NPR Spotlights the Fairness Project’s Record of Winning Progressive Ballot Measures in Red States

Washington, DC — Today, NPR highlighted the Fairness Project’s strong track record of supporting and winning ballot measure campaigns on progressive issues, primarily in red and purple states where popular policies have little to no chance of passing through conservative state legislatures.

Last November, the Fairness Project won eight ballot measure campaigns: defending reproductive rights in Michigan and Vermont; raising the minimum wage to $15 in Nebraska; expanding Medicaid to 40,000 low-income South Dakotans; reining in predatory medical debt collectors in Arizona; increasing civilian oversight of the Los Angeles County Sheriff; and defending direct democracy in Arkansas and South Dakota. Since 2016 the Fairness Project has won a total of 31 campaigns in 17 states across the country.

READ: This group gets left-leaning policies passed in red states. How? Ballot measures

“One side effect of political division in the states – blue states getting bluer and red states getting redder – is that some policies don’t have a chance of getting passed by partisan state legislatures, even if a majority of voters back them. But a left-leaning advocacy group called the Fairness Project has created a playbook for using ballot initiatives to go around GOP-led state legislatures. Since 2016, it has backed successful initiatives to raise the minimum wage and expand Medicaid in at least nine states run entirely or mostly by Republicans at the time of the vote. (It also works in Democratically-led states).

“…When Missouri-based minimum wage advocates wanted to run a statewide ballot initiative in 2017, they turned to the Fairness Project. ’We’re sort of figuring things out as we go, and the Fairness Project is a particular expert on this tactic,’ says Missouri Jobs with Justice political director Richard Van Glahn.”

Continue reading in NPR here.