The opinions expressed below are those of Jon Keller and not those of WBZ, CBS News or Paramount Global.

BOSTON – On Election Day, voters said yes to several ballot initiatives in Massachusetts. But that doesn’t mean they have the last word.

Question 1, which gave the auditor the ability to control the legislative branch, passed overwhelmingly, with more than 71 percent of the vote. And nearly 60 percent of voters approved Question 2, meaning public high school students no longer need to pass the MCAS exam to graduate.

But will state lawmakers change these new laws — or abandon them altogether?

Question 1

“Legislative leaders are always looking for a way out,” said listener Diana DiZoglio, who asked Question 1. And she urges voters to back up their vote by putting even more pressure on state leaders. “We are reaching out to people in every sector of Massachusetts and asking you to call your legislator and call the governor,” she said.

But keep in mind: “The prerogative of the legislature is to make and adjust laws,” notes Evan Horowitz of the Tufts Center for State Policy Analysis. Although the auditor can examine how the Legislature manages its own funds, he says, his authority to fulfill his promise to investigate internal procedures such as committee assignments and voice voting rests on legal ground fragile.

“The Legislature, short of changing the law, can also just defund the auditor’s office, or have a section that says we fund the auditor’s office, but none of those dollars can be used to audit the legislature,” Horowitz said. “It might be better to think of it as the roadrunner and the coyote (from the old cartoons), with the listener playing the role of the coyote and the legislator playing the role of the roadrunner. They have many ways of going about it. to go out.”

Question 2 eliminating MCAS

And despite the teachers unions’ talk in their campaign ads on Issue 2 replacing MCAS with local control over graduation standards, on Beacon Hill they are already discussing new statewide standards. ‘state that could require completion of prescribed courses rather than passing a single test.

“It looked like a referendum on MCAS, but it wasn’t,” Horowitz said. “This was a referendum on whether the state should play a role in deciding whether there should be statewide standards and who should graduate from high school . And I think there’s some room for maneuver.”

Many voters seem to think that election issues like this are a form of direct democracy that allows them to bypass the legislature, but that’s not entirely true. Most state legislatures can, and sometimes do, tinker with election issues once they become law, and there are cases like the taxpayer-funded election law, passed in 1998, where they were finally completely repealed.

Voters can retaliate against legislators who do this in elections, but they rarely do so.

Jon Keller

Jon Keller is a political analyst for WBZ-TV News, and his “Keller@Large” reports on a wide range of topics are regularly featured during WBZ-TV News at 5 and 6 p.m. Keller’s commentary is also seen weekday mornings at 5:30. on WBZ this morning.