How Citizen Initiatives Check Power and Enable Democracy Reform
Ballot initiatives are guardrails against abuse of power, it's time to protect the people's power to use them.
Ballot initiatives let voters break partisan gridlock to pass popular policies supported by the majority. Don’t want the legislature to drag its feet on Medicaid expansion or a tax cut? Put it to the people. Disagree with gerrymandered maps or legislation that restricts individual rights? Ask the people.
That’s why 26 state constitutions guarantee the right of citizen-initiated ballot measures.
And it works:
In 2024, California and Colorado voters supported tougher penalties for certain crimes against the wishes of Democratic-controlled legislatures.
In 2020, Missouri and Oklahoma voters expanded Medicaid against the wishes of Republican-controlled legislatures.
And in 2018, Michigan and Utah voters created redistricting commissions that put people before politicians.
These are policies that never would have passed in legislatures controlled by one party. Ballot initiatives are the safety valve in a locked system, a system where 23 states are under long-term one-party rule
The Problem: Politicians Don’t Want to Take Orders from the People
Unfortunately, state legislatures have been fighting back—and not in good faith. They’re using three main tricks to undermine the people’s power:
Pre-empting initiatives by passing legislation blocking proposed initiatives before they even pass. In Colorado in 2024, lawmakers passed a law to block ranked choice voting before voters even got a chance to vote on it.
Resisting implementation by refusing to enact approved initiatives. Missouri voters passed Medicaid expansion in 2018, but legislators refused to fund it until the courts forced their hand.
Amending or repealing initiatives to directly reverse the will of the people. Utah voters created a redistricting commission in 2018—then legislators stripped its power and ignored its maps.
From 2010 to 2023, state legislatures repealed or amended approximately 20% of voter-approved initiatives. That’s not democracy—it’s sabotage.
If politicians can overturn the people’s decisions, the right to initiative is just an illusion.
The Other Problem: Partisan Referees
It’s not just legislatures. Secretaries of state, attorneys general, and other partisan elected officials play oversized roles in the ballot measure process: writing official summaries, reviewing signatures, and approving fiscal notes.
And they’ve learned to weaponize those powers:
In Missouri, the attorney general attempted to inflate the estimated cost of a reproductive rights amendment into the billions to scare voters.
In Ohio, the secretary of state rewrote a redistricting measure to make it sound like it required gerrymandering.
In Arkansas, the secretary of state blocked initiatives on technicalities related to petition gatherers.
When the referees are also players, the game is rigged.
So What’s the Fix?
The good news: we’ve seen this movie before—and we know how to rewrite the ending. Independent redistricting commissions show what’s possible. When you take power out of the hands of those with a direct stake in the outcome, you get fairer results.
For ballot measures, that means:
Limit legislatures’ power to repeal or rewrite voter-approved laws.
Move key tasks like drafting ballot summaries to impartial professionals, or subject them to effective court oversite
Keep reforms in the people’s hands. If rules around thresholds or signatures need to change, let voters decide through initiatives—not politicians through self-interested laws.
Democracy works best when the people—not the politicians—set the guardrails.
The Stakes
Politicians across parties are learning the same lesson: if you don’t like what the voters have to say, make it harder for them to say it. That trend won’t stop on its own.
And the public is taking notice. Recent polling finds that upwards of 70% of Americans think the system is rigged against them, and that in turn drives openness to demagogues calling to tear the system down. Ballot measures are a critical example that both illustrate the underlying problem and offer a solution. Manipulation of ballot measures justifies widespread beliefs that politics is an unwinnable game rigged for the insiders. But at the same time, ballot measures offer the best way for citizens to advance important reforms to build a more competitive and responsive democracy.
The right of initiative is one of the last direct tools citizens have to bypass gridlock and extreme partisanship. If it erodes, so does one of democracy’s strongest safety valves.
And at the end of the day, fixing ballot measures isn’t just about direct democracy. It’s about protecting the people’s right to have the final word in a government meant to be of the people, by the people, and for the people.