ICYMI: Axios Highlights the Fairness Project’s Success Passing Progressive Issues in Red States
Washington, D.C. — Last week, Axios spotlighted the Fairness Project’s success over the past six years at the ballot box, helping local organizations to win ballot measure campaigns on issues that otherwise would have little chance of passing through state legislatures in deep red and purple states.
READ: Nonprofit scores with progressive health ballot measures in red states
“A progressive nonprofit cemented its status as a key driver of state health policies in the midterms, winning popular votes on ballot questions dealing with abortion rights, Medicaid expansion and medical debt. Driving the news: The Fairness Project scored multiple wins Tuesday night, including in South Dakota and Arizona, whose conservative-led legislatures have resisted taking up those causes.”
“What they’re saying: Kelly Hall, the Fairness Project’s executive director, told Axios the nonprofit went on offensive during the Trump years, by targeting states while federal lawmakers were locked in a bitter battle over repealing the Affordable Care Act. The group has seized on ballot measures, a ‘powerful but difficult to use tool’ Hall said is seen as a last resort because of the difficulties drafting language and getting the measures certified.”
This election cycle, the Fairness Project won six campaigns, including passing Medicaid expansion in South Dakota, raising the minimum wage in Nebraska, and taking on predatory medical debt collectors in Arizona. The Fairness Project also supported two campaigns, in Vermont and Michigan, to codify reproductive freedom into the states’ constitutions.
Additional coverage:
- CNN: Voters approve Medicaid expansion and a minimum wage increase in these states
- NBC News: ‘So much relief’: South Dakota voters pass Medicaid expansion
- Vox: What wins for Medicaid and the minimum wage mean for the future of ballot initiatives
- The Washington Post: Abortion rights advocates used language of personal freedom to win moderates
- NPR: After wins at the ballot, abortion rights groups want to ‘put this to the people’