They’ve been here before. Two years ago, business groups lost the fight over the so-called millionaires tax, a ballot initiative largely bankrolled by the MTA and other teachers unions. The union side outspent the business side in that one, $29 million to $15 million, or nearly two to one. Voters narrowly approved the millionaires tax, a surcharge on high earners’ income taxes that took effect in January 2023.
This time, in the fight over MCAS, the margin of victory wasn’t so narrow — 59 percent in favor versus 41 percent opposed. And the gap in spending was even bigger: The MTA spent $15 million-plus on in-kind services and outside contractors. The no side? Only $5 million. This time, it was three-to-one. The MTA started running TV ads in September, while the no-on-2 committee only began doing so in the campaign’s final stretch, in mid-October. Business leaders also lost a similar showdown in 2016 over a proposed expansion of charter schools, but they actually outspent the unions that year, with the help of millions in out-of-state money.
The no-on-2 committee did get one notable out-of-state donation in the campaign’s final days: $2.5 million from Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York (and a Medford native). It took Greater Boston’s entire business community, apparently, to match that gift.
The next biggest donor behind Bloomberg? New Balance chairman Jim Davis gave $250,000. Five of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership’s 20 members were also represented on the donor list: State Street ($200,000), Analog Devices cofounder Ray Stata ($200,000), MassMutual ($100,000), Suffolk Construction owner John Fish ($95,000), and Liberty Mutual ($50,000), while the Partnership itself kicked in $100,000. Several private equity executives also chipped in, as did some developers. But many of the state’s biggest companies and wealthiest businesspeople stayed on the sidelines.
Eastern Bank chair Bob Rivers tried to prod everyone he could to donate. On Wednesday, Rivers said that the Question 2 results represented a “profoundly disappointing outcome” that will hurt kids and undermine one of the state’s biggest competitive strengths, its public education system.
The fund-raising effort this year was complicated by competition posed by the presidential race, as well as a parallel local effort to form a new business coalition called the Mass Opportunity Alliance. Then there’s the fact many of the biggest private-sector employers in Massachusetts are out-of-state companies, with minimal C-suite interest in local political matters.
The no side wasn’t just outspent, though. It was outworked. The MTA can rely on the dues paid by its nearly 120,000 members to fund its ads. Maybe more importantly, those teachers can be a powerful and persuasive army. MTA president Max Page on Wednesday talked proudly of the efforts that the rank-and-file teachers put in. Knocking on doors. Making calls. Sharing their stories. Page pointed to the trust that many parents place with their kids’ teachers. The no committee lacked a similar ground-game effort.
Now that the voters have spoken, Page is already looking ahead to other issues. His Beacon Hill to-do list includes better pay for paraprofessionals in the schools and paid family medical leave for teachers and other municipal workers who are exempt from the state’s paid leave law, not to mention the more controversial right-to-strike legislation.
Union forces — the MTA, the Service Employees International Union, and others — can’t help but be emboldened after winning two ballot questions in a row. This feels like one more hit to the business community’s clout. How big of a hit remains to be seen.
Jim Rooney, chief executive of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, cautioned against reading into the results. He noted that business groups notched a big win in 2023, when the Legislature passed a $1 billion tax-cut package. And Competitive Partnership chief executive Jay Ash said this campaign was less about Corporate Boston’s influence, and more about the “bad brand” of the MCAS that gets boiled down by critics to too much “teaching to the test.”
Like the teachers union, business leaders are also looking ahead to the State House. Question 2 proved to be a divisive issue on Beacon Hill — opposed by top brass such as House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka, but supported by other Democratic members. One hope from the no-on-2 perspective: to spark a conversation about setting new universal standards for all school systems now that Massachusetts has been left with a patchwork of 300-plus local requirements.
Can they succeed with a new attempt at educational reform in the Legislature, one that doesn’t undercut the will of the voters?
Business leaders, as a group, may have failed on the millionaires tax and now MCAS. But they’ll soon face a new test. And it’s never too early to start preparing.
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.