Republicans are trying to limit the use of citizen-initiated legislation in some states after years of progressive victories.
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Backers of a proposed measure on firearm permits delivered signatures to election offices in Salem, Ore., in July.
Ballot measures, a tool many states adopted during the Progressive Era to allow voters to pass their own laws, don’t always get much news coverage — but they can often surprise us.
This year, there are hotly contested ballot measures on abortion, marijuana legalization and Medicaid expansion, among other topics.
But at the same time, there are efforts in many states to make it harder to pass ballot measures.
Depending on whom you ask, these proposals are either a frontal attack on democracy or a necessary move to counteract attempts by national liberal groups to hijack state politics.
Either way, state legislatures have made hundreds of attempts to limit or restrict the use of ballot measures over the last five years, according to forthcoming research by Emma Olson Sharkey, a lawyer with the Elias Law Group.
In some cases, legislatures have tinkered with the rules for how many signatures are required, or the necessary qualifications for those doing the canvassing.
But this year, legislatures in several states have put proposals to make passing ballot measures more difficult on the ballot itself.
Take Arkansas, where there is a ballot measure this year to restrict ballot measures, called Issue 2. If a simple majority votes yes, in the future it will take 60 percent of voters to adopt constitutional amendments or laws initiated by citizens.
The measure was sponsored by two Republican lawmakers, State Representative David Ray and State Senator Bart Hester. Ray, in a television discussion of the proposal, described the higher threshold as necessary “to ensure that there’s a genuine consensus among voters.” The Arkansas Constitution, he said, should not be amended in “willy-nilly fashion” by “big-money, out-of-state interests.”
There is some sleight of hand there, opponents say. Issue 2 would effectively grant a veto on ballot measures to 40 percent of the public, while the Republican-led General Assembly could still pass laws by a bare majority.
Most states require a simple “50 percent plus one” majority to pass a ballot measure. Only three states have supermajority requirements similar to what’s on the table in Arkansas — Florida, Washington and Oregon, in some circumstances.
The State of the 2022 Midterm Elections
With the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.
- Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.
- Wisconsin Senate Race: Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate, is wobbling in his contest against Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, as an onslaught of G.O.P. attack ads takes a toll.
- G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.
- Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.
In Arizona, there are three proposed restrictions to ballot measures on this year’s ballot: Proposition 128, which would allow the Legislature to amend or repeal ballot measures even after they are approved if a judge rules that provisions within them are unconstitutional; Proposition 129, which would limit citizen-initiated ballot measures to a single topic; and Proposition 132, which would require any ballot initiative that would raise taxes to pass by 60 percent.
As in Arkansas, the supporters of these ballot measures say they are necessary to rein in abuses of the process. Critics say they are intended to lock in the power of a Legislature that was gerrymandered to favor Republicans despite an independent redistricting commission’s best efforts to make the maps fairer.
Liberal groups have found ballot measures to be a powerful, if expensive, tool to promote their policies — even in red states. They say their successes in raising the minimum wage and expanding health care coverage via what they call “direct democracy” have caused Republicans to push back by changing the rules. In Maine, Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Utah, voters have expanded access to Medicaid via ballot measure, going over the heads of the states’ legislatures.
In South Dakota, voters this year decisively defeated Republicans’ push to pass a constitutional amendment requiring most voter-initiated referendums to pass with 60 percent of the vote, rather than by a simple majority. More than two-thirds of voters rejected the measure.
Most, but not all, of the legislatures trying to limit the use of ballot measures are Republican-held. Democratic-run Colorado raised the requirement for passing constitutional amendments to 55 percent in 2016, for instance.
Kelly Hall, the executive director of the Fairness Project, a progressive group that focuses on winning ballot measures, hailed the results of the recent referendum in Kansas, where voters rejected a proposal to add a ban on abortion to the state’s Constitution.
“Many of us had a delightful wake-up call on the power of ballot measures in early August with the vote in Kansas,” Hall said. “But it has also sparked a backlash,” she added, and “a lot of opposition spending.”
In Arkansas, reaching a 60 percent threshold might be difficult on highly polarized issues, but it would probably not be insurmountable.
From 2000 to 2020, Arkansas voters approved 32 ballot measures out of 44 total. Only 18 of the 32 would have passed under the proposed 60 percent threshold.
While progressives in Arkansas have notched some victories, there is no clear pattern.
In 2020, voters barred state legislators from serving for more than 12 consecutive years in office. State judges removed two other proposals from the ballot on technicalities: a proposal to create an independent redistricting commission, and the introduction of a ranked-choice voting system similar to Alaska’s. In 2018, Arkansas voters passed a measure to require photo identification to vote; they also increased the state’s minimum wage to $11 per hour. And in a 2016 ballot measure, they legalized medical marijuana.
The California model
For the skeptical, California offers a cautionary tale. Critics of the state’s penchant for direct democracy say it has led to higher taxes and a not-in-my-backyard mind-set, exacerbating a housing crisis and driving away businesses.
This year, one of the most expensive races in the country is not for any political office, but a battle over two ballot measures in California regarding gambling on sports.
Proposition 26 would allow tribal casinos and the state’s racetracks to host sports betting. Proposition 27 would allow Native American tribes and licensed gambling companies to host sports betting outside tribal lands.
An estimated $440 million has been spent on lobbying campaigns and ads so far on the two propositions, with little transparency on who is funding what — exactly the kind of spectacle many states are trying to avoid.
“These are hard calls,” Hall said, defending her group’s use of ballot measures as necessary to circumvent gerrymandered and sclerotic legislatures. “These are expensive. And California’s an example of where maybe it’s gone too far.”
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What to read on democracy
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Republicans are keeping tabs on the political affiliations of poll workers in swing states, and claiming unfairness when there are more Democrats than Republicans, The Washington Post reports.
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Former President Donald Trump called this week for a return to paper ballots.
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The Center for Public Integrity examined which states make it the most difficult for people to vote, and which ones make it easier.
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An Iowa man has been arrested on suspicion of making threats toward an elections supervisor in Maricopa County, Ariz.
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Representative Liz Cheney urged Arizonans to vote against Kari Lake for governor and Mark Finchem for secretary of state, warning that they are threats to democracy.
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In Green Bay, Wis., conspiracy theories about the 2020 election abound, changing the tenor of municipal races and yielding a robust pool of partisan poll observers.
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ImageSupporters of Mandela Barnes watching him speak at an event on Monday at a brewery in Racine, Wis.Credit…Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
An abortion rights pitch
On Politics regularly features work by Times photographers. Here’s what Haiyun Jiang told us about capturing the image above:
The lighting was tricky, I realized when I walked into a little brewery where Mandela Barnes, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Wisconsin, was holding a “Ron Against Roe” event targeting his opponent, Senator Ron Johnson, over his opposition to abortion rights.
It was the middle of the day, and the sunlight was harsh. I tried to avoid making images that had too much discrepancy in light.
As Barnes spoke, I noticed that women made up the majority of the audience. I directed my lens toward them, finding a table for which the lighting worked and waiting for the right moment to convey the audience’s mood.
For me, this image shows the significance of abortion rights as an issue in this year’s midterm elections.
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Source: nytimes.com
