Effort To Suspend MA Gas Tax Seeks Supporters — At $3 A Pop

MASSACHUSETTS — If you want to save a few cents on gas, it's going to cost you a few dollars.

A new effort to suspend the state's 45-cent gas tax emerged this summer after prices breached $5 per gallon. The Sign2SuspendTheGasTax.org committee is on the hunt for thousands of signatures to get a gas tax-suspension referendum on the November 2024 ballot.

But citing the high cost of mounting a signature petition drive, the committee is asking each person who signs to donate $2.95 to the cause — which is now higher or equal to the price of a gallon in some parts of the state, according to GasBuddy.

"This will pay for printing the petition, for postage to mail it to the signer, for a prepaid addressed envelope to mail the signature to the local election clerk for them to verify that it belongs to the actual voter on record, for couriers to retrieve all the signed petitions in the 351 cities and towns and return them to us so we can submit them to the Secretary of State, and to hire back office staff to help manage 100,000 printed petitions," the committee's website says.

Earlier this month, the committee cleared an early hurdle in the petition process after the state Attorney General's office certified the gas tax suspension as constitutional. The committee has until Nov. 23 to collect just over 80,000 signatures from registered voters, which may lead to the gas tax suspension getting sent to the state Legislature to either pass or reject.

When gas prices peaked over the summer, Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano said they did not support a gas tax suspension, fearing "billions of dollars in profits for oil companies — and only pennies in the pockets of consumers."

With a rejection by state lawmakers expected, the Sign2SuspendTheGasTax.org committee will then continue collecting signatures to get the gas tax suspension on the November 2024 statewide ballot.

The committee was founded by Brookline resident Harold Hubschman, who is also using the gas tax suspension effort as a way to build an online base to use for future referendums. The group said it started off with the gas tax suspension "to avoid fringe wedge issues and focus on mainstream common sense initiatives."

"Once we have a large enough community of signers, we will ask them which specific laws they would like to see enacted and pursue one or more of those if there is enough support in our online community of signers to get those issues on the ballot," Hubschman's website says.

Whatever the price of a gallon in November 2024, the campaign promises voters will that $2.95 back "the first time you fill up after our initiative becomes law."