Campaign signs outside a Boston polling place during the 2021 municipal election. (Photo by Michael Jonas)

ON AUGUST 3, talking about public policy in Massachusetts could become a legal guessing game for nonprofit organizations.

That’s when the Commonwealth enters the 90-day period before the November election, when campaign finance disclosure rules begin applying to certain communications. Under a new interpretation by the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance, organizations that have spent years educating the public about public policy may suddenly face a choice: disclose their donors or stop talking. But OCPF has never publicly announced this new interpretation or issued formal guidance explaining it.

The Fiscal Alliance Foundation discovered the change only after contacting OCPF this spring. In June, voters in Acushnet, Rochester, Lakeville, Mattapoisett, and Carver voted on whether to reconsider a vocational school building project they had rejected in November 2025.

Before the 2025 vote, the foundation ran digital advertisements discussing the project’s cost, including the impact of state climate-related building requirements. We always seek OCPF guidance before expenditures are made to ensure we don’t violate any campaign finance rules or trigger donor disclosure reporting. The ads did not tell people how to vote, but rather focused on the underlying policy issues. When it asked OCPF whether it could run the same advertisements before the 2026 revote, OCPF responded that the ads would now trigger donor disclosure—even though the identical advertisements did not trigger disclosure only months earlier.

This isn’t about whether donor disclosure has a role in elections; It’s about whether government can expand those rules through vague interpretations that leave ordinary civic organizations guessing where the legal line is.

Consider what OCPF’s new interpretation could mean.

A nonprofit commissions a poll on a public policy issue that is the subject of a ballot question and advertises the results. Does it now have to disclose its donors?

A nonprofit publishes a study with new data on that same issue and promotes it to the public. Does it now have to disclose its donors?

Or consider the ballot question that voters will face in November asking whether they favor dedicating a portion of the sales tax revenue to environmental and climate-related projects. Can an environmental organization simply encourage voters to think about conservation before heading to the polls without triggering campaign finance disclosure requirements?

Under OCPF’s new interpretation, none of those answers is clear.

No nonprofit should have to hire a campaign finance lawyer before releasing a poll, publishing a study, or encouraging civic engagement. Yet that is exactly the uncertainty OCPF’s new interpretation creates.

Massachusetts law draws a clear distinction between communications about candidates and communications about ballot questions.

For candidate communications, the rule is objective and easy to understand. Mention a candidate by name for an advertisement within 90 days of an election, and donor disclosure most likely is required.

Ballot questions are different. The law requires disclosure only for communications intended to “influence or affect the vote on a question submitted to the voters.”

For years, OCPF interpreted that language reasonably. Organizations could educate the public about policy issues connected to ballot questions—even through advertising—without automatically triggering donor disclosure.

Nothing in the statute changed. OCPF’s interpretation did.

OCPF now advises that merely informing the public about the policy issue behind a ballot question—even without taking a position on the ballot question itself or mentioning the ballot question and election all together — may constitute “influencing” or “affecting” that ballot question.

That is a significant departure from prior practice. It replaces an objective standard with a subjective one, leaving organizations to guess whether factual information, public education, and ordinary civic engagement will be treated as regulated political speech.

The consequences are anything but theoretical.

Nonprofits—and even individuals—could unintentionally violate campaign finance law. Unless OCPF clarifies its interpretation before August 3, complaints, investigations, and enforcement actions are likely.

OCPF should return to its previous interpretation. It follows the statutory text, mirrors the objective standard governing candidate communications, and served the Commonwealth well through many election cycles.

Under that interpretation, a nonprofit organization making factual statements about public policy issues—without mentioning or advocating for a ballot question—is engaged in civic education, not campaign activity.

If OCPF believes a broader standard is appropriate, it should adopt one through an open regulatory process that provides clear rules, invites public comment, and gives organizations fair notice of what the law requires. It should not fundamentally change the meaning of the law through informal interpretations.

The question isn’t whether campaign finance disclosure rules should exist. They do.

The question is whether government should regulate public debate through vague standards that make it impossible for citizens and organizations to know when ordinary participation in civic life becomes regulated political activity.

A healthy democracy depends on informed citizens, vigorous public debate, and clear rules. Massachusetts should not force nonprofits, civic organizations, or individuals to choose between educating the public and risking a campaign finance violation simply because no one can say with confidence where the legal line is.

Jim Stergios is executive director of the Pioneer Institute. Paul Craney is executive director of the Fiscal Alliance Foundation.