Ballot Initiatives: The quiet fights that will shape 2020
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The outsized success of progressive ballot initiatives was one of the best and most important results to come out of the 2018 election. Progressives were able to expand Medicaid and voting rights in a number of red states by appealing to an enormous majority of voters, who signaled their support for policies that their GOP elected officials would never pass in a million years.
Obviously, there’s a bit of cognitive dissonance there that we have to solve — Democrats are forever trying to convince working-class people to vote for candidates who actually want to help them — but most crucially, the approved initiatives have already improved the lives of millions of people and made democracy a bit more democratic. They also helped bring more people out to the polls, giving Democrats a boost in close elections in places like Wisconsin and Michigan.
Activists were poised to continue that momentum this year but, like just about everything else, coronavirus has thrown a wrench in those plans. Conservative (and some liberal) state judges aren’t helping the situation much, either, which only serves to underscore the gravity of the challenge we face.
The main issue right now is that to get an initiative on the ballot, the sponsor needs to get a vast number of petitions signed by state residents by a certain date. Obviously, with everyone shut inside and social distancing rules in effect, if an organization didn’t have the requisite signatures by April, it is probably not going to be able to get them by their respective states’ early summer deadlines. In some cases, the deadline has already passed, making legal intervention the last hope for those activists. And in many other places, activists have already given up for 2020. Here’s where the fight rages on:
The Internet Fight
The most obvious alternative to capturing signatures on the street is rounding them up online. Unfortunately, many state and federal courts, still largely dominated by conservatives allergic to democracy, are making it difficult to do just that.
In Arizona, activists asked courts to allow petitions to be signed over the internet, but that request was summarily shot down. You can see the partisan difference at play here: Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who was elected in 2018, did not defend the state law that made it functionally impossible for signatures to be collected online, which led to the State Attorney General stepping in to limit democracy in his state.
The same battle over online signatures is happening over in Ohio, where activists want to get marijuana legalization and a minimum wage increase on the ballot. The Franklin County judge ruled that he didn’t have the authority to change the law, so the activists, led by the ACLU, are pushing the case up to federal court. The issue here, as the Columbus Dispatch notes, is that “signatures must be in ink and a petition circulator must sign off to affirm they witnessed each one.”
A US District Court judge, meanwhile, shot down requests from activists in Illinois who wanted both online petitioning and the state’s signature requirement to be cut in half. The deadline to qualify ballot initiatives in Illinois was May 3rd, so unless the petitioners — who have been pushing an ethics-focused constitutional amendment — decide to appeal to a higher court, they’ll have to wait until 2022.
In Colorado, we’re waiting to see what Gov. Jared Polis will do. He has said that he’s working to find a way to help initiative sponsors safely gather signatures, but on Thursday afternoon indicated that electronic petitions would not be part of that. Looking to the future, the State Supreme Court OK’d two ballot initiatives that would make the process of creating ballot initiatives much easier in the future, though neither initiatives about initiatives include e-signatures, either.
Lawsuits were filed in both Nevada and North Dakota last week by activists who are pushing good government and anti-gerrymandering amendments. In both states, they are seeking extensions of their signature-gathering requirements (it’s June 24 in Nevada and July 6th in North Dakota) and the right to gather signatures online. A bipartisan group pushing marijuana legalization in Montana filed suit to green light online petition signatures, too.
Meanwhile, advocates for an LGBTQ anti-discrimination ballot measure are collecting signatures online now and hoping to force the issue when they present them to the state Board of Elections. (That’s the way to do it.)
On the bright side, Massachusetts became the first state to allow petitions to be signed electronically, the result of an agreement with several ballot hopefuls who joined together to sue the state over the requirements.
Hey, they qualified!
Activists in Missouri were able to qualify an initiative on Medicaid expansion for this fall’s election. While the state is going increasingly solid red in partisan contests, Missourians voted in 2018 to approve a minimum wage hike, medical marijuana legalization, and new stringent ethics rules for lawmakers.
Over in Florida, where progressive ballot initiatives were such a rousing success in 2018 that Republican legislators immediately rolled back some of their policy changes and made future initiatives harder to qualify, activists were still able to get enough signatures for an initiative proposing a $15 minimum wage.
Virginia will have a non-partisan redistricting amendment presented to voters, while New Jerseyans will have the opportunity to fully legalize marijuana. I have a feeling I know which way that one's gonna go.
You can find the rest of the initiatives that have qualified for the ballot in November over at Ballotpedia.
I’ll have a new candidate interview next week for you to read, but I wanted to take today to re-introduce our current 2020 slate. These eight legislative candidates — seven of whom are women — are smart, capable, compassionate, and energetic fighters who not only believe in progressive change, they’re devoting their already-busy lives to making it happen.
They’re nurses, teachers, lawyers, and local office-holders who are pushing forward through the coronavirus quarantines, finding new ways to campaign and connect with their neighbors in crucial districts in swing states.
I’ve linked each name below to the interviews I did with them so you can learn more about their campaigns. Any help you can offer them (by donating here) will go a long way towards helping good Democrats win this fall and restore some hope and sanity to this country.
They are:
Jessica Harrington (FL-HD-64): An energetic teacher who is running against Jamie Grant, the architect of Florida’s new racist poll tax. He’s now known as Jim Crow Jamie.
Christine Morse (MI-HD-61): A county commissioner in Michigan and mother of three who is focused on affordable healthcare and local infrastructure improvements.
Luisa Wakeman (GA-HD-43): A flight attendant and nurse, Luisa has used her campaign to help the community with its coronavirus response. She lost a close race in 2018 and is working to finish the job.
Akilah Bacy (TX-HD-138): A lawyer who represents refugees, Bacy is a charismatic candidate running in the most flippable seat in Texas.
Terri LeGrand (NC-SD-31): LeGrand worked for years in financial aid for colleges, so she understands the challenges facing young people (and their parents) today. She’s taking on a far-right-wing Republican in a redrawn seat that’s much more competitive.
Jim Bonfiglio (FL-HD-89): An attorney who protects people in foreclosure, Bonfiglio lost by a heartbreaking 32 votes in 2018. He’s back to finish the job in a district hit hard by Florida Republicans’ poor response to coronavirus.
Sara Bitter (OH-HD-27): A disability rights advocate, Bitter has a vision for government that we desperately need right now.
Shea Roberts (GA-HD-52): This land use and small businesss lawyer is working hard to bring more affordable housing and small business rents to a community that’s increasingly being taken over by major corporations.
Again, any donation will help them, so CLICK HERE to donate to Progressives Everywhere’s candidates via ActBlue!
Thank you to new donors: Theodore Lam, Gloria Purcell, Mike Boland, Linda Larkin, and Dan Fudala!
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