In November, voters from Cambridge, Boston, Somerville, and Watertown will have the chance to demand that their legislators show Thomas Finneran the door. On Monday, the OverthrowFinneran.org campaign submitted a petition to the Secretary of State’s Office to put a question — one that could end Finneran’s reign as Speaker of the House — on the November ballot in 18 state legislative districts.

The proposed question allows voters to instruct their representatives not to vote for Finneran when members select the next Speaker in January 2003, at the start of the next legislative session. While representatives do not have to abide by the results, an overwhelming constituent response one way or the other could influence how they vote when it comes time to elect a Speaker. Which naturally raises the question of whether voters are truly fed up with Finneran’s heavy-handed rule over other representatives.

Eric Weltman thinks so. Weltman is the organizing director of Citizens for Participation in Political Action, the group that runs OverthrowFinneran.org. The campaign is " an effective way of tapping into and expressing public opposition to House Speaker Tom Finneran, " he says. He reports broad support for the initiative from voters of all political stripes. It isn’t " just liberals and lefties like us that were opposing [Finneran], " he notes. The group had help with its petition from Republicans and Democrats, as well as from Greens and Libertarians.

OverthrowFinneran.org gathered enough signatures from the registered voters of 18 districts across the state to get the question on November ballots in those districts. The group picked 21 districts that seemed likely to respond well to its message — and, perhaps more importantly, where they had volunteers who wanted to help. Sufficient signatures were collected in all but three of the targeted districts. However, voters who believe a vote for the ballot question is a strike against Finneran may be wrong. The initiative’s success " depends very much on the question and the size of the vote it gets, [and] on the legislator who represents that district, " says Brian McNiff, of the Secretary of State’s Office.

Opponents of former Senate president William Bulger used a similar ballot question in one or two districts to try to oust him from office. That initiative failed, and Bulger continued as Senate president (in total he served for a record 20 years) until he left in 1996 to become the president of the University of Massachusetts.

Still, the simple fact that the question will appear on the ballots of 18 districts may make pols across the state take notice. " That really is a measure of how widespread and deep the opposition to Finneran is that we managed to get on the ballot for so many districts, " Weltman says.