Voters in four states went to the polls to decide congressional primary races in their states yesterday. These contests will determine who is on the ballot in the general election this coming November, but, in many states, those ballots will feature more than just the candidates running for office.
When they go to the polls, voters in 36 states also will decide major policy questions that could shape the landscape in their states for generations.
This week we look at some of those questions and at a citizen-led initiative in California that, because of a judicial challenge, is unlikely to be on the ballot.
But, first: what exactly are ballot initiatives and do all states allow them?
What Is A Ballot Initiative? What Is A Legislative Referral?
According to Ballotpedia, the “encyclopedia of American politics,” a ballot initiative is a citizen-initiated measure that proposes statutes or constitutional amendments. These initiatives are also sometimes referred to as popular initiatives, citizen initiatives, or citizen referenda. To get these measures on a ballot, supporters must collect a certain number of signatures from verified residents of the state. In some states, the legislature also needs to approve an initiative for it to get on the ballot.
A 2008 paper published in Human Dimension in Wildlife explained the system for using ballot initiatives was adopted by many states “between 1897–1915 in response to corrupt state legislatures dominated by corporations and monopolies.” In other words: perhaps a little direct democracy would improve matters.
Today, according to Ballotpedia, more than half of U.S. states, 26, allow for citizen-initiated ballot measures. Of these:
- 18 allow for initiated constitutional amendments.
- 21 allow for initiated state statutes.
- Two states, Maryland and New Mexico, allow for veto referendums, but not initiated statutes or initiated amendments. (A veto referendum is a citizen-initiated ballot measure that asks voters whether to uphold or repeal a law that already has been approved by the legislature and enacted by the governor.)
Oddly, these 26 states are largely situated in the western half of the United States. Along the entire eastern seaboard, only four states — Florida, Maine, Maryland, and New Hampshire — allow for citizen-directed ballot initiatives. Alaska allows them, but Hawaii does not. (Globally, the United States of is one of the few democracies that does not have a national ballot initiative system.)
Citizens are not the only ones who can call for a ballot measure. State legislators can vote to make a legislative referral. These referrals can be constitutional amendments, state statutes, or bond issues. Every state allows legislative referrals.
What Is On The Ballot In 2024?
According to Ballotpedia, as of this week, 127 statewide ballot measures, either citizen initiatives or legislative referrals, have been certified for the ballots in 36 states for elections in 2024. The vast majority of these initiatives, 101, are legislative referrals. The rest are citizen-driven. From 2010 to 2022, the average number of statewide ballot measures in an even-numbered year was 161.
While it does not appear there are any financial services or financial technology-related ballot initiatives this year, these measures can reflect any priority, from public safety to election monitoring to state constitutional issues. For example:
- In South Dakota, voters will decide whether to amend the state constitution to change male pronouns in that constitution to gender-neutral terms or titles.
- Similarly, in North Dakota, voters will decide whether to update the language used in the state constitution to describe certain state institutions. This measure includes changing the word “insane” to “individuals with mental illness: and the words “deaf and dumb” to “deaf and hard of hearing.”
- In Nevada, voters will decide whether to repeal language from the state constitution that allows the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as criminal punishments.
- South Dakota voters also will have to determine whether to legalize the recreational use, possession, and distribution of marijuana. (Florida voters also will be asked whether to legalize marijuana for people 18 and older.)
- In Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin, voters will decide whether to approve constitutional amendments to require that only citizens may vote in elections.
- In Oregon, voters will decide whether to allow the state legislature to impeach elected state executives.
- In Alaska, voters will decide whether to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour and require employers to provide paid sick leave.
Other ballot initiatives are deeply personal and controversial. In West Virginia, for example, voters will decide whether to prohibit people from participating in “the practice of medically assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing of a person.”
A major theme for ballot initiatives this year and in years past is taxation.
In Missouri, for example, voters will decide whether to exempt childcare establishments from local and state property taxes. Illinois voters will get to decide whether they want to tell the state legislature to amend the state constitution to create an additional three percent tax on people with incomes greater than $1 million. The revenue from that wealth tax would provide property tax relief for other residents of the states. And, in Washington, voters will be asked whether the state should:
- Repeal the capital gains excise tax imposed on long-term capital assets by individuals with capital gains over $250,000.
- Prohibit carbon tax credit trading and repeal provisions of the 2021 Washington Climate Commitment Act (CCA), which provided for a cap and invest program designed to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 95 percent by 2050.
- Allow employees and self-employed individuals to opt out of paying the tax and receiving benefits under the state’s long-term services and health care program.
California is another state where voters wanted to consider tax issues this November. But, based on a decision issued last week, it does not seem like they will get their way. (They will, however, get to decide whether to increase the minimum wage to $18 an hour.)
California Supreme Court Weighs In On Tax-Related Ballot Initiative
Like American colonists in 1773, the year of the Boston Tea Party, Californians appear fed up with the amount they are taxed.
As a result, and as The Associated Press explained, over the last several months, more than one million people signed a petition in California to put a measure on the ballot this November that would have required that voters in the state have the opportunity to approve or deny any tax increase passed by the state legislature. This ballot initiative also would have required that all local tax increases be approved by two-thirds of voters instead of a simple majority vote.
That was not all, however: the ballot initiative also threatened to retroactively reverse most tax increases approved by the state legislature going back to January 1, 2022, including a tax on guns and ammunition that is supposed to go into effect this coming Monday, July 1.
“That prospect alarmed [Democratic Gov. Gavin] Newsom and legislative leaders so much that they took the unusual step of asking the state Supreme Court to remove the measure from the ballot before voters had a chance to decide it,” The Associated Press noted.
In a unanimous decision issued last week, the state court justices sided with the policymakers. The decision may have long-term repercussions for what can, and cannot, be on California’s ballots in coming years.
As the California news website CalMatters reported, the judges determined that the proposed tax increase restrictions were “within the electorate’s prerogative to enact … but because those changes would substantially alter [the state’s] basic plan of government, the proposal cannot be enacted by initiative.” Instead, the court said, citizens needed to use the procedure to amend the state’s constitution. That system calls for proposed revisions being submitted to voters by a supermajority of the legislature or a constitutional convention. Since Democrats have a lock on the state legislature, that mechanism effectively kills this effort and, potentially, any other large-scale conservative effort aimed at reforming state policy.
A countermeasure supported by Democratic lawmakers will stay on the ballot.
CalMatters noted it was the first time since 1999 that the court has struck an initiative from the ballot following a full hearing. (That year, the court struck down a measure that sought to restrict state officers’ pay and transfer redistricting power out of the state legislature.)
Supporters of the effort to restrict the state legislature’s power to tax were outraged, and they have pledged to fight on. After criticizing state supreme court judges, Rob Lapsley, the president of the California Business Roundtable, said the coalition that supported the ballot initiative will work on a narrower tax proposal for 2026.
So Californians – and residents of the other 25 states in which ballot initiatives will appear this November – get ready!