High-stakes ballot initiative battles are brewing

Abortion rights, housing, education, and democracy itself are in the line of fire

Jun 13, 2023

Welcome to a Monday edition of Progress Report.

Today we’ve got a detailed preview of what should be a wild next two years in ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments. But before we get to the fun stuff, we need to talk about Nazis, panties, and Florida.

Last week, the Florida Capitol Police issued private arrest warrants to three more non-violent protestors, pushing the total number of policy-focused protestors arrested in Florida this year to an even 30. Days later, after a pack of more than two dozen skinheads spent a day screaming at families outside Walt Disney World and waving the flags of Nazi Germany and Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, the number of arrested protestors remained at an even 30.

The miserable contrast sums up what’s become of democracy in the Sunshine State, where far-right Republicans have enacted an agenda of legislative violence that is being increasingly enforced through legal and even physical violence. As Nazis roam the streets in search of minority communities to squeal at, pro-choice activists are having the book thrown at them for contesting the erosion of civil rights under a GOP supermajority led by presidential wannabe Ron DeSantis.

Guerdy Remy, a healthcare worker and military vet, and two of her fellow activists at Women’s Voices of Southwest Florida face the possibility of being prosecuted as felons for tossing several pairs of panties from the House gallery to momentarily interrupt debate on the state’s new ban on gender-affirming care. You can see how much of a threat they posed:

Should prosecutors pursue those felony charges, Remy and her compatriots are at risk of being banned from the state Capitol and stripped of their right to vote. You can donate to their legal defense fund right here.

Just to reiterate, zero Nazis have been arrested for disturbing the peace in Florida this year. I know this because I’ve documented the growing number of DeSantis-loving white nationalists at the sadly fact-driven (if satirically written) Nazis for DeSantis microsite. The governor, who spent the weekend screaming about wokeism and making his daughter miserable, has thus far refused to condemn any of these attacks.

OK, now onto the policy deep dive.

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A Guide to Ballot Initiatives in 2023-24 (Thus Far)

It wasn’t all that long ago that ballot initiatives were largely seen as obscure and technocratic tools used to supplement the work of state legislatures. A decade of Republican gerrymandering and human rights violations later, and initiatives are front and center in some of the biggest policy battles and culture wars in the country.

Over the next few years, both liberals and conservatives will attempt to sway the public in big-money elections that will shape the future of education, health care, reproductive freedom, housing, the environment, and democracy itself. Here is a selection of prominent initiatives and proposed constitutional amendments that have either qualified for the ballot or are in the process of doing so.

Ohio (2023)

Having become a borderline solid red state in recent years, Ohio will hold a direct democracy doubleheader this year that will either cement its status as a conservative stronghold or see voters draw a line and begin to reassert their power.

On August 8, Ohioans will vote on Issue 1, a constitutional amendment that if enacted would require 60% of voters to approve any future constitutional amendments. Naturally, Issue 1 will need only to clear the current threshold of a simple 50%+1 majority to pass. Perhaps even more daunting is the amendment’s other provision, which would require canvassers to collect valid signatures from voters in each of the state’s 88 counties.

The amendment was forced through the legislature at the last minute by far-right lawmakers in a brazen attempt to sabotage the Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety amendment, the contents of which should be pretty self-explanatory. That referendum will appear on the ballot on election day in November, and as of last month, polling showed that it had the support of just shy of 60% of voters in Ohio.

That number suggests that the August amendment faces tough odds of passing, but Republicans are never content to simply leave elections to the will of voters. Conservatives are framing Issue 1 as a necessary change to keep “outside special interest groups” from buying changes to the Ohio Constitution, which would be a cynical claim even if the Illinois billionaire Richard Uihlein weren’t funding the Vote Yes campaign.

The cynicism runs deep on this one: In order to schedule the vote on Issue 1 in August, when turnout is traditionally lower, Republicans had to do an about-face and violate a ban on August elections that they’d passed just months earlier. That’s led to multiple lawsuits seeking to stop the vote on Issue 1, and on Monday, Republican Secretary of State ordered the proposal to be rewritten in response to a lawsuit that alleged that the language was wilfully misleading.

Missouri (2024)

Whereas Republicans in Ohio overcame internecine rivalries in just enough time to put the democracy-killer on the ballot, Missouri Republicans were simply unable to curb the theatrical impulses of their looniest members long enough to pass a similar measure before the legislative session expired.

I’m not being facetious, either: State Sen. Bill Eigel held up all business in an attempt to pass a massive personal tax cut, calling it his “Darth Vader moment.” A short time later, the Imperial March could be heard echoing through the halls of the Capitol.

Republicans will try to bamboozle voters into raising the threshold to pass constitutional amendments up to 57%. If GOP leaders do find a way to corral their defiant members, it’s likely that they’ll try to sneak the amendment through in August before voters enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution that November.

Maine (2023)

There’s a message for all of us in the Creation of Pine Tree Power Company Initiative: Never let a conservative Democrat’s neoliberal instincts get in the way of a good time.

After Gov. Janet Mills vetoed a bill that would have created a public-owned utility company, activists around the state launched a campaign to put the issue directly to the public. The Our Power coalition collected more than enough valid petition signatures to qualify the initiative, and come November, Mainers will have the opportunity to bless the creation of a state-owned, voter-governed utility company.

After looking at my most recent Con-Ed bill, I’m very jealous.

Texas (2023)

For those voters in the Lone Star State that are able to access a ballot in November, there will be a number of hyper-specific amendments to consider. It’ll take some time for conscientious voters to work through the pros and cons of each, but with online reference titles like the Texas Rename State University Research Fund and Establish Ongoing Revenue Source Amendment and the Texas Creation of the Water Fund Amendment, at least the amendments don’t run the risk of being confused for one another.

There are some really bad ones on the list, but I think the least populist amendment of all is HJR 132, which Ballotpedia helpfully calls the Texas Prohibit Wealth or Net Worth Tax Amendment because it would do exactly what the name suggests. More than three-quarters of voters backed an amendment that preempted income tax in 2019, which locked them into a quietly regressive system fueled by property and consumption taxes.

Nebraska (2024)

The race is on to repeal the state’s new school privatization scheme just weeks after it was passed by the state’s deeply conservative (but technically non-partisan) legislature.

Support Our Schools Nebraska, a coalition led by the state’s largest teacher’s union, has until the end of August to collect the 60,000 signatures required to place a repeal of LB 753 on the ballot in November 2024.

This is likely the best chance to prevent conservative scammers and religious zealots from getting their claws into the state’s public education budget; should it fail, what’s beginning in fall 2024 as a bribe to private school donors is likely to blossom into a voucher program that drains the life out of public education.

California (2024)

In 2020, Uber and other ride-share companies set a state record by pouring more than $200 million into tricking voters into passing Prop 22, a ballot initiative that condemned many gig workers to second-class citizenship on the job. By the fall of next year, there may well be multiple campaigns that surpass that jaw-dropping price tag.

Next March, Californians will have the opportunity to make a dent in the state’s dire housing crisis and repudiate a shameful relic of a bygone era all in one go. It sounds like a no-brainer for the nation’s bluest state, but passing a repeal of Article 34 in a low-turnout election may not wind up being as easy as it sounds.

Back in 1950, voters very narrowly approved Proposition 10, an amendment that required a successful local ballot referendum to approve the construction of public housing. A drag on construction and multiracial society from the start, there have been multiple efforts to repeal and replace the measure, most recently in 1993, a year before voters tossed Gov. Pete Wilson out of office for signing a draconian and overtly racist immigration law. It’s a nasty legacy, and while things have changed a lot in the past 30 years, there are some new wrinkles to consider.

California is very blue, and its housing crisis has long since passed the point of being a five-alarm fire, but it’s also filled with Silicon Valley blowhards and beachfront property hogs who have spent years using their money and influence to block new zoning laws and prevent the construction of new housing developments near their mansions.

Whereas you can expect spending from some NIMBY billionaires, homeowners groups, and trades unions in the lead-up to that March referendum, there’s a solid chance that interest groups burn record sums on two initiatives that will be on the November ballot.

Both initiatives pit workers against large employers and megacorporations. The more straightforward of the two, the Living Wage Act of 2024, would bring the wage to $18-an-hour by 2026 and then index it to the cost of living beyond that. There will be lots of resistance to that one outside of cities such as LA and San Francisco, where the average starting wage hasn’t yet had to hit that perfectly reasonable rate.

Fast food companies will be even more set on winning their Prop 22-style repeal of the FAST Recovery Act, which, if it survives, will create an advisory board to guide the conditions and pay at fast food jobs.

Florida (2024)

Activists have already submitted what should be more than enough petition signatures to qualify a proposition on the legalization of recreational marijuana; now they’re just waiting to see whether the nation’s sweatiest, piggiest governor and his attorney general can bend the law enough to have it disqualified on a language-related technicality.

In the meantime, pro-choice activists and useful Democrats are in the process of collecting the signatures required to get abortion rights on what should be a lively ballot in November 2024.

Alaska (2024)

The tug-of-war between centrist good government types and hardcore conservatives continues to rage up north. Just yesterday, activists filed the paperwork for a ballot measure that would reinstate campaign finance limits on state and local elections. In 2021, a judge tossed out a law that capped total contributions to candidates at $500; if successful, the new limit would be a bit more liberal, starting at $2000 and then being adjusted for inflation every decade.

Ranked Choice Voting (2024)

The slow march of rational democracy is headed toward the American Southwest. While voters in Nevada backed a top-five open primary system last November, they’ll have to reaffirm that choice in November 2024 to officially amend the state’s constitution.

Down in Arizona, Gov. Katie Hobbs’ veto of a GOP bill that sought to ban ranked-choice voting has cleared the path for reformers to let voters determine the future of their electoral system in fall 2024. The Arizona GOP, perhaps the most bonkers state party in the nation, is suitably freaked out by the possibility of Final Five Voting sidelining the Paul Gosars, Kari Lakes, and Cyber Ninjas of the world.

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