July 15, 2023
The Republican Party has been waging a war against democracy for several years now. It has targeted mail-in voting, precinct workers and the way votes are counted. However, an oft-ignored but critical part of this war has been to limit citizen’s ability to vote directly on issues, not people, on their ballots.
Initiatives and referenda have been important parts of the democratic process since the Progressive Era, when reforms in Oregon and South Dakota spread throughout the rest of the country and ended up in the constitutions of 26 states (more followed later), to allow the people to bypass frequently corrupt party systems and vote on issues and, frequently, put those issues on the ballot themselves.
Initiatives are the more people-powered of the two, allowing citizens to directly propose a new law or constitutional amendment without first going through the legislative process. In contrast, referenda can be seen more as votes of confidence on laws passed by legislatures.
Recently, both initiatives and referendums have been used to allow the people to be heard on issues ranging from protecting labor unions and raising the minimum wage to, most famously, adopting legal medical and recreational marijuana.
“Engagement and involvement is critical to the democratic process, and these kinds of direct democracy efforts are essential when elected officials fail to uphold the will of the people,” said Representative Patty Lewis, Democrat of Kansas City, Missouri.
Indeed, people often adopt vastly different positions than would seem, given the people they elect to control their state legislatures (or those gerrymandered to control).
For example, Kansas defeated a ballot initiative that would have allowed the state legislature to go back and impose restrictions on abortion by a stunning 59% to 41% 18-point margin of victory, even as Republicans later won 62.57% of the combined state House vote. That is a huge swing of 25.83%.
That defeat later turned out to be a wakeup call for Republicans nationwide, but not the kind that is friendly to democracy.
Changing the rules of the game
Republicans have still not recognized the need to change their party positions on abortion and refuse to recognize that people simply do not want to vote for such extreme positions as religiously driven total abortion bans. Instead, Republicans are focusing on how they can entrench their power while making it harder for people to express themselves in ways contrary to the party dogma.
This is not a new scenario. Indeed, in South Dakota, where voters approved a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana by a nearly 10-point margin. In response, Republican Gov. Kristi Noem used the powers of her office to overturn the election and prevent the will of the voters from being heard.
“The governor sued the state for the recreational marijuana amendment and she found some law enforcement to do her dirty work for her, but we paid for both the lawsuit to defend it and the lawsuit to get rid of it. The biggest argument was people didn’t know what they were voting for. They knew what they were voting for. It passed in all the major centers,” said Democratic Representative Linda Duba of Sioux Falls.
After this campaign to silence the voices of the people, a recreational marijuana amendment was put on the ballot in 2022, where, with lower turnout and partisan involvement, it failed by a narrower margin.
“The will of the people got overturned and this time, it didn’t happen. We had lower voter turnout and the opponents were better funded. That led to overall defeat. We won in the cities, but the rural vote was substantially against it,” said Ms. Duba.
Now, however, Republicans are using a more proactive approach, making it harder for those initiatives and referendums to get on the ballot in the first place and making it harder for them to take effect once on the ballot.
In Missouri, Republicans failed to advance a proposal that would have raised the threshold needed to pass a constitutional amendment to 57%, arguing, in part, that the current simple majority needed is too easy and that people do not fully understand what they are voting for. That bill was created as a direct response to plans for a constitutional amendment to protect reproductive freedom to be put on the ballot next year.
Ms. Lewis pointed out, “On the last day of session, the Speaker said during a press conference: ‘And if the Senate fails to take action on [initiative petition] reform, I think the Senate should be held accountable for allowing abortion to return to Missouri.’ He even said he believed the voters of Missouri would select choice. So why does he want to take the choice away from voters, whose sole job in our democracy is to choose.”
Similar arguments were made in Florida, where a proposal to raise the threshold for passing constitutional amendments from 60% to 66.7% failed. Ironically, it would only have had to pass with 60% of the vote. The sponsor of that joint resolution stated on the House floor that people do not know what they are voting for. Along with Illinois, Florida is one of only two states to require a 60% threshold.
Just a few years ago, after Floridians approved a slate of progressive amendments while also electing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida Legislature changed the rules for getting amendments on the ballot, causing a three to fourfold increase in the cost of doing so.
The most major fight, however, is occurring in Ohio, where Republicans have advanced a shadowy proposal to raise the threshold to 60%. They chose to put this on the ballot for an Aug. 8, 2023 special election, hoping that voter turnout falls enough for activists and those who would oppose the amendment to not know about the traditionally very low-turnout election.
This constitutional amendment, known as Issue 1, was drafted specifically in response to those who want to place both anti-gerrymandering and pro-choice amendments on the ballot. In both cases, the people would likely approve the amendments.
The anti-gerrymandering amendment could end the Republican stranglehold on Ohio that has resulted in extremely lopsided legislative and congressional representation since 2011, while the pro-choice amendment would pose another threat to Republicans by driving up Democratic turnout and encouraging pro-choice votes up and down the ballot with a policy choice that Republicans are clearly opposed to.
It is critical for Ohio voters to get out and vote in this hugely important election, so they can show their elected officials that they want to be heard and that they are not stupid – the voters know exactly what they are voting on and they know that they would be greenlighting a Republican power grab.
As a whole, these attacks on democracy are rather sad. Rather than adapt to the will of the people, Republicans are trying to subvert their power in the hopes of maintaining their own iron grip.
Ms. Lewis explained, “Republican politicians want to take law-making power away from people and give it to themselves…The majority party, made up of predominantly men, want to continue to control women and reproductive rights. The Republicans want to silence the citizens and take power away from the people.”
That is not the mark of a healthy democracy – it is a key indicator of a system under threat. Only the people can stop it, by turning out to vote in numbers too large to ignore.
A sign demarcating a polling place. Charles Horowitz for Policy Reform Now
By Charles Horowitz
Policy Reform Now 
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