In the News

PPAMT is one of the main organizations backing Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights, the committee sponsoring Constitutional Initiative 128. Other partners include the ACLU of Montana, Forward Montana and the Fairness Project.

“They are coming up with new tricks,” Kelly Hall said of the Missouri proposals, a trend she attributes to voters rejecting straightforward attempts to raise the ballot initiative vote threshold from a majority to 60 percent in Arkansas, Ohio and South Dakota over the last two years. “There’s a new creativity that we’re seeing."

Ballot supporters here raised $4.2 million as of March 12, according to campaign finance records. Money has come from national groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Fairness Project, which has supported ballot efforts on various progressive causes. Kansas City-based Health Forward Foundation has also donated.

The panelists include Love, ACLU of Missouri’s Luz María Henríquez, Ohio Organizing Collaborative’s Prentiss Haney, who spearheaded the successful abortion access measure in Ohio, and the ballot measure fundraising/consulting group Fairness Project’s Kelly Hall, who has won over 30 ballot measures in multiple states.

The largest donations so far include $1 million from the Sixteen Thirty Fund and $500,000 from the Fairness Project. The 501c4 nonprofits are based outside of Missouri and do not have to disclose their donors. Both organizations contributed to Missouri’s successful 2020 Medicaid expansion initiative petition campaign.

The Fairness Project, a nonprofit dedicated to using ballot measures to circumvent deadlocks in legal change, spearheaded the movement to expand Medicaid through state ballot initiatives.

The campaign has received large contributions from national groups, including $1 million from Sixteen Thirty Fund, a progressive nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., and $500,000 from The Fairness Project, another Washington-based nonprofit.

But the largest donation so far was a $500,000 check from the Fairness Project, a 501c4 nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors. The organization helps bankroll ballot measures across the country, including Missouri’s successful 2020 Medicaid expansion initiative petition.