In the News

“Nebraska proves to the nation that a $15 minimum wage is not a coastal elite priority,” said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which helped draft the language for the Nebraska measure. “It’s an absolutely necessity everywhere.”

Since 2014, groups such as the Fairness Project have been supporting ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid in states where the legislatures have repeatedly rejected the idea.

Just 17 states have the ability to amend their state constitutions by citizen-led ballot initiatives, explained Kelly Hall, the director of the group Fairness Project. Of that group of states, Hall said she’s eyeing the places where abortion rights are already greatly restricted — like Dakotas, Arkansas, Arizona, Ohio and Missouri.

South Dakota becomes the seventh state where voters have forced an expansion of the government health care program that insures low-income people. “Citizens have taken matters into their own hands,” said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which backed the initiative.

"South Dakotans know their families and neighbors deserve health care without going into debt or avoiding check-ups, procedures, and medication they need," said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project. "Citizens took matters into their own hands to pass Medicaid expansion via ballot measure."

“We are thrilled by this victory, which took years of work, coalition building and organizing to achieve,” said Kelly Hall, director of the Fairness Project, which spearheaded the effort.

“Citizens took matters into their own hands to pass Medicaid expansion via ballot measure — showing us once again that if politicians won’t do their job, their constituents will step up and do it for them," said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which helped pass the ballot measure.

“Direct democracy has been a path for important change and also a path of last resort,” Kelly Hall, a former Obama administration health official who is now the executive director of the Fairness Project, said. “Expanding Medicaid anywhere helps protect it everywhere.”