After Voters Passed Progressive Ballot Initiatives, GOP Legislatures Are Trying to Kill Future Ones

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After Voters Passed Progressive Ballot Initiatives, GOP Legislatures Are Trying to Kill Future Ones
Efforts in several states would make it far more difficult to put new initiatives on the ballot.
Ari BermanDecember 20, 2018 6:00 AM


Last month, voters in Michigan overwhelmingly approved ballot initiatives to enact automatic and Election Day registration, create an independent redistricting commission to prevent gerrymandering, and legalize recreational marijuana. It was a huge victory for progressive policies in a key swing state that narrowly voted for Donald Trump in 2016.

One month later, the Republican-led state House of Representatives responded by passing a bill that would make it far more difficult for state residents to get initiatives onto the ballot in the future.

Michigan isn’t alone in this. Voters in 19 states—including red and purple ones—passed progressive ballot initiatives this year. Florida restored voting rights to as many as 1.4 million ex-felons; Maryland and Nevada joined Michigan in making it easier to register to vote; and Colorado, Missouri, Ohio, and Utah also voted to curb gerrymandering. Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah voted to expand Medicaid; Arkansas and Missouri raised the minimum wage; and Missouri and Utah legalized medical marijuana. The success of progressive ballot initiatives across the country, especially in red states, was one of the most consequential under-the-radar stories of the 2018 elections.

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But this success has sparked a backlash from state legislatures controlled by Republicans, who have introduced bills in lame-duck sessions that would strike back at these initiatives by making them less likely in future elections.

The measure passed by Michigan’s House, which is now under consideration in the state Senate, would require that no more than 15 percent of the signatures for a ballot initiative come from any one congressional district. Currently, there is no stipulation about where signatures can be gathered in the state, but the new law would force initiative campaigns to collect a far lower share of signatures in high-population (and progressive-leaning) areas like Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Lansing. Instead, they would have to invest many more resources in sprawling, sparsely populated, rural congressional districts. The new legislation “would make it exceedingly more difficult to do constitutional ballot initiatives,” says Sharon Dolente, a voting rights attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, who calls it “a big middle finger to the citizens.”

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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/12/after-voters-passed-progressive-ballot-initiatives-gop-legislatures-are-trying-to-kill-future-ones/

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