challenge against the ballot question was politics as usual, and it sets a chilling precedent that an Attorney General’s summary can be used to derail the right of citizens to bring issues to the voters.”

In April, NFIB had filed a brief in the case Finfer v. Campbell with the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County. The lawsuit pertained to the approved wording, developed by the Attorney General’s office, for a tax ballot question in this year’s election. Opponents of the prospective tax-relief initiative had sued to block the question by claiming the summary should have included a prejudicial legal analysis of all possible downstream effects on other statutes. NFIB contended this summary standard would be neither fair nor concise as the law calls for and went beyond the Constitution’s guidance on such ballot initiatives. 

###        

For over 80 years, NFIB has been advocating on behalf of America’s small and independent business owners, both in Washington, D.C., and in all 50 state capitals. NFIB is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and member-driven. Since our founding in 1943, NFIB has been exclusively dedicated to small and independent businesses, and remains so today. For more information, please visit nfib.com.