Democracy experts have focused on months close to Democrats backslides at the federal level, including the president’s attacks on independent institutions and civil society, the abdication of Congress in its role as an equal branch, and the mixed court response to the crisis. Meanwhile, at the national level, parallel democratic crises at the national level are unfolding in a way that is not noticeable. State lawmakers of the country pass laws to undermine or effectively eliminate citizens’ authority to change laws or constitutions through popular votes.
This year’s state legislative meetings were either passing at least nine state legislators or were considering legislation that would make it more difficult or potentially impossible for citizens to place initiatives on the ballot and vote in the public. Another state, Missouri, is cutting the court’s power to intervene when state officials spread disinformation about initiatives they oppose. These new laws are notable for their radicalism, their contradictions with the constitutional protections of their struggled states, and the openly anti-democratic rhetoric of their supporters.
This state-level attack on direct democracy is worthy of more public attention. Because it is itself part of the state struggle between elected officials and the constitutionally advertised rule of law that exists to constrain them.
The constitutions of 24 states allow citizens to directly modify the law without the involvement of the state legislature. This progressive reform wiped out states in the western part of the early 20th century, in response to various government scandals and in the public perception that state legislatures are likely to be captured by financial interests.
In virtually every state that has a direct democracy, this process is tedious. Not only will initiative sponsors have to persuade voters, but even to qualify vote initiatives, they will need extensive funding and talent to first gather the required amount of signatures. It also requires legal resources to comply with various restrictions regarding drafting and signature collections. Nevertheless, over the past century, citizens have used this tool to institute general reforms.
Politicians often view direct democracy as a threat to their power, and many fought it from the start. For example, when it was delegated to the Ohio Constitutional Treaty in 1912, when a large democracy proposed a democracy directly to voters, one modern day explained that “all the tricks and tricks known to large corporation politicians were hired to prevent the people of Ohio from being hired.” (In spite of this fear campaign, the amendment was passed with 58% of votes.) Even after reformers enforced the constitutional rights to direct democracy in many states, politicians worked to undermine it.
In recent years, this conflict between citizens and their representatives has escalated. Advocates work to thwart their efforts by increasingly transforming into a direct democracy due to policies that have been blocked by Congress for a long time, such as legalizing abortion, expanding Medicaid, and raising the minimum wage.
This legislative term was particularly bad for direct democracy – and undoubtedly the worst in Oklahoma, Florida and Arkansas. In a disturbing new twist, some lawmakers sponsoring these new restrictions openly attacked the notion of direct democracy and general sovereignty engraved in the constitution of their own states. For example, despite the Oklahoma Constitution stipulates this right, Oklahoma Sen. David Bullard urged his colleagues to limit the voting initiative. “Your democracy doesn’t need you right now,” he said. “Your Republic needs you… I say that the form of Republican government is ruled by your elected officials.”
Bullard was speaking in support of the new Oklahoma Act, which appears to be targeting liberal initiatives. By requiring that less than 10% of the voting measures’ signatures come from counties of over 400,000, it gives essentially rural conservative communities the power to block initiatives that appear in the vote. Some courts in other states have struck similar geographical requirements as conflicting with the basic state constitutional rights to direct democracy. The new provision is likely to specifically block voting initiatives in Oklahoma. This is already an outlier in the days (90 days) when the sponsor collects signatures.
Florida and Arkansas lawmakers also sought to sign the canvas for this semester. In Florida, already one of the few states that require a 60% or so majority to pass the initiative, the new law prohibits non-citizens, non-Florida residents, and individuals convicted of felony from gathering signatures in favour of petitions. It also requires personal identification information for petition cardiovascular voters, strengthen the timeline for canvas to submit signatures, impose new registration requirements on canvas, create new felony penalties for failure, and strictly meet these Byzantine procedural requirements.
The state of direct democracy is particularly disastrous in Arkansas. Last year, the Arkansas Supreme Court sided with the Attorney General when it used thin technical pretext to block a general limited abortion rights initiative with over 102,000 signatures from 53 counties. (Not coincidentally, a more ambitious abortion rights initiative was passed that year in neighbouring Missouri.) In a further blow to the civic initiative, Congress passed a new wave of restrictions on signature collections. Requires Canvasar to consider the signer’s photo ID for the pain of criminal prosecution and warn him of penalties for election fraud. Compress the duration of a signature collection. And it makes it easier for state officials to throw away their signatures or even prosecute canvas via technology.
Supporters of all three states have sued, claiming that these legislatures are violating the state’s constitutional rights to freely direct democratic and federal rights into political speeches.
In several other states, to reduce the risk of legal challenges and governor veto, state lawmakers have chosen to propose new restrictions to voters in the form of legislatively introduced voting measures. Voters usually recognize such measures as power grabs and reject them. But, in order to allow lawmakers to pay for supporters who oppose the restrictions, when Florida voters approved the vast majority requirements for future constitutional reforms in 2006, they can implement similar measures each year, and sometimes win.
North Dakota lawmakers are trying this tactic to raise the state’s passing threshold to 60%. Utah legislators do the same (in addition to passing laws requiring people to spend huge amounts of publishing initiatives in local newspapers). Arizona lawmakers were considering similar measures. In particular, we raised the thresholds to pass the initiative, but not to abolish them, and ended the session last week without passing it.
The official attacks on direct democracy are not new, but they are reaching unsettling new heights when federal officials move in the same way to undermine democratic checks of their power. In some states, voters have the authority to elect representatives with greater respect for direct democracy. Like Arkansas, Florida and Ohio, they face structural barriers to partisan gerrymandering. More quickly, these issues will be actively hashed in state and federal courts.
Aliskrapman is a reproductive rights litigator and former senior adviser to the Brennan Center, working on voting rights and election security.
Suggested Quote: Ariskrapman, State politicians spread attacks on direct democracysᴛᴛᴇcᴏᴜʀᴛrᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (June 24, 2025), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/state-politicians-bolaticians-broaden-direct-democracy
