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SJC-12064

STEPHANIE GRAY & others1 vs. ATTORNEY GENERAL & another.2

Suffolk. May 2, 2016. - July 1, 2016.

Present: Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, & 

Hines, JJ.

Initiative. Constitutional Law, Initiative petition. Attorney 

General. Education, Standards.

Civil action commenced in the Supreme Judicial Court for 

the county of Suffolk on January 22, 2016.

The case was reported by Cordy, J.

Thaddeus A. Heuer (Andrew M. London with him) for the 

plaintiffs.

Juliana deHaan Rice, Assistant Attorney General (Michael B.

Firestone, Assistant Attorney General, with her) for the 

defendants.

BOTSFORD, J. The Attorney General has certified an 

initiative petition that concerns, and seeks to end, the use of 

 

1 Robert Antonucci, Bill Walczak, Dianne Kelly, B. John 

Dill, Kalimah Rahim, April West, Beverly Holmes, Jacinthe 

Albani, and Vanessa Calderon-Rosado.

2 Secretary of the Commonwealth.
2

the Common Core State Standards (common core standards) in 

defining the educational curriculum of publicly funded 

elementary and secondary students in the Commonwealth. The 

petition also concerns the standardized testing process used in 

Massachusetts school districts: it would require the 

Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education 

(commissioner) to publicly release each year all of the 

questions and other "test items" included in the prior year's 

comprehensive assessment tests that all publicly funded students 

in elementary and secondary schools are required to take. The 

plaintiffs, a group of Massachusetts voters, challenge the 

Attorney General's certification of the petition and seek to 

enjoin the Secretary of the Commonwealth (Secretary) from 

placing the proposed measure on the 2016 Statewide ballot on a 

number of grounds. We conclude, as the plaintiffs argue, that 

the Attorney General's certification of Initiative Petition 15-

12 did not comply with art. 48, The Initiative, II, § 3, of the 

Amendments to the Massachusetts Constitution because it contains 

provisions that are not related or mutually dependent.3 It is 

therefore unnecessary to consider the plaintiffs' other 

challenges.

 

3 All references in this opinion to art. 48, The Initiative, 

II, § 3, of the Amendments to the Massachusetts Constitution 

refer to art. 48 as amended by art. 74 of those amendments.
3

1. Background.

4 The common core standards were developed 

in 2009 as part of a State-led initiative that included 

governors and commissioners of education from forty-eight 

States, two territories, and the District of Columbia working as 

members of the National Governors Association Center for Best 

Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The 

purpose of the initiative was to create consistent learning 

goals to ensure that all students graduate from high school with 

the requisite preparation for "college, career, and life." See 

Development Process, Common Core State Standards Initiative, 

http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/developmentprocess/ [https://perma.cc/ULU2-CG62]. The common core 

standards define learning objectives for each elementary and 

secondary school grade level through the final year of high 

school, with the goal that every student will be able to meet 

expectations for what every child should know by the time he or 

she graduates from high school. See Frequently Asked Questions, 

Common Core State Standards Initiative, 

http://www.corestandards.org/wp-content/uploads/FAQ.pdf 

[https://perma.cc/W3VR-PQLN].

On July 21, 2010, the Board of Elementary and Secondary 

Education (board) voted, pursuant to its authority under G. L. 

 

4 The facts are taken from the statement of agreed facts and 

exhibits submitted by the parties pursuant to the single 

justice's reservation and report.
4

c. 69, §§ 1D and 1E, to adopt the common core standards and 

replace the then-current Massachusetts curriculum frameworks in 

English language arts and mathematics; the vote to adopt was 

contingent on "augmenting and customizing" the common core 

standards "within the [fifteen] percent allowance"5 for Statespecific content (July vote). The board directed the 

commissioner to present recommendations for modifying and 

augmenting the common core standards with State-specific content 

within the permissible fifteen per cent range no later than 

October, 2010, after which the commissioner was to solicit 

public comment. The commissioner also was directed to propose

to the board a final version of the standards, including Statespecific content, and upon the board's approval, they would 

become the new "Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for English 

Language Arts and Mathematics." On December 21, 2010, following 

a public comment period, the board voted unanimously to adopt 

the proposed new "Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English 

Language Arts and Literacy, Incorporating the Common Core State 

Standards," and the proposed new "Massachusetts Curriculum 

 

5 If a State, through an authorized governmental entity 

(here, the board) adopts the Common Core State Standards (common 

core standards), the State has agreed that they will account for 

eighty-five per cent of the total number of standards in a 

particular subject area, which provides the State with the 

option to adopt up to fifteen per cent in additional standards. 

See State Adoption of the Common Core State Standards: the 15 

Percent Rule, at 1 (Mar. 2012), available at http://files.eric.

ed.gov/fulltext/ED544664.pdf [https://perma.cc/2UFD-NKVX].
5

Framework for Mathematics, Incorporating the Common Core State 

Standards" (December vote).

On or before August 5, 2015, sixteen qualified voters 

(petitioners) submitted Initiative Petition 15-12 to the 

Attorney General. On September 2, 2015, the Attorney General 

certified to the Secretary that the petition is in the proper 

form and meets the requirements of art. 48; that the measure is 

not substantially the same as any measure that had been 

qualified for submission to the people at either of the two 

preceding biennial State elections; and that the initiative 

petition contains only subjects that are related or mutually 

dependent and which are not excluded from the initiative process 

pursuant to art. 48, The Initiative, II, § 2. The Attorney 

General also prepared a summary of the initiative petition to be 

used in the process for gathering additional signatures, and 

provided the summary to the Secretary. On or before December 2, 

2015, the petitioners submitted to the Secretary forms 

containing sufficient additional signatures to require that the 

Secretary transmit the petition to the Legislature. The 

Secretary then transmitted the petition to the Clerk of the 

House of Representatives, and the petition was assigned bill No.

H.3929, entitled "An Act relative to ending common core 

education standards." The Legislature has not enacted the 

measure that the petition proposes. If the petitioners submit 
6

the requisite number of signatures to the Secretary by July 6, 

2016, the Secretary intends to include the petition in the 

Information for Voters Guide and to include the substance of the 

proposed measure on the November, 2016, ballot.

On January 22, 2016, the plaintiffs filed their complaint 

in the county court, seeking relief in the nature of certiorari 

and mandamus; specifically, they seek to quash the certification 

of the petition and to enjoin the Secretary from including the 

substance of the proposed measure on the November, 2016,

Statewide ballot. After the parties filed a statement of agreed 

facts, the single justice reserved and reported the case for 

consideration by the full court.

The petition contains six sections.6 Section 1 would 

rescind the board's July vote to adopt, contingently, the common 

core standards, and would immediately "restore" the 

Massachusetts curriculum frameworks in English language arts and 

mathematics that were in effect prior to July 21, 2010. Section 

2 of the petition would amend the second paragraph of G. L. 

c. 69, § 1D (§ 1D),7 to require that (1) the board include, in 

 

6 The full text of Initiative Petition 15-12 is set forth in 

the Appendix to this opinion.

7 The second paragraph of G. L. c. 69, § 1D (§ 1D), as 

currently in effect, provides:

"The board shall direct the commissioner to institute 

a process to develop academic standards for the core 
7

the process for developing academic standards, committees 

comprised of "teachers and academics" from Massachusetts public 

and private colleges and universities; and (2) the commissioner 

copyright the "frameworks," granting permission for use only for 

noncommercial, educational uses.

Section 3 of the petition would further amend the second 

paragraph of § 1D by adding a provision that would (1) require 

the board to create three review committees -- one for 

mathematics, one for science and technology, and one for English 

-- with the members of each committee to be appointed by the 

Governor from public and private research universities in 

Massachusetts; and (2) prohibit the board from approving any 

"frameworks" unless the pertinent review committee "warrant[s] 

 

subjects of mathematics, science and technology, history 

and social science, English, foreign languages and the 

arts. The standards shall cover grades kindergarten 

through twelve and shall clearly set forth the skills, 

competencies and knowledge expected to be possessed by all 

students at the conclusion of individual grades or clusters 

of grades. The standards shall be formulated so as to set 

high expectations of student performance and to provide 

clear and specific examples that embody and reflect these 

high expectations, and shall be constructed with due regard 

to the work and recommendations of national organizations, 

to the best of similar efforts in other states, and to the 

level of skills, competencies and knowledge possessed by 

typical students in the most educationally advanced 

nations. The skills, competencies and knowledge set forth 

in the standards shall be expressed in terms which lend 

themselves to objective measurement, define the performance 

outcomes expected of both students directly entering the 

workforce and of students pursuing higher education, and 

facilitate comparisons with students of other states and 

other nations."
8

by a two-thirds vote that the frameworks are equivalent to the 

standards of the most educationally advanced nations as 

determined by the Trends in Mathematics and Sciences Study."8

Section 4 of the petition would amend the third paragraph 

of G. L. c. 69, § 1I (§ 1I),9 to require, with respect to the 

 

8 The Trends in International Mathematics and Sciences Study 

(TIMSS) is a series of international assessments of the 

mathematics and science knowledge of students in several 

countries. The National Center for Education Statistics of the 

United States Department of Education administers the TIMSS in 

the United States. See Institute of Education Sciences, 

National Center for Education Statistics, Trends in 

International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), Overview, 

http://nces.ed.gov/timss/ [https://perma.cc/7D5S-FEPC]. 

Although section 3 of the initiative petition does not include 

the word "international," we assume that the petition intends to 

refer to TIMSS as the proposed benchmark for academic standards.

9 General Laws c. 69, § 1I (§ 1I), provides in relevant 

part:

"The board shall adopt a system for evaluating on an 

annual basis the performance of both public school 

districts and individual public schools. . . .

"The system shall be designed both to measure outcomes 

and results regarding student performance, and to improve 

the effectiveness of curriculum and instruction. In its 

design and application, the system shall strike a balance 

among considerations of accuracy, fairness, expense and 

administration. The system shall employ a variety of 

assessment instruments on either a comprehensive or 

statistically valid sampling basis. Such instruments shall 

be criterion referenced, assessing whether students are 

meeting the academic standards described in this 

chapter. . . . Such instruments shall provide the means to 

compare student performance among the various school 

systems and communities in the commonwealth, and between 

students in other states and in other nations, especially 

those nations which compete with the commonwealth for 

employment and economic opportunities. . . .
9

comprehensive diagnostic assessments of individual students 

conducted on an annual basis,10 the annual release, before the 

start of each school year, of all of the previous academic 

year's test items, including all test questions, all constructed 

responses, and all essays, for each grade in which the 

diagnostic assessment tests were administered and for each 

subject tested, "[i]n order to better inform the teachers and 

administrators about the diagnostic assessments."11

 

"In addition, comprehensive diagnostic assessment of 

individual students shall be conducted at least in the 

fourth, eighth and tenth grades. Said diagnostic 

assessments shall identify academic achievement levels of 

all students in order to inform teachers, parents, 

administrators and the students themselves, as to 

individual academic performance. The board shall develop 

procedures for updating, improving or refining the 

assessment system."

10 The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) 

test qualifies as a "comprehensive diagnostic assessment" and is 

"used as the high school competency determination, or graduation 

requirement." Student No. 9 v. Board of Educ., 440 Mass. 752, 

759 (2004). The MCAS test was administered initially in 1998, 

and, beginning with the graduating class of 2003, high school 

students must achieve a set minimum scaled score on the English 

language arts and mathematics grade 10 MCAS test as a graduation 

requirement. Id.

11 The final sections of the initiative petition provide 

that "the several provisions of this Act" are independent and 

severable (section 5), and that "[t]his Act" is to take effect 

"immediately upon coming law" (section 6). We do not discuss 

either of these sections further except to note that the 

severability provision in section 5 is part of the measure 

proposed in the petition, and would only be operative if enacted 

into law. This severability provision does not authorize this 
10

The plaintiffs allege in their complaint that Initiative 

Petition 15-12 was improperly certified by the Attorney General 

because the petition does not comply with art. 48 in several 

respects. In particular, the plaintiffs claim that (1) the 

petition contains subjects that are neither related nor mutually 

dependent in violation of art. 48, The Initiative, II, § 3; (2) 

the petition does not propose a "law" as required by art. 48, 

The Initiative, II, § 1, insofar as it proposes to rescind the 

board's July vote, a vote that had no operative effect because 

final board approval of the common core standards did not occur 

until the December vote; and (3) it does not include the 

requisite enacting language prescribed by G. L. c. 4, § 3.

2. Discussion.

12 a. Standard of review. A challenge to 

the decision by the Attorney General to certify an initiative 

petition is reviewed de novo. See Abdow v. Attorney Gen., 468 

Mass. 478, 487 (2014). See also Opinion of the Justices, 262 

Mass. 603, 606 (1928) ("The certificate of the Attorney General 

 

court to approve the Attorney General's certification of some 

sections of Initiative Petition 15-12 while disapproving others.

12 In Bogertman v. Attorney Gen., 474 Mass. 607, 610-612

(2016), we summarized the process and standards for enactment of 

a measure by popular initiative petition and the duty of the 

Attorney General under art. 48, The Initiative, II, § 3, to 

review and certify that the petition meets the criteria set 

forth in art. 48, The Initiative, II, §§ 1-2. There is no need 

to repeat the discussion in this case, but it provides the 

necessary framework for our consideration of the plaintiffs' 

challenges to the initiative petition before us here.
11

concerns merely matters of form. . . . Whatever fails to 

possess elements indispensable for enactment or for submission 

to the people cannot be made into a 'law' by such certificate"). 

In conducting our review, we bear in mind "the firmly 

established principle that art. 48 is to be construed to support 

the people's prerogative to initiate and adopt laws." Carney v. 

Attorney Gen., 451 Mass. 803, 814 (2008) (Carney II), quoting 

Yankee Atomic Elec. Co. v. Secretary of the Commonwealth, 403 

Mass. 203, 211 (1988).

b. Relatedness. Pursuant to art. 48, The Initiative, II, 

§ 3, the Attorney General may only certify petitions that 

contain subjects "which are related or which are mutually 

dependent" (related subjects requirement). The plaintiffs argue 

that the petition does not comply with this requirement. We 

agree. In Carney v. Attorney Gen., 447 Mass. 218, 225-232 

(2006) (Carney I), the court, informed by review of the 

proceedings of the State Constitutional Convention of 1917-1918,

summarized the purpose of the related subjects requirement. We 

stated:

"The relatedness limitation requires the Attorney 

General to scrutinize the aggregation of laws proposed in 

the initiative petition for its impact at the polls. At 

some high level of abstraction, any two laws may be said to 

share a 'common purpose.' The salient inquiry is: Do the 

similarities of an initiative's provisions dominate what 

each segment provides separately so that the petition is 

sufficiently coherent to be voted on 'yes' or 'no' by the 

voters?
12

". . .

"The language, structure, and history of art. 48 all 

suggest that any initiative presenting multiple subjects 

may not operate to deprive the people of a 'meaningful way'

to express their will. . . . It is not enough that the 

provisions in an initiative petition all 'relate' to some 

same broad topic at some conceivable level of 

abstraction. . . . To clear the relatedness hurdle, the 

initiative petition must express an operational relatedness 

among its substantive parts that would permit a reasonable 

voter to affirm or reject the entire petition as a unified 

statement of public policy. A broader interpretation of 

the common purpose requirement would undercut the very 

foundations of the relatedness limitation." (Emphases 

added; citations omitted.)

Id. at 226, 230-231. See Abdow, 468 Mass. at 499.13 See also 

Albano v. Attorney Gen., 437 Mass. 156, 161 (2002); Mazzone v. 

 

13 Abdow v. Attorney Gen., 468 Mass. 478, 499 (2014), also 

discusses the related subjects requirement. We stated:

"The decisions of this court illustrate how we have 

endeavored to construe the related subjects requirement in 

a balanced manner that fairly accommodates both the 

interests of initiative petitioners and the interests of 

those who would ultimately vote on the petition. On the 

one hand, the requirement must not be construed so narrowly 

as to frustrate the ability of voters to use the popular 

initiative as 'the people's process' to bring important 

matters of concern directly to the electorate; the 

delegates to the constitutional convention that approved 

art. 48 did, after all, permit more than one subject to be 

included in a petition, and we ought not be so restrictive 

in the definition of relatedness that we effectively 

eliminate that possibility and confine each petition to a 

single subject. . . . On the other hand, relatedness 

cannot be defined so broadly that it allows the inclusion 

in a single petition of two or more subjects that have only 

a marginal relationship to one another, which might confuse 

or mislead voters, or which could place them in the 

untenable position of casting a single vote on two or more 

dissimilar subjects."
13

Attorney Gen., 432 Mass. 515, 528-529 (2000); Massachusetts 

Teachers Ass'n v. Secretary of the Commonwealth, 384 Mass. 209, 

219-220 (1981); Opinion of the Justices, 309 Mass. 555, 560-561 

(1941).

These cases indicate that at the core of the related 

subjects requirement is the condition that the initiative 

petition's provisions share a "common purpose," see 

Massachusetts Teachers Ass'n, 384 Mass. at 219-220;14 put 

slightly differently but making the same point, the petition's 

provisions, considered together, must present a "unified 

statement of public policy" that the voters can accept or reject 

as a whole. See Carney I, 447 Mass. at 231.

 

Id.

14 See also Abdow, 468 Mass. at 501-504 (common purpose 

found where petition's provisions all related to limiting scope 

of permissible gambling in Commonwealth); Albano v. Attorney 

Gen., 437 Mass. 156, 161-162 (2002) (common purpose found where 

constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage would result 

in uniform application to several different statutes); Mazzone

v. Attorney Gen., 432 Mass. 515, 528-529 (2000) (common purpose 

found where "provisions of the petition relate directly or 

indirectly to expanding the scope of the Commonwealth's drug 

treatment programs and . . . 'fairly' funding those programs"); 

Massachusetts Teachers Ass'n v. Secretary of the Commonwealth, 

384 Mass. 209, 218-221 (1981) (related subjects requirement met 

where provisions of petition all related directly or indirectly 

to limitation of taxes); Opinion of the Justices, 309 Mass. 555, 

560-561 (1941) (where general subject of proposed law was 

prevention of pregnancy or conception, provisions seeking to 

provide for "treatment or prescription given to married person," 

"teaching in chartered medical schools," and "publication or 

sale of medical treatises or journals" deemed related as sharing 

common purpose).
14

In two cases, we have concluded that the provisions 

contained in a particular initiative petition do not share a 

common purpose or reflect a uniform statement of public policy, 

and, therefore, did not satisfy the related subjects 

requirement. In Opinion of the Justices, 422 Mass. 1212, 1213, 

1220-1221 (1996), in response to questions propounded by the 

House of Representatives, we considered an initiative petition 

that included several provisions designed to reduce and limit 

compensation paid to Massachusetts legislators and also one that 

would permit the Inspector General to access the records of the 

General Court and records kept by the commissioner of veterans' 

services. One of the questions posed to the court was whether 

the provision relating to the records of the commissioner of 

veterans' services was sufficiently related to a subject to 

which the initiative petition's other provisions also related. 

The petition's drafters asserted that the common purpose among 

the provisions was "to make Massachusetts government more 

accountable to the people"; counsel to the House of 

Representatives proposed that the common purpose might be 

legislative accountability. Id. at 1220. We determined that 

the common purpose asserted by the drafters was "unacceptably 

broad," given that "[o]ne could imagine a multitude of diverse 

subjects all of which would 'relate' to making government more 

accountable to the people." Id. at 1221. We accepted the 
15

alternative proposed purpose of legislative accountability as 

reflecting a common purpose that also was consistent with the 

title of the initiative petition at issue, but concluded that 

"[p]ermitting the Inspector General access to the records of the 

commissioner of veterans' services does not relate in any 

meaningful way to improving legislative accountability." Id. 

Accordingly, because these provisions were not "related or 

mutually dependent," the initiative petition did not satisfy the 

related subjects requirement. Id.

In the second case, Carney I, the petition proposed to (1) 

amend certain criminal statutes to punish those who abused or 

neglected dogs, and (2) ban parimutuel dog racing. Carney I, 

447 Mass. at 219-220 & n.7. We rejected as too broad the 

Attorney General's argument that these were sufficiently related 

subjects based on a mutual connection to the goal of promoting 

more humane treatment of dogs, see id. at 224, and concluded 

that these provisions lacked a sufficient "operational 

relationship" between them to permit a reasoned vote on a 

uniform public policy question. See id. at 231-232. In that 

regard, we observed:

"The voter who favors increasing criminal penalties 

for animal abuse should be permitted to register that clear 

preference without also being required to favor eliminating 

parimutuel dog racing. Conversely, the voter who thinks 

that the criminal penalties for animal abuse statutes are 

strong enough should not be required to vote in favor of 
16

extending the reach of our criminal laws because he favors 

abolishing parimutuel dog racing."

Id. at 231. As a result, the related subjects requirement was 

not satisfied and the Attorney General's certification of the 

petition did not comply with art. 48. Id. at 231-232.

With this background in mind, we turn to Initiative 

Petition 15-12. Sections 1 through 3 may be said to share a 

common purpose: redefining the contents of the academic 

standards and curriculum frameworks for the Commonwealth's 

public schools. Section 4, however, which would amend § 1I to 

require annual publication of all the previous year's questions, 

constructed responses, and essays for each grade and core 

subject included in the mandatory diagnostic assessment tests,

has the explicitly stated purpose of better informing educators 

about the assessment tests. Thus, the apparent goal of section

4 is to make more transparent the standardized diagnostic 

assessment tests and testing process required to be used in 

public education, and it is a goal that comes with a significant 

price tag: as the Attorney General agreed in oral argument 

before this court, implementing section 4 will require the 

development and creation of a completely new comprehensive 

diagnostic test every year, which means a substantial increase 

in annual expense for the board -- an expense to be borne by 
17

taxpayers and to be weighed by voters in determining whether

increased transparency is worth the cost.15

An initiative petition properly may contain only subjects 

"which are related or which are mutually dependent." Art. 48, 

The Initiative, II, § 3. The two subjects in this petition are 

clearly not "mutually dependent." In fact, the opposite seems 

true. That is, whether the diagnostic assessment tests are 

based on the common core standards or some previous set of 

academic standards -- the focus of sections 1 through 3 of the 

petition -- will not affect in any way the commissioner's 

obligation under section 4 to release before the start of every 

school year all of the previous year's test items in order to 

inform educators about the testing process; the commissioner's

obligation will exist independently of the specific curriculum 

content on which the tests are based.

 

15 The diagnostic assessment tests currently are embodied 

not only in the MCAS tests, see note 10, supra, but also in the 

Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers 

(PARCC) assessment tests currently administered as diagnostic 

assessments in some Massachusetts school districts. See 

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 

Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, 

http://www.doe.mass.edu/parcc/ [https://perma.cc/56H8-X85Y]. 

The record does not contain any information concerning whether 

there are legal constraints that would limit the commissioner's 

ability to publish information about the PARCC assessment tests, 

given that these tests are created and published by an entity 

that is independent of the board and the Department of 

Elementary and Secondary Education. See http://www.parcconline.

org/about/parcc-inc [https://perma.cc/Q83Y-T6ZY].
18

Nor do the two subjects have sufficient operational 

connection, see Carney I, 447 Mass. at 230-231, to be "related"

within the meaning of art. 48. The Attorney General argues that 

sections 1 through 3 are "operationally related" to section 4 in 

that all four sections serve a common purpose of imposing "new 

procedural requirements on the development and implementation of 

educational standards," and because "the twin educational facets 

of curriculum and assessment are inextricably coupled: 

assessments exist to measure the extent to which students are 

learning and schools are teaching the material, concepts, and 

strategies set forth in the academic standards." We agree that 

at a conceptual level, curriculum content and assessment are 

interconnected, but the related subjects requirement is not 

satisfied by a conceptual or abstract bond. See Carney I, supra

at 230-231. At the operational level, this petition joins a 

proposed policy of rejecting a particular set of curriculum 

standards, common core, with a proposed policy of increasing

transparency in the standardized testing process at what is 

likely to be a greatly increased cost, regardless of the content 

of the curriculum standards used. These are two separate public 

policy issues.

There is significant public debate in Massachusetts and the 

nation about the value of the common core standards; there is 

also a great deal of debate about the value of standardized 
19

testing.16 That both may be controversial public issues in the 

domain of elementary and secondary education, however, does not, 

by itself, bring them within the related subjects requirement of 

art. 48, The Initiative, II, § 3. The combination of these two 

issues in one initiative petition does not offer the voters a 

"unified statement of public policy" (emphasis added). See 

Carney I, 447 Mass. at 231. In other words, we cannot say that 

"the similarities of [the petition's] provisions dominate what 

each [provision] provides separately" so that the petition,

considered as a whole, "is sufficiently coherent to be voted on 

'yes' or 'no' by the voters." Id. at 226. Rather, because the 

issues combined in the petition are substantively distinct, it 

is more likely that voters would be in the "untenable position 

of casting a single vote on two or more dissimilar subjects," 

Abdow, 468 Mass. at 499, which is the specific misuse of the 

initiative process that the related subjects requirement was 

intended to avoid. See Carney I, supra at 229-231.

Our conclusion that Initiative Petition 15-12 fails to 

satisfy the related subjects requirement of art. 48 will prevent 

the proposed measure in the petition from being placed on the 

2016 Statewide ballot. Because this is so, we need not consider 

the plaintiffs' additional claims that the petition fails to 

 

16 See If the MCAS Is So Good, Why Are We Ditching It?, 

Boston Globe Magazine, June 12, 2016; Leaked Questions Rekindle 

Debate Over Common Core Tests, N.Y. Times, May 24, 2016.
20

propose a "law," see art. 48, The Initiative, II, § 1, and that 

the necessary enacting language required by G. L. c. 4, § 3, is 

absent.

3. Conclusion. We remand the case to the county court for 

entry of a judgment declaring that the Attorney General's 

certification of Initiative Petition 15-12 is not in compliance 

with the limitations of art. 48 and enjoining the Secretary from 

taking steps to place the measure on the ballot in the 2016 

Statewide election.

So ordered.
Appendix.

Initiative Petition for a Law Relative to Ending Common Core 

Education Standards

"Be it enacted by the people and their authority:

"SECTION 1. Notwithstanding the provisions of any general or 

special law to the contrary, the vote taken by the Massachusetts 

Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on July 21, 2010, to 

adopt the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and 

English Language Arts is hereby rescinded. The curriculum 

frameworks in Mathematics and English Language Arts that were in 

effect prior to that date are hereby restored.

"SECTION 2. Section 1D of Chapter 69 is hereby amended in the 

second paragraph by inserting after the first sentence, the 

following new sentences:

The process shall include committees made up exclusively of 

public school teachers and academics from private and 

public colleges and universities established and operated 

in Massachusetts. The commissioner shall copyright the 

frameworks, which shall be wholly owned by the department; 

permission shall be granted to copy any or all parts of 

these frameworks for non-commercial educational purposes.

"SECTION 3. Said section 1D of chapter 69 is hereby further 

amended in the second paragraph by inserting after the third 

sentence the following new sentences:

There shall be three review committees, one for each 

discipline of math, science and technology and English. 

Each review committee shall have three members appointed by 

the governor who shall choose said members from private or 

public research universities established and operated in 

Massachusetts for each of the disciplines. For the 

purposes of this section, a 'research university' is any 

university that awards doctoral degrees in the arts and 

sciences. Each review committee shall warrant by a twothirds vote that the frameworks are equivalent to the 

standards of the most educationally advanced nations as 

determined by the Trends in Mathematics and Sciences Study. 
2

No framework shall be approved by the board without such a 

warrant.

"SECTION 4. Section 1I of Chapter 69 is hereby amended in the 

third paragraph by inserting after the second sentence, the 

following new sentence:

In order to better inform the teachers and administrators 

about the diagnostic assessments, after the administration 

of the assessments but before the start of the new school 

year, the commissioner shall release all of the test items, 

including questions, constructed responses and essays, for 

each grade and every subject.

"SECTION 5. The several provisions of this Act are independent 

and severable and the invalidity, if any, of any part or feature 

thereof shall not affect or render the remainder of the Act 

invalid or inoperative.

"SECTION 6. This act shall take effect immediately upon 

becoming law."