Mass. Supreme Judicial Court blocks rent control question from November ballot

Massachusetts voters will not have the opportunity to repeal the state’s three-decade ban on rent control on November’s ballot.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled Tuesday morning that the initiative petition seeking to impose statewide rent control “impermissibly” relates to religion and religious institutions, which are among the matters the state Constitution sets as out of bounds from the initiative petition process.

Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s summary of the petition states that it “would not apply to ... units operated for educational, religious, or non-profit purposes.” The plaintiffs claimed the petition should be disqualified because “religion is a factor in the application of the law,” citing a legal precedent that is key to the court’s ruling.

“The petition ... concerns a generally secular subject matter -- rent control. But, by including an express exemption for facilities operated solely for religious purposes, the petition impermissibly makes religion “a factor in [the petition’s] application.” And in order to enforce the proposed law, the exemption would require the government to determine if a facility is “operated solely for . . . religious . . . purposes,” and then make an enforcement decision based on the facility’s religious purpose (or lack thereof),” Justice Frank Gaziano wrote. “Further, the petition would confer preferential treatment on religious institutions by allowing them to increase rent prices, while limiting rent increases for secular facilities.”

Campbell had certified the question for the ballot, using a process that she has called “stupid” and said needs to be “revamped.” Her office had argued that the petition was just a rent control matter.

“It’s not about religious matters or religious subjects in the ways that mattered to the delegates at the Convention, or the ways that this court has discussed in its cases,” Assistant Attorney General Phoebe Fischer-Groban argued before the court last month.

Justice Scott Kafker wrote his own concurring opinion in the case, along with Gaziano’s main decision. Kafker said he concurred, but on more narrow grounds.

He said the petitions’ exemption for housing units operated solely for religious purposes “renders it improper, as it raises a distinct, intrusive, and potentially divisive religious inquiry.”

“Had the initiative simply stated that it limits rent increases in dwelling units operated by for-profit institutions, but not in dwelling units operated by non-profit institutions, a very different question would have been presented. Distinguishing for-profit from non- profit institutions does not require an analysis that relates to religion or religious institution,” Kafker wrote.

Rent control boosters called Tuesday’s declaration from the SJC “a massive disappointment” but said also that “it’s far from the end of our campaign to protect Massachusetts renters from excessive rent hikes.”

“While we disagree with the court’s interpretation, the issue raised by the court is easily fixable, and doesn’t affect the substance of our proposal,” Noemi “Mimi” Ramos, executive director of New England Community Project and chair of the Keep Massachusetts Home campaign, said.

As a result of legal challenges like the one to the rent control initiative and advisory opinions requested by the Senate, the SJC has had an active hand in shaping the November 2026 ballot.

The court has swatted away legal challenges and ruled that petitions that would undo the 2016 legalization of recreational marijuana and switch the state to a single all-party primary election structure can continue their journeys to go before voters on Nov. 4.

The justices sided with plaintiffs in another challenge, ruling that a question to cut the state income tax rate could not stay on the ballot as a result of Campbell’s faulty summary of the measure. A proposal to overhaul how legislative stipends are dished out and tie them to internal procedural benchmarks was scuttled after the SJC said in an advisory opinion requested by the Senate that the measure crossed a constitutional line.

The rent control question was the last of this year’s ballot questions still pending with the SJC.

“Today the Supreme Judicial Court confirmed that the nation’s most extreme rent control proposal was unconstitutional. While we firmly believe that Massachusetts voters were prepared to vote ‘no’ in November, today’s decision puts the issue to rest and protects our housing pipeline and our communities from the proven damage that rent control inflicts,” Conor Yunits, chair and spokesman for the Housing for Massachusetts committee formed to oppose the ballot question, said.

Supporters of the question saw it as instituting a needed lid on rising tenant costs that are a major contributor to the affordability woes facing residents. Gov. Maura Healey and legislative leaders opposed the proposal, echoing claims by the real estate industry that controls on rent would discourage needed housing production.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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