News & Media

What they're saying: "No one should be trapped in debt simply because they needed medical care, yet tens of millions of Americans are stuck with thousands of dollars of medical debt," Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, an organization that pushes such ballot measures, told the Arizona Republic.

The Fairness Project has worked with campaigns and local partners to pass minimum wage increases in Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Washington State — all through ballot measures. We have helped to put more than $22 billion in the pockets of the American people.

“This model of protecting more working families from the impacts of even small amounts of debt will be a big part of what we see go to the ballot in the upcoming cycle or two,” said Kelly Hall, the Fairness Project’s executive director.

Groups like the Fairness Project, which has backed the South Dakota and other Medicaid expansion ballot efforts, see the ballot initiative campaigns as a model for addressing reproductive law in other states, said the group’s executive director, Kelly Hall.

“In swing states and red states alike,” Hall says, “we have to assume that voters are coming to a ballot measure with a different frame of mind than any candidate choice, and keep open minds ourselves about who is on the table for a ballot measure.”