Ballot Measure-o-meter

The citizen-led Prop. 40 is proposing a first of its kind, one-time 5% tax on billionaires to fund public healthcare. Prop. 40 follows the Trump administration’s recent tax breaks to the richest Americans that resulted in skyrocketing health insurance premiums, 3.4 million Californians losing health coverage, and clinics, ERs, and hospitals closing their doors. The ‘Yes on 40’ campaign is urging Californians to pass Prop. 40 while voting No on competing propositions 41 and 42.

Two proactive ballot measures are proposing fiscal policy changes to benefit Colorado families:

One measure, Prop. NN, would raise the TABOR spending cap and direct the first 2% of tax revenue collected above the existing cap to go toward higher teacher pay, smaller class sizes, and other school programs, while any surplus funds would be used to support early childhood education, child care, health care, and higher education.

Amendment 87 proposes a graduated income tax that would raise rates on the state’s highest earners while cutting taxes for most Coloradans.

Idahoans United for Women & Families are pursuing a ballot initiative to restore critical reproductive healthcare in the Gem State. Under the initiative, lawmakers could not restrict abortion access before the point of fetal viability, and access to birth control and fertility treatments like IVF would be protected. Currently, abortion is banned in Idaho with narrow exceptions for rape, incest, or to save the life of the pregnant person.

The citizen-led Mop Up Michigan proposal would ban political contributions from regulated monopoly utilities and blocks corporations that hold or seek large state/local contracts over $250,000 from funding political campaigns. 

A proposed constitutional amendment in Minnesota would alter management and investment policies for the state’s permanent school fund, allowing schools to access more funding without raising taxes. 

The citizen-led CI-133 is aiming to defend the People’s Tool from government interference by requiring impartial and timely processes for ballot issues, including by requiring for ample time to collect petition signatures. The initiative also bars
disqualification because of minor or technical issues.
Bars the use of government resources to support or oppose a ballot measure.

The Respect Nebraska Voters coalition is pursuing a ballot initiative to protect the state’s citizen-led initiative process by raising the vote threshold required for legislators to make changes to voter-approved measures. 

Advocates with Respect NE Voters submitted more than 186,000 petition signatures.

The legislatively-referred Proposal 3 looks to ensure that employees have a state constitutional right to join a union and engage in collective bargaining like negotiating wages, hours, and working conditions and to protect their economic welfare and safety in the workplace.
The measure also prohibits any laws that would interfere with or diminish this constitutional right, for example so-called ‘right to work’ laws.

Following a two-year, multi-session process, Virginia legislators have advanced a reproductive rights amendment to the November ballot.The proposal, which passed along party lines, would amend the state constitution to establish the right to make decisions about all matters related to one’s pregnancy. That would cover everything from abortions to contraception and fertility treatments.

The will of the people is under threat in Alaska, where a group is looking to repeal voter-approved ranked-choice voting and eliminate the state’s open primaries. This is the is the second attempt to overturn voters’ will after a similar 2024 initiative failed.

A legislatively-referred amendment in Iowa would require that any future proposals to raise corporate or individual income tax rates, or to create a new income tax, be passed by a two-thirds supermajority of the legislature.

Critics warn that the amendment would lock in recent tax system changes that have primarily benefited large corporations and the wealthy.

North Dakota’s House of Representatives is proposing a constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters, would create a single-subject rule for all future ballot measures in the state. Advocates for direct democracy have raised concerns that the amendment would give state officials a disproportionate amount of power to approve or deny changes to the constitution and would inevitably lead to more legislative and litigation-related hurdles to passing citizen-initiated measures.

North Carolina voters will weigh in on two anti-revenue measures this November: one to slash the state’s maximum allowable personal and corporate income tax rates and another requiring lawmakers to limit the amount that county governments may increase property taxes.

Critics like the N.C. Budget and Tax Center warn the measures would limit state and local government revenue options and lock in outsized tax breaks for big business

The legislatively-referred measure would require voters to show photo identification for in-person voting. Ballot measures like this seek to shape political participation and representation.

A legislatively-referred amendment would require that any tax-related citizen-initiated ballot measures must pass by at least 60% in order to take effect. (Legislatively measures, on the other hand would continue to pass with a simple majority.)

This is thought to be the latest step in an ongoing strategy to make all of Utah’s citizen-led initiatives harder to qualify and pass.

This November, Wyoming voters will weigh in on a ballot initiative to further reduce residential property taxes by 50% for those who’ve lived in the state for at least a year — without providing a plan to backfill for local governments. Property taxes are the single largest revenue source in most Wyoming counties, raising $2 billion statewide in 2024 alone. As such, this proposal is estimated to cost local governments an estimated $644 million in lost revenue.

The legislatively-referred Prop. 318 would bar trans students from joining school or intramural sports teams that best align with their gender identity. Plus, use of school or athletic facility bathrooms and locker rooms would be restricted to sex assigned at birth.

Students will have to present a birth certificate in order to join their school’s sports team. Oddly, the measure doesn’t clarify how schools are expected to determine who’s allowed into which bathroom. It raises the concern that the measure is falling back on tired stereotypes of how young people are expected to look or to express their gender.

A legislatively-referred measure would significantly expand homestead exemptions and reduce local property tax revenue. According to Save Our Services – No on 3, a statewide coalition fighting to defeat the amendment, local communities would be forced to either cut essential services or raise other taxes and fees to make up the difference. Services at risk could include firefighting and EMS, after-school programs for children, hurricane shelters, and more.

In 2024, Missourians used the power of direct democracy to end the state’s extremist ban on abortion and put the Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment into the state constitution. But now politicians are pushing Amendment 3 to overturn the will of the people and once again ban abortion in nearly all cases and permanently prohibit gender-affirming care for young people.

A Nevada group called Repair the Vote is attempting to pass their own voter ID initiative. A legislative compromise that would have required voter ID but also expanded the number of ballot drop boxes was ultimately vetoed by Gov. Lombardi, a voter ID proponent, who claimed continued concerns about the security of voting by mail.

An initiative backed by conservative group Let’s Go Washington is proposing to bar trans girls from participating in girls sports at school, using invasive physical exams and blood tests as the primary methods for establishing a student’s sex.

Another initiative by the same group removes common sense school record protections for victims of child abuse and forces teachers and school counselors to “out” LGBTQIA+ kids to their parents or guardians.