Red State Voters Approved Progressive Measures. GOP Lawmakers Are Trying to Undermine Them.
by Jeremy Kohler ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week. Across the country, Republican lawmakers have been working to undermine or altogether undo the will of the voters by making it harder to pass amendments and laws through citizen-led initiatives.In Missouri, the 2025 legislative session was dominated by Republican lawmakers trying to reverse two major measures that voters had put on the ballot and approved just months before; one made abortion in the state legal again, while the other created an employee sick leave requirement. GOP lawmakers in Alaska and Nebraska also have moved to roll back sick leave benefits that voters approved last year, while legislators in Arizona are pushing new restrictions on abortion access, despite voters six months ago approving protections. At the same time, Republican leaders in Florida, Utah, Montana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Ohio, North Dakota and South Dakota have approved efforts to restrict citizen-led ballot initiatives or are considering measures to do so, essentially trying to make it harder for voters to change laws outside legislatures.In some cases, legislators arent just responding to measures that voters approved; theyre acting shortly after citizen-led efforts failed but came too close for comfort, such as an abortion-rights initiative in Florida, which in November fell just short of the 60% of votes needed to pass and loosen the states ban on the procedure.Republican elected officials across these states make strikingly similar arguments: They say the initiative process is susceptible to fraud and unduly influenced by out-of-state money. Whats more, they say that they, as elected officials, represent the true will of the people more than ballot initiatives do. In his opening speech on the first day of Utahs legislative session in January, Senate President Stuart Adams urged lawmakers to push back against citizen-led ballot initiatives, warning that unelected special interest groups outside of Utah were using the process to override our republic and cast aside those who are duly elected. Utah lawmakers then passed a law tightening the process. They required initiative sponsors to detail how their proposal would be funded and, if it makes the ballot, pay for costly publication of the ballot language in newspapers across the state potentially adding $1.4 million in expenses. They also voted to put a 2026 measure before voters that would require a 60% supermajority for any tax-related initiatives.The battle between direct democracy and representative government isnt new, and it hasnt always been the domain of just Republicans. Democrats have done the same thing, although perhaps not with the same frequency, when voters have taken steps they had campaigned against. Whats different now, political observers say, is that the tension has reached a new level. State lawmakers, primarily Republicans the past few years, are routinely trying to undermine voter majorities.This is very much connected to the rise of authoritarianism that weve seen across the country, said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a nonprofit that tracks and supports ballot measures across the 26 states and the District of Columbia that allow some form of direct democracy. They cant win fairly, so theyre trying to rewrite the rules to get their way no matter what a majority of folks in their state wants.In Missouri, overturning the will of voters has almost become the legislatures main business. Lawmakers wasted no time moving to undo a constitutional amendment that legalized abortion up to fetal viability, advancing a new measure to place another amendment on the ballot that would ban it again. They also moved to repeal a sick leave requirement and portions of a minimum wage increase, which had also passed through the initiative process but which Republicans have said are harmful to businesses. The bill has gone to Gov. Mike Kehoe, who has indicated that he will sign it.In addition, Missouri lawmakers passed, and the governor signed, a new law that limits the ability of courts to intervene when the legislature writes ballot language for proposed constitutional amendments. Critics say the law opens the door to misleading ballot language, giving politicians and partisan officials more power to frame initiatives in a way that could mislead voters. Kehoe said in a statement that the law streamlines complex procedures while protecting the rights of every Missourian.State Rep. Brian Seitz, a Republican from Branson, has supported multiple failed efforts to change the states initiative process hed prefer a 60% threshold rather than a simple majority, as it is now and backed the sick leave repeal and the amendment to restore Missouris abortion ban. Weve been elected in a representative republic to see to the needs of the people, he said, and thats exactly what were going to do. Missouri State Rep. Brian Seitz reviews a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion at the state Capitol in April. (David A. Lieb/AP Photo) State Rep. Ashley Aune, a Democrat from Kansas City and the House minority leader, recalled that one of her first fights as a lawmaker was over the expansion of Medicaid, which voters approved in 2020 but Republican lawmakers refused to fund the following year.They thought they were being clever and of course, the courts told them they are not clever. They had to fund it, Aune said. But Ive seen this nearly every year Ive been here, and this year has been the absolute worst.In response to lawmakers efforts, a new campaign called Respect Missouri Voters is recruiting volunteers to collect signatures for a statewide ballot measure in November 2026. The measure would bar lawmakers from overturning voter-approved initiatives or undermining the citizens ability to use the initiative process.In several states, Republican legislators are trying to change the initiative petition process by imposing stricter rules on who can collect signatures and how petitions are submitted and raising the threshold for passing amendments. They are also trying to limit out-of-state funding, shorten signature-gathering windows and give themselves more power to rewrite or block voter-approved measures.Arkansas is one example of where this is playing out. Last year, abortion rights supporters turned in more than 100,000 signatures for a ballot measure that would have loosened the states near-total abortion ban. But the state Supreme Court upheld a lower courts ruling blocking the proposal from making the ballot, deciding that organizers had made a technical error in how they submitted paperwork for a portion of the signatures that had been collected by paid canvassers.This year, state Sen. Kim Hammer, a Republican from Benton, led a push to pass a series of laws aimed at the ballot initiative process. They place requirements on petition circulators and signers, including mandates that the signer read the ballot title in the presence of a canvasser or have it read to them, that canvassers ask signers to show photo ID and that they inform signers that petition fraud is a crime. They also expand state oversight, giving officials more power to disqualify petitions.The League of Women Voters of Arkansas has filed a lawsuit challenging some of the new laws, along with existing restrictions, arguing that they violate the U.S. Constitution. Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester said in a statement that they were basic, commonsense protections, and we look forward to fighting for them.Hammer said hes concerned that outside groups are using Arkansas as a testing ground for policy changes, and he wants to prevent that by keeping the ballot process as pure as possible. They drop the rock in the state, and it just ripples out from there, he said in an interview. So its to the benefit of abortionists and to the benefit of the marijuana industry and others to be able to do whatever they have to do to get a foothold. Republican Sen. Kim Hammer, left of center, answers questions about proposed laws that would alter the citizen-initiated ballot measure process during an Arkansas Senate committee hearing in February. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate) Dan Smith, a political scientist at the University of Florida who studies direct democracy, said it wasnt long ago that voters might punish a candidate for opposing a popular policy like raising the minimum wage or expanding health care. But that connection has largely been severed in the minds of voters, he said. Today, many voters experience a kind of cognitive dissonance: They support abortion rights or paid sick leave at the ballot box but continue voting for politicians who oppose those policies. They dont see the contradiction, he said, because partisanship has become more about team loyalty than policy.Smith said the disconnect is reinforced by gerrymandered legislative and congressional districts, which are drawn to favor Republican candidates and help maintain their supermajority control. They can override or ignore voter-backed initiatives with little political risk.Direct democracy in the United States took root during the Progressive Era of the late 1800s and early 1900s, especially in the West and Midwest, where newer states had less entrenched political structures and were more open to reform. These regions were often skeptical of centralized power, and reformers pushed for tools like the initiative and referendum to give citizens a way to bypass political machines and corporate influence. The first state to adopt the initiative process into its constitution was South Dakota in 1898. Now its one of the states where legislators are trying to undermine it.Most East Coast and Southern states never adopted initiative processes at all. Their constitutions didnt allow for it, and lawmakers have shown little interest in surrendering power to voters through direct legislation. Some academics have argued the process is barred by Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which requires states to produce governments by electoral processes. While efforts to override or undermine voter-approved initiatives are now almost exclusively driven by Republicans, Democratic-controlled legislatures have also tried to rein in direct democracy when it clashed with their priorities.After California voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978 to limit property taxes and later Proposition 209 in 1996 banning affirmative action Democrats sought ways to blunt or undo their impact through legislation and legal challenges.In the mid-2000s, Colorado Democrats began pushing to restrict the initiative process after a wave of conservative-backed measures passed at the ballot box. A key example was Amendment 43, a 2006 initiative placed on the ballot by citizen petition, which amended the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. It passed with 55% of the vote and effectively banned same-sex marriage in the state until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned such bans in 2015.In 2008, Colorados Democratic-controlled legislature placed a referendum on the ballot that would have made it harder for people to petition to change the state constitution. The measure, also backed by some Republicans, failed at the polls. But in 2016, voters approved a citizen-initiated measure that raised the bar for constitutional amendments by requiring signatures from every state senate district and a 55% supermajority to pass. More recently, Democrats have sought to overturn Colorados taxpayer bill of rights, which voters enacted through initiative petition in 1992. The measure prohibits tax increases without voter approval. Democrats have argued the law may be unconstitutional because it strips the legislature of its budgetary authority.But most of the states that allow citizen-led ballot initiatives are Republican-controlled, which means the fight over direct democracy is often playing out in red states. At the center of the GOP argument is the claim that voter initiatives are driven by outside influence and funding. Smith called it hypocrisy.If you ask lawmakers to not take any outside contributions when they are running for office, they would find every reason under the sun to oppose it, he said.Efforts to change the initiative process have themselves drawn heavy outside funding. In August 2023, Ohio voters decisively rejected Issue 1, a Republican-backed proposal to raise the threshold for passing constitutional amendments from a simple majority to 60%. The measure also would have made it harder to place initiatives on the ballot by requiring signatures from at least 5% of voters in all 88 counties.Backers claimed the changes were needed to protect the constitution from out-of-state special interests but the campaign itself was funded mostly by $4 million from conservative Illinois billionaire Dick Uihlein.Just three months later, Ohio voters returned to the polls and approved a new Issue 1 this time a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion rights up to fetal viability. It passed with nearly 57% of the vote.In 2006, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment to raise the threshold for future amendments to 60% but the measure itself passed with just 57.8% of the vote, a margin that wouldnt meet the standard it created.That irony came into sharp focus in 2024, when a ballot measure to protect abortion rights received 57% of the vote more support than a similar measure in Missouri, which passed with just under 52% yet failed in Florida due to the supermajority rule.After the election, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican lawmakers began pushing for even tougher restrictions on the process, pointing to a report issued by the governors administration alleging widespread petition fraud in the push for the abortion rights measure. The governor signed a law prohibiting felons, non-U.S. citizens and non-Florida residents from serving as petition circulators; limiting the number of signed petitions a volunteer can collect before being required to register as an official canvasser and requiring signers to write either the last four numbers of their Social Security or drivers license number on petitions.In response, several groups have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new restrictions. Florida Decides Healthcare, which is working to place a Medicaid expansion initiative on the 2026 ballot, has argued that the law imposes vague and punitive restrictions that chill political speech and civic engagement. The state has not yet responded to the lawsuit; the lead defendant, Secretary of State Cord Byrd, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.I think that what happens here is being watched and copied, Mitch Emerson, executive director of Florida Decides Healthcare, said in an interview. And if these attacks on democracy work in Florida, theyll spread.
