In the News

Voters are going to have to do politicians’ jobs for them by passing good policies on our own.
By Kelly Hall

Kelly Hall: "Instead of having a fair fight, a really public conversation about the issues, where politicians or other citizens who disagree on an issue say, let's persuade each other, let's have a debate."

Kelly Hall — the executive director of the Fairness Project, a group that works to pass economic and social justice policies through ballot measures — said she's seen more state bills to limit citizen-initiated ballot measures this year than ever before.

That information is not required in other states, said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, a progressive group that has backed dozens of ballot initiatives in states. Hall said people concerned about privacy might hesitate to sign petitions.

“It’s too simplistic to say everyone is sitting it out, but we need to have strong cases for what’s effective and that’s a reasonable request to have,” [Kelly Hall] said. “These things are resource-intensive, and the stakes are high and the impact of winning is high.”

“This is an unprecedented number of serious pieces of legislation moving forward quickly,” to make it harder to put an initiative on the ballot, said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which advocates for ballot measures across policy areas.

“Legislators cannot change that law without going back to voters for a whole other campaign to change the constitution,” said Kelly Hall, the executive director of the Fairness Project, a nonprofit that helped put the constitutional amendments on the ballot in all three states.

Expanding Medicaid in red states has built political salience for the program and made it more difficult for Republican lawmakers to cut it, said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which helped launch the Medicaid expansion ballot initiative campaigns.