Ballot measures on weed and abortion won in 2022. Now they're fueling a backlash
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This year, there were attempts to restrict ballot initiatives in at least a dozenÃÂ statesKaitlyn Radde and Laura Benshoff/NPR -
In November, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced a plan to raise the threshold for voters to approve a constitutional amendment to 60%.Andy Chow / Ohio Public Radio
In 2022, voters expanded Medicaid in South Dakota, legalized recreational marijuana in Missouri, and enshrined the right to an abortion in Michigan.
This was possible because in about half of all U.S. states, citizens have the power to pass laws or amend the state's constitution themselves, sidestepping lawmakers. Such ballot initiatives have become a popular tactic to change policy in states dominated by one party, often the GOP.
That's led to pushback from state lawmakers.
That backlash "really accelerated in 2021 and 2022," says Kelly Hall, executive director with The Fairness Project. That group claims success in 31 of the 33 left-leaning ballot initiatives it has supported since 2016.
At the same time, there has been an increase in the number of bills to tweak the initiative process, from 33 in 2017 to more than a 100 in 2021 and 2022, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a group which provides research and support to groups promoting ballot measures.
While not all would restrict the process, many propose new requirements for the number of signatures needed, where the signatures must come from, or increase the threshold to pass a measure.
Some are simply cumbersome, like "requiring the language to be printed all on one sheet of paper, meaning you have to carry around a bath towel-size petition," Hall says. While not impossible to follow, these new rules add up to "death by a thousand cuts" for future initiatives, she says.
This year, lawmakers in three states succeeded in getting some of these restrictions on the ballot, asking voters to decide.
Arkansas and South Dakota voters rejected the limits, but Arizonans approved two out of three. They rejected a measure that would have allowed legislators amend or repeal ballot measures found to contain illegal language. But they approved a measure to increase the vote threshold to pass a constitutional amendment to 60%, and another limiting initiatives to one subject.
Republican state lawmakers say such ballot initiatives are too easy
Just weeks after the November election, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, and Republican Rep. Brian Stewart rolled out a resolution that would require all future constitutional amendments to receive a 60% supermajority at the polls, rather than the current 50%.
"This is about trying to make the Ohio constitution less susceptible to special interests," LaRose said.
This comes as advocates for abortion rights, legal marijuana use and redistricting reform are all gearing up to put their issue on the ballot in Ohio in 2023 or 2024.
Since 2018 voters in Missouri approved ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage from $7.85 to $12 over five years, expand Medicaid, and legalize marijuana. In 2022, Missouri lawmakers responded by introducing more bills to restrict constitutional amendments than any other state.
"I think the recent passage of recreational marijuana, which you know I oppose, maybe indicates it's a little too easy to get things through initiative petition," says Missouri's new Republican state Senate majority leader, Cindy O'Laughlin.
On average, fewer than half of all citizen-initiated measures pass, according to Ballotpedia. But targeted campaigns in support of economic or social issues that are popular with a majority of voters have had success even in conservative states.
Advocates for direct democracy say lawmakers are simply out of sync with their own constituents.
"What's clear here is that this is an effort to block the people of Ohio's ability to amend our constitution and to ensure that we can enshrine rights and protections for the people that obviously Ohio Republicans don't want us to have," says Katy Shanahan with the Equal Districts Coalition, a group that opposes partisan gerrymandering in Ohio.
Expect more fights over ballot measures in 2023 and 2024
In the coming election cycles, reproductive rights groups say they are looking into initiatives in at least 10 states where abortion is currently banned or heavily restricted.
In 2022, voters affirmed the right to an abortion or rejected restrictions to it in every state where it was on the ballot. That included states such as Kentucky and Kansas where Republicans control the legislature.
"While an issue may be couched as partisan, when we actually put them before voters, they transcend those party lines," says Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.
Changes to the process could make future wins less likely. The tallies in some of those votes fell short of the 60% threshold many Republican lawmakers are now seeking for constitutional amendments.
In December, GOP lawmakers in Ohio failed to pass the resolution to raise the vote threshold for constitutional amendments before the end of the lame duck session. But they say they'll try again in 2023.
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Transcript
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
In 2022, voters expanded Medicaid in South Dakota. In Missouri, they legalized recreational marijuana. And Michigan voters enshrined the right to an abortion. All these major changes started with a citizen-backed petition. NPR's Laura Benshoff is here to tell us why lawmakers in some states are trying to make it harder to approve such measures in the future. So, Laura, let's start with citizen-led initiatives 101.
LAURA BENSHOFF, BYLINE: OK, here's the deal. Normally, lawmakers get to pass laws, and they get to introduce constitutional amendments. But in about half the states, there's some form of direct democracy. And in 18, there are laws on the books saying citizens can actually initiate a change to the state's constitution, no politicians needed. Just get enough signatures, and it goes on the ballot. And there's nothing inherently partisan about that, but we've seen a real effort since the mid-2010s to bring progressive ballot measures in GOP-led states. These are on issues which tend to be popular with a majority of voters but are out of step with the Republican platform - for example, raising the minimum wage or expanding Medicaid. There have been more than 30 progressive ballot measures approved by voters since 2016, some in very conservative states.
MARTÍNEZ: I would imagine that conservative lawmakers do not love when that happens.
BENSHOFF: You are right about that. Let's go to Ohio, where reporter Andy Chow of the Statehouse News Bureau will give us an example of how Republican state leadership is responding to the threat of ballot initiatives there right now.
ANDY CHOW, BYLINE: Just weeks after the last election, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose launched a preemptive strike against future ballot measures to amend the Ohio constitution. LaRose and a state Republican representative rolled out a resolution that would require all amendments to receive a 60% supermajority at the polls, rather than the current simple majority vote.
FRANK LAROSE: This is about trying to make the Ohio Constitution less susceptible to special interests, and if something has 60% of support, then it will pass.
CHOW: This comes as advocates for abortion rights, legal marijuana use and redistricting reform are all gearing up to put their issue on the ballot in 2023 or 2024. These are measures that have failed to gain traction in the Republican-dominated legislature. But polls show they're really popular with voters. Katy Shanahan is with the Equal Districts Coalition, which fights against gerrymandering and for direct democracy issues. She says the push to raise the threshold for a constitutional amendment is a way of subverting the will of the people.
KATY SHANAHAN: What's clear here is that this is an effort to block the people of Ohio's ability to amend our Constitution and to ensure that we can enshrine rights and protections for the people that obviously Ohio Republicans don't want us to have.
CHOW: Most ballot measures in Ohio in the past 15 years have been championed by moneyed interest groups. Most have failed. Advocates for abortion rights and redistricting reform are optimistic voters will approve their issues because they have lots of local support. Republican state lawmakers were not able to pass the resolution to raise the amendment threshold to 60% of the vote during this month's lame-duck session. But they say they'll try again first thing next year. For NPR News, I'm Andy Chow in Columbus.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So Ohio is moving very quickly to raise the bar for changing its constitution. Laura, what does it look like in other parts of the country?
BENSHOFF: In 2022, there were more than 50 bills that would have made the process harder or more difficult in some way, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. They were introduced in states like Missouri, Utah and Oklahoma. And some of these measures, like the one we just heard about in Ohio, are pretty straightforward. They just try to raise the vote count needed to amend the Constitution. But Kelly Hall with the Fairness Project says there's another kind of bill, which is more like death by a thousand cuts. For example...
KELLY HALL: Requiring them to collect more signatures from different parts of the state, requiring the language to be printed all on one sheet of paper, meaning you have to carry around a bath-towel-sized petition. They don't preclude people from participating by themselves, but they add up.
BENSHOFF: Now, most of these bills fail, but a few have succeeded in the past years and have actually ended up on the ballot for voters to decide. This past election in Arkansas, voters rejected restrictions. But in Arizona, voters there actually agreed to make it harder to pass citizen-led initiatives.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So what can we expect in 2023?
BENSHOFF: This push and pull is likely to continue. And there's another big issue fueling it. That's abortion rights. Progressive ballot initiative groups are looking to put that question to voters in about 10 states where it's currently banned or heavily restricted. And these are many of the same states that have already tried to restrict the citizen initiative process. So we can expect more ballot questions, more attempts to hold them back and more lawsuits.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Laura Benshoff. Laura, thanks.
BENSHOFF: Thank you so much, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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