Follow the latest news coverage and media releases from the Fairness Project as we work to win and protect ballot measures across the country.
This week, Rolling Stone covered the coordinated attack by conservative state legislators and special interests to crack down on citizen-initiated ballot measures in order to further restrict abortion rights.
“They are saying: ‘We know that voters disagree with us on this issue, and rather than us changing how we govern to be more in line with the people who we are elected to represent, we are going to change the rules of governance itself to make sure that we don’t have to listen to our constituents.’"
The only question on the ballot is Issue 1, a proposal to require that 60% of voters approve citizen-initiated constitutional amendments, instead of a simple majority — meaning that a small group of voters would have control over such decisions.
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This week, The New Yorker spotlighted how advocates for direct democracy, including the Fairness Project, are fighting back against to right-wing attacks on the ballot measure process in Ohio in advance of a proposed reproductive rights amendment this fall.
Kelly Hall, the executive director of the Fairness Project, which advances progressive ballot measures, told me, “We will make sure that the voters of Ohio understand the implications, not just for the abortion issue that is coming in November but all of the other issues that Ohio voters will want to vote on in the future.”
The resolution in Ohio is the latest in a string of attacks on the ballot measure process. Last year, legislators in South Dakota and Arkansas attempted to implement a 60% threshold but it was rejected by voters.
Putting up barriers to voting is bad enough, suggested Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, a progressive group. “Now it’s, ‘How can we restrict the power of those... who actually do make it to the voting booth? ‘“
That “threw fuel on the fire when it comes to efforts to restrict ballot measures,” Hannah Ledford, deputy executive director and campaigns director of the ballot measure group Fairness Project, said in an email. Every state that put abortion on the ballot in 2022 voted in favor of protecting access to the procedure in some way, including Republic
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