‘Our constitution is easy prey’: Republican-led states try to shut down liberal ballot initiatives

By Fredreka Schouten, CNN

(CNN) — In 2018, Toni Easter held a party in her yard in St. Louis to promote what would become a successful ballot initiative on redistricting — only to see it overturned when Republican lawmakers in Missouri put a competing initiative on the ballot.

Then last year, she collected signatures in the successful effort to enshrine abortion rights in the Missouri Constitution. This year, the legislature approved a new referendum to try to reverse it.

“Our civil rights are being taken away,” said Easter, a retired fashion industry executive and co-founder of Respect Missouri Voters. Her group is working to put another measure on the Missouri ballot in 2026, one that would bar the state’s lawmakers from overturning citizen-approved initiatives.

Liberal activists in conservative-led states are facing similar challenges around the country. Republican lawmakers are working to cut off ballot measures that enact progressive policies by making it harder for citizen-led measures to qualify for a vote or be enforced.

Locked out of power in Washington and in many statehouses, progressive activists have launched citizen initiatives to try to notch wins. Eleven states, for example, have backed abortion rights through citizen-approved initiatives since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling in 2022 ending a federally guaranteed right to abortion.

“State lawmakers have been using their power to subvert the will of the people,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center’s executive director. The center tracks and helps promote ballot measures. “They can’t win fairly, so they’ve been rewriting the rules, no matter what the majority wants.”

Conservative legislators around the country argue that moneyed interests from outside their states are fueling efforts to rewrite state constitutions in irresponsible ways. They argue the process itself is vulnerable to fraud, given the frequent use of paid canvassers to collect the voter signatures needed to put initiatives on the ballot.

“Our constitution is easy prey,” South Dakota state Sen. John Hughes, a Republican, argued during a committee hearing this year. He sponsored a successful resolution that will ask the state’s voters next year to increase the threshold for passage to 60%, up from a simple majority.

Nearly half the states allow citizen initiatives, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. State legislative efforts to restrict these kinds of ballot initiatives, however, have soared in recent years with at least 148 bills introduced this year, up from 76 during 2023 legislative sessions, according to a tally by the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.

South Dakota, which in 1898 became the first state in the country to allow an initiative and referendum process, has seen an array of ballot proposals in recent years. A successful effort in 2022 expanded Medicaid, while a failed initiative last year would have instituted a nonpartisan, top-two primary system for elections like the one used in California.

If Hughes’ effort is successful, South Dakota will join a handful of states, including Florida, with thresholds greater than 50%. Lawmakers in two other states, North Dakota and Utah, have also moved to ask voters to lift their thresholds to 60%.

“There is a groundswell of out of-of-state interests that want South Dakota to operate on a direct democracy basis, which is not how our government operates,” Hughes testified. “Our constitution needs to be soberly and cautiously amended.”

Florida’s 60% bar led to the defeat of two recent citizen-led initiatives that won majorities – a move to enshrine abortion rights, which received 57% of the vote, and to legalize recreational marijuana, which drew 56%.

Here are several other examples of recent changes made by Republicans:

• In Arkansas, the state’s GOP-controlled legislature mandated that petition canvassers review a photo ID from each potential signer. And a new law gives Attorney General Tim Griffin the authority to reject proposed constitutional amendments with ballot language deemed higher than the eighth-grade reading level – a power Griffin has already exercised to disqualify potential measures this year.
• In Florida, a new law limits who can collect signatures to put proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot and bars an organization from sponsoring more than one initiative at a time. It also requires voters to include identifying information – such as the last four digits of their Social Security number – when they sign a petition.
• In Montana, a new law requires paid signature gatherers approaching voters to wear badges disclosing that they are paid and listing their state of residence.
• In Oklahoma, Gov. Keith Stitt recently signed a law mandating that no more than 10% of signatures for a ballot measure can come from counties with 400,000 or more people. Critics say the capping the number of signatures gathered in cities will make it nearly impossible to put initiatives on the ballot. Supporters say it will give rural voters a greater voice in the process.

The fight over citizen-led initiatives dominated Missouri’s legislative session, which saw the Republican-controlled legislature approve overturning a measure passed by voters last year that guaranteed paid sick leave and cost-of-living increases to the minimum wage.

Missouri lawmakers also voted to put a new abortion referendum on the ballot that would repeal one approved by voters just seven months ago, guaranteeing a right to abortion until fetal viability. Doctors believe fetus viability to be around 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy.

The new initiative, authored by GOP state Sen. Adam Schnelting, would ban most abortions, with exceptions only for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies and cases of rape and incest, up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. An aide to Schnelting declined an interview.

During floor debate last month, the Republican argued that proponents of the 2024 abortion-rights initiative had misled Missourians into believing women would be “dying in our hospitals” because they were denied care.

“But most Missourians do not want abortion on demand,” he said.

Respect Missouri Voters, the group Easter helped found, is now seeking volunteers to get an initiative on the 2026 ballot that would bar lawmakers from overturning citizen-led initiatives.

If successful, it would demonstrate that “people can reclaim their power,” she said, “and we could actually have effective governance that represents us and our needs.”

The group is hoping to raise $300,000 and recruit 2,500 volunteers by the end of this month so it can start collecting signatures in July.

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