Legislatures and governors are not afraid of undermining — or even downright repealing — citizen initiatives that win at the ballot box.
Anne Whitesell
Governing
Less than half of Americans trust elected officials to act in the public’s interest.
• Arizona voters approved a tax increase on the wealthy to fund the state’s schools in 2020. In 2021, the Legislature responded by exempting business earnings from the tax. There was an attempt by citizen initiative later that year to repeal the law exempting business earnings, but it did not gather enough signatures from citizens to make it to the ballot
When voters want something done on an issue and their elected officials fail to act, they may turn to citizen initiatives to pursue their goals instead. The citizen initiative process varies by state, but in general, citizens collect signatures to have an issue put directly on the ballot for the voters to voice their preferences. Nearly half the states, 24 of them, allow citizen initiatives.
These measures, also called “ballot initiatives,” often focus on the controversial issues of the day. Citizen initiatives on same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization have been on many state ballots through the years. Abortion rights have repeatedly been on the ballot since 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional protection for abortion, and more voters can expect to vote on the issue in 2024.
I am an American politics scholar who studies the connection between representation and public policy. In American democracy, the people expect to have a voice, whether that comes through electing representatives or directly voting on issues.
Yet it is becoming increasingly common for lawmakers across the country to not only ignore the will of the people but also actively work against it. From 2010 to 2015, about 21 percent of citizen initiatives were altered by lawmakers after they passed. From 2016 to 2018, lawmakers altered nearly 36 percent of passed citizen initiatives.
Here’s what some of those cases look like, from successful to unsuccessful efforts to alter the will of the people:
