Beacon Hill is approaching a proposal to reduce the state’s income tax with a club in one hand, an olive branch in the other, and a furrowed brow to top it all off.

Just a few weeks after the House voted to condition access to federal tax cuts on the failure of a ballot question that would reduce the state income tax rate, Speaker Ron Mariano suggested a willingness to chat with the influential business groups pushing the measure about a possible compromise.

On the same day, the Senate voted to allow the state to align with the new federal tax provisions without any mention of the ballot measure, a break from the House that revealed divisions in strategy among top Democrats. Legislative leaders have also hinted they might respond to a voter-approved income tax cut by pursuing some kind of tax increase elsewhere on the state’s ledger.

Altogether, the array of comments and actions represents something of a mixed message. Lawmakers are at once deeply skeptical of the entire ballot question process, think it’s been coopted by interest groups, and also want those same groups they slam to come to the table and chat about alternatives.

The income tax cut question could be one of the most impactful decisions in years. A report from the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University estimated that, once fully implemented, the change could erase $5.1 billion in revenue from the state’s coffers while providing about $1,250 in annual relief for an average middle-class household.

For months, the Democrats who control the House and Senate as well as Gov. Maura Healey have been warning that the proposal would unleash massive pain on state government, forcing cuts to popular services and programs. But leaders of the House took their concerns a step further, moving to write an ultimatum about the ballot question’s fate into a Healey proposal dealing with federal tax code changes.

States have some authority to decide whether they will define personal and corporate taxable income the same way as the federal government. New measures in the reconciliation package Congress and President Trump approved last year will change several corporate tax provisions, and if Massachusetts automatically conformed with those updates, it could cut hundreds of millions of dollars in state revenue. So Healey suggested instead phasing them in over a few years, softening the immediate impacts while still allowing businesses to access the relief eventually, a contrast from some other states that “decoupled” from federal definitions altogether.

Last month, the House wove Healey’s proposal into a broader spending bill with one major change: a rider declaring that if the tax cut ballot question passes this fall, the state would not implement the federal corporate tax changes at all. That means voters would essentially face a choice between cutting the state income tax or gaining the relief promised by federal changes.

It’s unusual for legislation to link a statutory change to the outcome of a future statewide vote, and the idea quickly drew blowback from businesses leading the campaign. Brian Shortsleeve, one of the GOP challengers hoping to unseat Maura Healey, described Mariano and his team as “doing their best Tony Soprano impressions and trying to extort voters.”