News & Media

"The more citizens use their power to advance their interests via ballot initiatives, the more some lawmakers attack the process." writes Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project

In 2025, GOP lawmakers have advanced or enacted bills that make the citizen-led ballot measure process more difficult in at least eight states.

Nearly 150 bills were introduced across 15 state legislatures this year seeking to make it harder for initiatives to qualify for the ballot or win approval by voters — nearly double the amount of just two years ago, according to the Fairness Project, a progressive group that has backed dozens of ballot initiatives in states.

“It’s a damning indictment of representative democracy when elected officials are scared of the will of their own voters,” said Alexis Magnan-Callaway of the Fairness Project, a union-backed advocacy group that focuses on state ballot measures.

In this episode of The Electorette, host Jen Taylor-Skinner is joined by Kelly Hall, Executive Director of the Fairness Project, to discuss how ballot measures are transforming the political landscape.

“Medicaid has a broader and broader appeal the more people that are on it, and the more people who know someone who’s on it. That’s incredibly powerful politically,” said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which backed state Medicaid referendums.

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