Throughout the nation, Republican lawmakers have been working to undermine or altogether undo the need of the voters by making it tougher to move amendments and legal guidelines by citizen-led initiatives.
In Missouri, the 2025 legislative session was dominated by Republican lawmakers attempting to reverse two main measures that voters had placed on the poll and permitted simply months earlier than; one made abortion within the state authorized once more, whereas the opposite created an worker sick go away requirement.
GOP lawmakers in Alaska and Nebraska even have moved to roll again sick go away advantages that voters permitted final yr, whereas legislators in Arizona are pushing new restrictions on abortion entry, regardless of voters six months in the past approving protections.
On the similar time, Republican leaders in Florida, Utah, Montana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Ohio, North Dakota and South Dakota have permitted efforts to limit citizen-led poll initiatives or are contemplating measures to take action, primarily attempting to make it tougher for voters to alter legal guidelines exterior legislatures.
In some instances, legislators aren’t simply responding to measures that voters permitted; they’re appearing shortly after citizen-led efforts failed however got here too shut for consolation, akin to an abortion-rights initiative in Florida, which in November fell simply wanting the 60% of votes wanted to move and loosen the state’s ban on the process.
Republican elected officers throughout these states make strikingly related arguments: They are saying the initiative course of is vulnerable to fraud and unduly influenced by out-of-state cash. What’s extra, they are saying that they, as elected officers, symbolize the true will of the individuals greater than poll initiatives do.
In his opening speech on the primary day of Utah’s legislative session in January, Senate President Stuart Adams urged lawmakers to push again towards citizen-led poll initiatives, warning that “unelected particular curiosity teams exterior of Utah” had been utilizing the method to “override our republic” and “forged apart those that are duly elected.”
Utah lawmakers then handed a legislation tightening the method. They required initiative sponsors to element how their proposal could be funded and, if it makes the poll, pay for expensive publication of the poll language in newspapers throughout the state — probably including $1.4 million in bills. In addition they voted to place a 2026 measure earlier than voters that might require a 60% supermajority for any tax-related initiatives.
The battle between direct democracy and consultant authorities isn’t new, and it hasn’t all the time been the area of simply Republicans. Democrats have executed the identical factor, though maybe not with the identical frequency, when voters have taken steps that they had campaigned towards.
What’s totally different now, political observers say, is that the stress has reached a brand new stage. State lawmakers, primarily Republicans the previous few years, are routinely attempting to undermine voter majorities.
“That is very a lot related to the rise of authoritarianism that we’ve seen throughout the nation,” stated Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, government director of the Poll Initiative Technique Middle, a nonprofit that tracks and helps poll measures throughout the 26 states and the District of Columbia that permit some type of direct democracy. “They’ll’t win pretty, so that they’re attempting to rewrite the principles to get their means it doesn’t matter what a majority of parents of their state desires.”
In Missouri, overturning the need of voters has virtually change into the legislature’s fundamental enterprise. Lawmakers wasted no time transferring to undo a constitutional modification that legalized abortion as much as fetal viability, advancing a brand new measure to position one other modification on the poll that might ban it once more.
In addition they moved to repeal a sick go away requirement and parts of a minimal wage improve, which had additionally handed by the initiative course of however which Republicans have stated are dangerous to companies.
The invoice has gone to Gov. Mike Kehoe, who has indicated that he’ll signal it.
As well as, Missouri lawmakers handed, and the governor signed, a brand new legislation that limits the power of courts to intervene when the legislature writes poll language for proposed constitutional amendments.
Critics say the legislation opens the door to deceptive poll language, giving politicians and partisan officers extra energy to border initiatives in a means that might mislead voters. Kehoe stated in an announcement that the legislation “streamlines complicated procedures whereas defending the rights of each Missourian.”
State Rep. Brian Seitz, a Republican from Branson, has supported a number of failed efforts to alter the state’s initiative course of — he’d choose a 60% threshold moderately than a easy majority, as it’s now — and backed the sick go away repeal and the modification to revive Missouri’s abortion ban.
“We’ve been elected in a consultant republic to see to the wants of the individuals,” he stated, “and that’s precisely what we’re going to do.”
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David A. Lieb/AP Photograph
State Rep. Ashley Aune, a Democrat from Kansas Metropolis and the Home minority chief, recalled that one in all her first fights as a lawmaker was over the enlargement of Medicaid, which voters permitted in 2020 however Republican lawmakers refused to fund the next yr.
“They thought they had been being intelligent — and naturally, the courts informed them they don’t seem to be intelligent. They needed to fund it,” Aune stated. “However I’ve seen this practically yearly I’ve been right here, and this yr has been absolutely the worst.”
In response to lawmakers’ efforts, a brand new marketing campaign referred to as Respect Missouri Voters is recruiting volunteers to gather signatures for a statewide poll measure in November 2026. The measure would bar lawmakers from overturning voter-approved initiatives or undermining the residents’ skill to make use of the initiative course of.
In a number of states, Republican legislators try to alter the initiative petition course of by imposing stricter guidelines on who can gather signatures and the way petitions are submitted and elevating the brink for passing amendments. They’re additionally attempting to restrict out-of-state funding, shorten signature-gathering home windows and provides themselves extra energy to rewrite or block voter-approved measures.
Arkansas is one instance of the place that is enjoying out. Final yr, abortion rights supporters turned in additional than 100,000 signatures for a poll measure that might have loosened the state’s near-total abortion ban. However the state Supreme Courtroom upheld a decrease court docket’s ruling blocking the proposal from making the poll, 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 yr, state Sen. Kim Hammer, a Republican from Benton, led a push to move a collection of legal guidelines aimed on the poll initiative course of. They place necessities on petition circulators and signers, together with mandates that the signer learn the poll title within the presence of a canvasser or have it learn to them, that canvassers ask signers to indicate picture ID and that they inform signers that petition fraud is a criminal offense. In addition they develop state oversight, giving officers extra energy to disqualify petitions.
The League of Ladies Voters of Arkansas has filed a lawsuit difficult a number of the new legal guidelines, together with present restrictions, arguing that they violate the U.S. Structure. Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester stated in an announcement that they had been “primary, commonsense protections, and we sit up for combating for them.”
Hammer stated he’s involved that exterior teams are utilizing Arkansas as a testing floor for coverage modifications, and he desires to stop that by conserving the poll course of “as pure as potential.”
“They drop the rock within the state, and it simply ripples out from there,” he stated in an interview. “So it’s to the good thing about abortionists and to the good thing about the marijuana trade and others to have the ability to do no matter they should do to get a foothold.”
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Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate
Dan Smith, a political scientist on the College of Florida who research direct democracy, stated it wasn’t way back that voters would possibly punish a candidate for opposing a well-liked coverage — like elevating the minimal wage or increasing well being care.
However that connection has largely been severed within the minds of voters, he stated. Right this moment, many citizens expertise a sort of cognitive dissonance: They assist abortion rights or paid sick go away on the poll field however proceed voting for politicians who oppose these insurance policies.
They don’t see the contradiction, he stated, as a result of partisanship has change into extra about staff loyalty than coverage.
Smith stated the disconnect is bolstered by gerrymandered legislative and congressional districts, that are drawn to favor Republican candidates and assist keep their supermajority management. They’ll override or ignore voter-backed initiatives with little political threat.
Direct democracy in the USA took root throughout the Progressive Period of the late 1800s and early 1900s, particularly within the West and Midwest, the place newer states had much less entrenched political buildings and had been extra open to reform. These areas had been usually skeptical of centralized energy, and reformers pushed for instruments just like the initiative and referendum to present residents a technique to bypass political machines and company affect.
The primary state to undertake the initiative course of into its structure was South Dakota in 1898. Now it’s one of many states the place legislators are attempting to undermine it.
Most East Coast and Southern states by no means adopted initiative processes in any respect. Their constitutions didn’t permit for it, and lawmakers have proven little curiosity in surrendering energy to voters by direct laws. Some teachers have argued the method is barred by Article IV, Part 4 of the U.S. Structure, which requires states to supply governments by electoral processes.
Whereas efforts to override or undermine voter-approved initiatives are actually virtually solely pushed by Republicans, Democratic-controlled legislatures have additionally tried to rein in direct democracy when it clashed with their priorities.
After California voters handed Proposition 13 in 1978 to restrict property taxes — and later Proposition 209 in 1996 banning affirmative motion — Democrats sought methods to blunt or undo their impression by laws and authorized challenges.
Within the mid-2000s, Colorado Democrats started pushing to limit the initiative course of after a wave of conservative-backed measures handed on the poll field. A key instance was Modification 43, a 2006 initiative positioned on the poll by citizen petition, which amended the state structure to outline marriage as between “one man and one girl.” It handed with 55% of the vote and successfully banned same-sex marriage within the state till the U.S. Supreme Courtroom overturned such bans in 2015.
In 2008, Colorado’s Democratic-controlled legislature positioned a referendum on the poll that might have made it tougher for individuals to petition to alter the state structure. The measure, additionally backed by some Republicans, failed on the polls. However in 2016, voters permitted a citizen-initiated measure that raised the bar for constitutional amendments by requiring signatures from each state senate district and a 55% supermajority to move. Extra lately, Democrats have sought to overturn Colorado’s “taxpayer invoice of rights,” which voters enacted by initiative petition in 1992. The measure prohibits tax will increase with out voter approval. Democrats have argued the legislation could also be unconstitutional as a result of it strips the legislature of its budgetary authority.
However many of the states that permit citizen-led poll initiatives are Republican-controlled, which implies the combat over direct democracy is usually enjoying out in purple states. On the middle of the GOP argument is the declare that voter initiatives are pushed by exterior affect and funding. Smith referred to as it “hypocrisy.”
“For those who ask lawmakers to not take any exterior contributions when they’re operating for workplace, they might discover each cause underneath the solar to oppose it,” he stated.
Efforts to alter the initiative course of have themselves drawn heavy exterior funding. In August 2023, Ohio voters decisively rejected Challenge 1, a Republican-backed proposal to lift the brink for passing constitutional amendments from a easy majority to 60%. The measure additionally would have made it tougher to position initiatives on the poll by requiring signatures from at the least 5% of voters in all 88 counties.
Backers claimed the modifications had been wanted to guard the structure from out-of-state particular pursuits — however the marketing campaign itself was funded principally by $4 million from conservative Illinois billionaire Dick Uihlein.
Simply three months later, Ohio voters returned to the polls and permitted a brand new Challenge 1 — this time a constitutional modification guaranteeing abortion rights as much as fetal viability. It handed with practically 57% of the vote.
In 2006, Florida voters permitted a constitutional modification to lift the brink for future amendments to 60% — however the measure itself handed with simply 57.8% of the vote, a margin that wouldn’t meet the usual it created.
That irony got here into sharp focus in 2024, when a poll measure to guard abortion rights acquired 57% of the vote — extra assist than an analogous measure in Missouri, which handed with just below 52% — but failed in Florida because of the supermajority rule.
After the election, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican lawmakers started pushing for even more durable restrictions on the method, pointing to a report issued by the governor’s administration alleging “widespread petition fraud” within the push for the abortion rights measure. The governor signed a legislation prohibiting felons, non-U.S. residents and non-Florida residents from serving as petition circulators; limiting the variety of signed petitions a volunteer can gather earlier than being required to register as an official canvasser and requiring signers to jot down both the final 4 numbers of their Social Safety or driver’s license quantity on petitions.
In response, a number of teams have filed a federal lawsuit difficult the brand new restrictions. Florida Decides Healthcare, which is working to position a Medicaid enlargement initiative on the 2026 poll, has argued that the legislation imposes obscure and punitive restrictions that chill political speech and civic engagement. The state has not but responded to the lawsuit; the lead defendant, Secretary of State Twine Byrd, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
“I feel that what occurs right here is being watched and copied,” Mitch Emerson, government director of Florida Decides Healthcare, stated in an interview. “And if these assaults on democracy work in Florida, they’ll unfold.”
