Organizers Seek a 2028 Vote Requiring Two-Thirds Approval of Data Centers

Opponents of large data centers launched a campaign in Boston on Thursday, Nov. 12, to place a Massachusetts data center ballot question before voters in the 2028 statewide election, as the Kraft Group pursues a $16 billion campus in Sutton.

The Committee to Restrict Data Centers opened sign4restrictingdatacenters.org, where residents can pledge support and request a signature form by mail, the Boston Globe and WBUR, citing State House News Service, reported.

The proposal is already on file at the state. The Attorney General’s official list of 2028 initiative petitions includes Petition 26-08, titled “Initiative Petition for a Law Regulating the Construction, Expansion and Operation of Data Centers,” with Jim Fleming listed as the proponent’s contact. Fleming chairs the committee, the Globe reported. Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office certified the petition in September, according to the Globe and WBUR. Foley Hoag, in an October review of the certified 2028 petitions, also identified 26-08 as a data-center regulation measure.

If it became law, the petition would not ban data centers outright. It would, however, attach conditions that the Globe, WBUR and State House News Service said would make approval substantially harder, including a two-thirds vote of residents in the host community.

What Petition 26-08 would require

Under the measure as those outlets described the certified text, a city or town could not issue a municipal permit for a new or expanded data center unless the facility’s electricity supplier agreed not to shift costs onto other customers and committed to supplying enough electricity from 100% renewable resources to meet the facility’s needs without reducing renewable power available to others. Operators would also have to guarantee recovery of infrastructure costs if a facility closed, reduced capacity or violated its contract.

Water suppliers would have to certify that existing systems could accommodate the project without materially affecting service to customers in the host community or neighboring ones, and operators would need drought-related water reduction plans. Municipalities would have to post permitting documents online. Residents would vote at an election held at least 180 days after the community announced its permitting decision and released those documents. The state auditor could audit data centers and their electricity and water suppliers, and municipalities would be authorized to require a facility to stop operating until certain violations were corrected, the same accounts said.

The petition would apply at a lower size threshold than the rules Gov. Maura Healey has already imposed on state agencies. Executive Order 658, signed Sept. 8, generally covers data-center projects with peak electricity demand above 25 megawatts. The ballot measure’s threshold is 5 megawatts of peak annual demand, the Globe and WBUR reported. That 5-megawatt cutoff is one-fifth of the 25-megawatt line in the order, a TBR calculation from those figures.

How the petition differs from Healey’s executive order

Healey’s order, published in full on the state’s website, directs the Department of Environmental Protection, the Energy Facilities Siting Board, the MEPA office and other permitting agencies not to issue permits for covered projects unless the applicant has shown it meets the administration’s June 25 Statement of Expectations and has submitted a community benefits agreement reviewed by the Office of Environmental Justice and Equity. A companion press release said, in Healey’s words, “Unless a community says yes to a data center, we are saying no.” The order itself requires that community benefits agreement and related municipal guidance, not a town-wide referendum. The Globe and WBUR made the same distinction: unlike the ballot measure, the order does not require a community-wide vote.

The order also tells agencies to develop ratepayer protections, including an alternative compliance payment, by Dec. 31, 2026, for data centers that do not procure enough incremental clean electricity, with the money going to a Ratepayer Protection Fund. It applies only to facilities built or expanded after it took effect, and, like any executive order, it can be amended or revoked by a future governor, the Globe noted. Fleming told the Globe and WBUR that a ballot question is meant, in part, to push the Legislature to act. “If the legislature passes a law like this that is good, and not just an executive order, then we will wrap this entire process. And this will hopefully encourage them to do this,” he said.

A 2028 timeline, and a $16 billion project in Sutton

Organizers are not trying to hit the first signature deadline attached to this year’s filings. They would have until Nov. 18 to submit 74,574 signatures — 3% of the votes cast in the 2022 gubernatorial election — to advance this version now, the Globe and WBUR reported, citing the standard first-stage requirement also described by Foley Hoag. Because they are aiming at 2028, they can instead collect signatures next fall, when the threshold will be based on votes in this month’s governor’s race. That pause also lets them file a revised petition by next August’s deadline. Fleming indicated the language Campbell’s office already certified may not be the final version they take to voters, the same reports said.

If they gather enough signatures next fall, the Legislature would have until early May 2028 to act. If lawmakers do not pass the proposal, supporters would need a smaller second round of signatures by early July to reach the November 2028 ballot, the Globe and WBUR reported. That is the ordinary path for a Massachusetts initiative petition, and it is why the campaign is as much a message to Beacon Hill as it is a signature drive. Ballot questions in the state often follow that two-step process.

The immediate backdrop is Sutton, where residents have pushed back on the Kraft Group’s $16 billion data-center campus. The Globe, WBUR and State House News Service reported that the project, if completed, would rank as the fourth-largest data center in the country; that ranking is the outlets’ account of the proposal, not an independent TBR measurement. Fleming told those outlets he has ties to communities that have already raised concerns, including Westfield and Holyoke in Western Massachusetts. State Sen. John Velis, a Westfield Democrat, is promoting the campaign. “The completion and proposed construction of data centers around the state has caused local community groups to organize to either stop or delay new centers,” Velis said in the committee’s press release, citing electricity costs, environmental uncertainty, water use and noise, according to the Globe and WBUR.

The statewide petition also sits alongside local fights closer to Boston, including a Boston City Council hearing on a proposed citywide data-center ban. After Election Day, The Boston Report found that voters rejected data centers in 37 of 38 called local ballot measures around the country. The Globe and State House News Service, citing Ballotpedia, reported that voters favored restrictions in 40 of 41 local contests this month. The two tallies differ, and both are reported here as published; they agree on the broader point that nearly every local measure went against new data-center development.

The campaign website, the outlets reported, warns about electric bills, water use and noise it likens to jet engines, and it asks residents to back local voter approval of proposed facilities. Whether Petition 26-08 reaches the 2028 ballot, is rewritten next summer, or is overtaken by a statute on Beacon Hill, the first concrete decision organizers have already made is to spend the coming year building support rather than racing this month’s signature deadline.

Sources

• Boston Globe: Mass. ballot question would put major restrictions on data centers
• WBUR / State House News Service: Ballot question would put major restrictions on data centers
• Massachusetts Attorney General: Ballot initiatives submitted for the 2028 statewide election, including Petition 26-08
• Executive Order No. 658, official text, signed Sept. 8, 2026
• Healey administration: Governor Healey: No Data Centers Without Local Approval, Sept. 8, 2026