Citizen-led ballot initiatives face pushback from state entities

FILE - Terry Goddard speaks during an election night party on Nov. 4, 2014, in Phoenix. Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and the GOP leaders of the state House and Senate are urging the state Supreme Court to overrule lower court judges and block three voter initiatives from the ballot. Goddard, a former Arizona attorney general is among a bipartisan group including business figures backing an initiative requiring full disclosure of political spending. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)
FILE - Terry Goddard speaks during an election night party on Nov. 4, 2014, in Phoenix. Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and the GOP leaders of the state House and Senate are urging the state Supreme Court to overrule lower court judges and block three voter initiatives from the ballot. Goddard, a former Arizona attorney general is among a bipartisan group including business figures backing an initiative requiring full disclosure of political spending. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions this year backing proposed ballot initiatives to expand voting access, ensure abortion rights and legalize recreational marijuana in Arizona, Arkansas and Michigan.

Voters might not get a say, because Republican officials or judges have blocked the proposals from the November elections, citing flawed wording, procedural shortcomings or insufficient petition signatures. At the same time, Republican lawmakers in Arkansas and Arizona have placed constitutional amendments on the ballot proposing to make it harder to approve citizen initiatives in the future.

The Republican pushback against the initiative process is part of a several-year trend that gained steam as Democratic-aligned groups have increasingly used petitions to force public votes on issues that Republican-led legislatures have opposed.

In reliably Republican Missouri, for example, voters have approved initiatives to expand Medicaid, raise the minimum wage and legalize medical marijuana. An initiative seeking to allow recreational pot is facing a court challenge from an anti-drug activist aiming to knock it off the November ballot.

Some Democrats contend Republicans are subverting the will of the people by making the ballot initiative process more difficult.

"What is happening now is just a web of technicalities to thwart the process in states where voters are using the people's tool to make an immediate positive change in their lives," said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which has worked with progressive groups sponsoring the blocked initiatives.

"That is not the way our democracy should work," she added.

Republicans who have thrown up hurdles to initiative petitions contend they are protecting the integrity of the lawmaking process against well-funded interest groups trying to bend state policies in their favor.

"I think the Legislature is a much purer way to get things done, and it represents the people much better, rather than having this jungle where you just throw it on the ballot," said South Dakota state Rep. Tim Goodwin, who has perennially targeted the initiative process with restrictions.

KEEPING INITIATIVES OFF THE BALLOT

About half the states in the U.S. allow citizen initiatives, in which petition signers can bypass a legislature to place proposed laws or constitutional changes directly before voters. But executive or judicial officials often still have some role in the process, typically by certifying that the ballot wording is clear and accurate and that petition circulators gathered enough valid signatures of registered voters.

In Michigan last month, two Republican members of the bipartisan Board of State Canvassers blocked initiatives to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and expand opportunities for voting.

Each measure had significantly more than the required 425,000 signatures. But GOP board members said the voting measure had unclear wording and the abortion measure was flawed because of spacing problems that scrunched some words together.

Supporters have appealed both decisions to the Michigan Supreme Court, which consists of a majority of Democratic-appointed judges.

The Arkansas Supreme Court, whose justices run in nonpartisan elections, is weighing an appeal of an August decision blocking an initiative that would legalize recreational marijuana for adults.

The State Board of Election Commissioners, which has just one Democrat among its members, determined that the ballot title was misleading because it failed to mention it would repeal potency limits in an existing medical marijuana provision. Because the deadline has passed to certify initiative titles, the Supreme Court has allowed the measure on the general election ballot while it decides whether the votes will be counted.

A lawsuit by initiative supporters contends a 2019 law passed by the Republican-led Legislature violates the Arkansas Constitution by allowing the board to reject ballot titles.

"The [initiative] process in Arkansas has gotten consistently harder each cycle, as the Legislature adds more and more requirements," said Steve Lancaster, a lawyer for Responsible Growth Arkansas, which is sponsoring the marijuana amendment.

It would get even harder if voters support a legislatively referred amendment on the November ballot that would require a 60% vote to approve citizen-initiated ballot measures or future constitutional amendments.

In Arizona, the primarily Republican-appointed Supreme Court recently blocked a proposed constitutional amendment that would have extended early voting and limited lobbyist gifts to lawmakers. The measure also would have specifically prohibited the Legislature from overturning the results of presidential elections, which some Republicans had explored after then- President Donald Trump's loss in 2020.

After a lower court initially ruled the measure could appear on the ballot, Arizona's high court instructed the judge to reconsider. Then it upheld a subsequent ruling throwing out enough petition signatures to prevent the initiative from qualifying for the ballot.

Information for this article was contributed by Bob Christie and Stephen Groves of The Associated Press.

  photo  FILE - Marijuana plants for the adult recreational market are are seen in a greenhouse at Hepworth Farms in Milton, N.Y., Friday, July 15, 2022. Missouri voters are set to be the first in the nation to sign off on automatically forgiving past marijuana crimes if they approve a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational pot in November 2022. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
 
 
  photo  Part of the initiative petition amendment to the Michigan constitution is seen, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022 in Detroit. An abortion rights group in Michigan has asked the state's Supreme Court to approve a ballot question asking voters whether a right to abortion should be enshrined in the state's constitution. The filing Thursday came a day after the state's canvassing board deadlocked on the matter, with two Republican members voting to reject the question because of supposed spacing errors in petitions for the measure. (AP Photo)
 
 
  photo  FILE - Commissioner Bilenda Harris-Ritter asks attorney Stephen Lancaster, representing the Responsible Growth Arkansas committee, a question about the proposed ballot measure that would legalize recreational marijuana during the Board of Election Commissioners meeting Aug. 3, 2022 at the State Capitol in Little Rock, Ark. (Staci Vandagriff/The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette via AP, File)
 
 
  photo  FILE - Arizona Supreme Court Justices from left; William G. Montgomery, John R Lopez IV, Vice Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer, Chief Justice Robert M. Brutinel, Clint Bolick and James Beene listen to oral arguments on April 20, 2021, in Phoenix. Republican-dominated courts and legislatures have been pushing back against citizen-led ballot initiatives to keep them off the ballot, in what critics say is a partisan attack on direct democracy. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)
 
 
  photo  FILE - Members of the Michigan Board of State Canvassers, from left, Richard Houskamp, Anthony Daunt and Mary Ellen Gurewitz listen to attorneys Olivia Flower and Steve Liedel during a hearing, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022, in Lansing, Mich. Republican-dominated courts and legislatures have been pushing back against citizen-led ballot initiatives to keep them off the ballot, in what critics say is a partisan attack on direct democracy. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)
 
 

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