Welcome to a Sunday edition of Progress Report.
Thank you to everyone who tuned in this morning to watch my live stream with my good pal Jason Sattler, who you probably know on the internet as L O L G O P! He’s been doing smart, witty, and selfless work on behalf of democracy for years now and was kind enough to discuss upcoming elections and my various projects — see: On the Ballot and the Flip Seats legislature index. You can watch the conversation above, and in tonight’s edition of the newsletter, I dive deep on some of the news that we reviewed.
As for today’s biggest headline, the death of South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, my first reaction was less glib than you’d expect. It actually wigged me out, because he died from a dissected aorta, a fate that I narrowly avoided when I was 23-years-old. That part of my heart has haunted me: the main focus of my surgery last fall was replacing the aortic valve and root, and it’s constantly on my mind. It’s impossible to root for someone to suffer that kind of fate.
That said, Lindsey Graham was a blood-thirsty hypocrite (in so many ways!) who spent three decades cheerleading endless war and the deaths of countless innocent men, women, and especially children. I think he was well aware that he hurt millions of people, but for whatever complicated or twisted reason, he just didn’t care.
OK, let’s get to the good stuff.
Note: Think of Progress Report as the news before you read the news, bringing you conversations with up-and-coming candidates, behind the scenes with activists running critical campaigns, and perspectives you don’t hear on cable news. It’s a one-man publication and a second full-time job, so if you value this work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber for just $2.50 a month — it’s the only way I can keep the work going.
The US Supreme Court’s ongoing dismantling of voting rights and the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on elections are together enough to create a sense of despondency, as if the fundamentals of democracy are irrevocably doomed here in the United States. But as usual, you can look o the states for a bit of hope.
Or, more specifically, you can look to the people in the states, who are finding innovative new ways to fight back against fascism.
It’s become a predictable, even rote routine: citizens get together, spend several years hustling to get a progressive initiative — be it abortion rights, Medicaid expansion, minimum wage increase, etc. — on the ballot, and then overcome steep odds and millions of dollars in right-wing money to pass it in their politically conservative state. And then before they’re even done celebrating their grassroots victory, Republican legislators find a way to stymy the will of the people.
Sometimes, they try to ignore the result until they’re sued; other times, they roll back a popular policy. And increasingly, state Republicans are striving to blow up the whole initiative and amendment process altogether, making it all but impossible for citizen activists to qualify, much less pass, popular laws.
All of the above is happening in Missouri, which has become ground zero for the struggle over the future of democracy. On August 4th, the conservative attack comes to a head, as voters will be asked to weigh in on four ballot initiatives, including one that would make passing a citizen’s amendment so difficult that a resolution declaring “all puppies are good” would be a challenge. Amendment 4 would require that an initiative win majority support from all eight Congressional districts in the state, which is both very rural and very gerrymandered.
To understand just how impossible it would make it to pass an amendment, take the amendment that re-legalized abortion in Missouri in 2024: Amendment 3 won with 51.6% of the vote but only took a majority in three districts; today, with the new gerrymander, it’d probably only pass in two of them. Notably, the new standard would not apply to amendments sent to the ballot by the legislature, giving them a big leg up when they try to pass things like this November’s amendment to re-ban abortion and trans care for minors.
Reversing the will of voters is one of the Missouri GOP’s specialties: In January, Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a law that rolled back a key element of a successful ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage: while the boost to $15 held, the legislature revoked the right to earn guaranteed paid leave, stripping access to sick time for more than 700,000 Missourians.
Okay, this hasn’t been too uplifting or encouraging yet, so here’s where the good news kicks in: activists are fighting back in Missouri and beyond.
In response, organizers quickly put together the Respect MO Voters coalition and qualified an amendment that would protect the initiative process from interference, preventing frequent GOP tactics like changing signature thresholds, shrinking collection periods, and arbitrarily rewording initiatives. The amendment would also require an 80% majority of the legislature to change voter-approved initiatives, which not even Missouri Republicans have been able to muster.
(Activists in Nebraska are also advancing such an amendment, having seen their people-approved minimum wage increase gutted, and just submitted more than 180,000 signatures to get on the ballot in November.)
Missouri Republicans are trying to pre-empt this display of democracy by scheduling their anti-initiative amendment for the August primary election. Perversely, that only has to win a simple majority to pass and make it harder to win future initiatives, but if activists can defeat it next month, they’ll be in good position to protect their rights in November.
And it’s not just Missouri: similar efforts are happening in other states where democracy, civil rights, and bodily autonomy have been under attack.
Fighting Back in Red States
Perhaps the most innovative pro-democracy amendment campaign this year is happening in Montana, where activists want to strike a major blow in the fight against corporate donations and dark money in the political process.
