July Hot Sheet: Defend the Ballot Measure, Defend Democracy: Resisting Authoritarian Creep

07/23/2025

Welcome back to The Hot Sheet!

Here, we give you a quick rundown of what you need to know about the 2025 ballot measure landscape — the trends, analysis, highlights of what’s on the ballot, and why it all matters. 

For more in-depth analysis, our latest voter attitudes research, and information on the measures we’re tracking, head to our Ballot Measure Hub.

2025 Ballot Measure Landscape

As of July 15, there are 23 measures confirmed for the November 4 ballot in Colorado, Maine, New York, Texas, and Washington. BISC is currently tracking nine other measures that continue to vie for the 2025 ballot. Ten other attempts have failed to qualify for the November ballot.

Six measures have already appeared on statewide ballots this spring in Louisiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin. 

As of July 14, BISC is still monitoring 24 active bills across seven states and Washington D.C. related to direct democracy — at least nine of which seek to limit the People’s Tool. 51 bills have already passed in state houses and three others have been vetoed by governors.

The Toplines

• Amid the rise of authoritarianism at both the state and federal levels, it’s becoming increasingly critical to defend the ballot initiative process as a means of strengthening our democracy.
• In November, Texas will have 17 legislatively-referred measures on the ballot including a proposed ‘parental rights’ constitutional amendment.
• While BISC’s latest research reveals near-universal support for parental rights, some ballot measures rely on the general concept’s popularity to distract from their underlying anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiments.
• Soon after Missouri Gov. Kehoe signed into law a repeal of voter-approved paid sick leave, future minimum wage increases, and more, worker justice advocates filed a ballot initiative to restore the rights and enshrine them in the state constitution.
• While a legal challenge to I-437 and I-438 continues to play out in the Nebraska Supreme Court, a set of emergency regulations have made it possible to apply for licenses to cultivate, sell, or transport medical cannabis.
• Following an order from the Missouri Supreme Court to vacate and reconsider her previous temporary injunctions against a set of anti-abortion T.R.A.P. laws, a district court judge has reinstated the orders and allowed the critical care to resume. The state attorney general, however, has asked the state supreme court to again intervene to prevent patients from accessing care.
• Montana Supreme Court justices unanimously rejected an attempt by an anti-abortion group to overturn CI-128, 2024’s voter-approved reproductive rights constitutional amendment.

Emerging Trend

Defend the Ballot, Defend Democracy: Resisting the Authoritarian Creep: The health of American democracy is deteriorating under the weight of rising authoritarianism, political gridlock, and institutional sabotage — conditions that create fertile ground for fascist ideologies to take root. A visible symptom of this democratic erosion is the coordinated assault on citizen-led ballot initiatives. In nearly half the states, lawmakers have introduced or passed bills to restrict the ballot measure process by tightening signature requirements, shortening campaign timelines, imposing confusing legal standards, and more. These efforts are not simply administrative — they are politically-motivated efforts to suppress popular reforms, particularly those favoring progressive causes. When institutions designed to empower people are dismantled, faith in democratic participation wanes, leaving a vacuum for authoritarian alternatives that promise strength, order, and control over complexity.

In states like Ohio and Oklahoma, anti-democratic legislation exemplifies how weakened civic processes can pave the way for more coercive governance. Ohio’s Senate Bill 153 and House Bill 233, buried in hundreds of pages of technical jargon, function as veiled threats to grassroots movements by criminalizing common organizing practices and expanding state surveillance over petitioners. Oklahoma’s Senate Bill 1027 caps the number of signatures per county and compresses campaign timelines to near-impossible limits, effectively disempowering urban organizers and diluting collective power. These are not random policy changes, they are strategic efforts to undermine pluralism and prevent dissent. When democratic tools become inaccessible, the state monopolizes political expression, setting the stage for fascist tendencies: centralized control, suppression of opposition, and the framing of democratic dissent as a threat to the republic.

This democratic decay does more than limit ballot access — it opens the door to fascism by normalizing executive overreach, legislative complicity, and public disillusionment. When citizens are cut off from shaping their own governance, the state consolidates power under the guise of unity and order — an all-too-familiar path to authoritarian rule. Thus, defending the ballot is not just about preserving a process — it’s about resisting a future where democracy is hollowed out in favor of control.

Ballot Measures to Watch

Issue: Civil Rights

Texas Proposition 15: Parental Rights (LR) 

What It Does: This proposed constitutional amendment would affirm that parents are the primary decision makers for their children. 

Why It Matters: Texas already guarantees parental rights through statute, but this proposed constitutional amendment would elevate those rights into the state constitution. Supporters argue this move would solidify over a century of legal precedent and make those rights harder to overturn or weaken through future legislation.

BISC Analysis: The Paradox of ‘Parental Rights’: BISC’s latest research shows the concept of parental rights as a near-universal value for voters. Across all voting groups and levels of support for LGBTQIA+ rights, those surveyed shared an overwhelming belief that parents should have the final say over their children’s medical care. But how does that near-universal support begin to splinter when we apply the parental rights argument to a Texas parent refusing the measles vaccine for their infant? Or to a Missouri parent advocating for puberty blockers for their trans pre-teen? And where do parental rights interfere with a child’s? In 2024, anti-LGBTQIA+ groups attempted to qualify their own ‘parental rights’ initiative for the Colorado ballot with a petition that would have required teachers to ‘out’ trans and non-binary students to their parents regardless of concerns for the child’s safety.

This year Texans will consider a constitutional amendment affirming that parents have the responsibility to “protect” their children and the right to exercise “control” of their upbringing. (Sen. Bryan Hughes, the proposition’s author, has also authored a bill demonizing gender-affirming care and the 2021 law that resulted in a near-total ban on abortions in the state.) Next November, Missourians will decide a legislatively-referred measure that would overturn 2024’s voter-approved right to reproductive freedom and enshrine a ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Critics have noted the attack on GAC and the parental rights aspect of the ballot language as two pieces of ‘ballot candy’ intended to persuade voters to sign away their rights. A failed initiative attempt in Washington this year sought, among other things, to give parents the right to inspect their public school student’s mental health records despite an existing state law that allows minors 13 and older to access mental health treatment without parental consent.

As voters encounter more ballot measures that focus on parental rights, we must be vigilant in naming not only their origins but their outcomes — intended and not.

Updates to 2024 Ballot Measures

Issue: Economic Justice

• • Missouri Prop. A: Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave 
    • Legislative Block & A New Potential Initiative: Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe has officially signed House Bill 567 into law and as of August 28, Missourians will be stripped of their voter-approved right to earn paid sick leave. In the wake of the legislative attack, Missouri Jobs With Justice has filed a new ballot initiative that could amend the state constitution to guarantee paid sick leave for workers, enshrine the right to a $15/hour minimum wage as well as the ability to increase the wage to keep up with rising inflation, and offer cities of 10,000+ residents to craft their own paid sick leave and minimum wage regulations.

Issue: Healthcare

• • Nebraska Initiative 437: Medical Cannabis Legalization and Nebraska Initiative 438: Medical Cannabis Regulation 
    • Legal Challenge: Former state senator John Kuehn continues his fight to overturn I-437 and I-438, arguing that because medical cannabis is still classified as a Schedule I drug at the federal level then the 2024 voter-approved Nebraska state laws are unconstitutional. Though a district court judge had recently dismissed his case on the grounds that Kuehn lacked standing, the Nebraska Supreme Court has since agreed to hear his appeal. 
    • Emergency Regulations: In the final days ahead of a July 1 deadline, the new voter-authorized Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission referred to Gov. Pillen a series of recommended emergency regulations for licensing dispensaries, cultivators, transporters, and more. The commissioners’ requests include:

• • • • No more than one dispensary per district court judicial district
      • No dispensaries within 1,000 feet of a school, hospital, daycare, or church
      • No edibles or raw plants
      • Child-resistant, resealable packaging
      • Fingerprint submission to the FBI and criminal background check by the Nebraska State Patrol

Issue: Reproductive Freedom

• • Missouri Amendment 3: Right to Reproductive Freedom 
    • Legal Victory: Following an order from the Missouri state supreme court, Jackson County Circuit Judge Jerri Zhang had vacated her previous rulings against several of the state’s T.R.A.P. laws. Having reconsidered the merits of the lawsuit originally filed by Planned Parenthood Great Plains and Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, Judge Zhang has reimposed her preliminary injunctions, allowing abortion providers to once again resume providing care. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has asked the state supreme court to intervene and allow the state to resume enforcing the targeted regulations of abortion providers.
      
  • Montana CI-128: Right to Abortion
    • Legal Victory: In a unanimous decision by the Montana Supreme Court, a lawsuit that sought to overturn CI-128 has been soundly dismissed. The court also chastised the anti-abortion plaintiffs for the timing of their lawsuit, saying “Any urgency of emergency that exists is entirely of the [Montana Life Defense Fund’s] own making, because it waited seven months to file this petition.”

In Case You Missed It

BISC’s Resource Library: Our Partner Portal Resource Library houses ballot measure information ranging from campaign tools, templates, and past campaign materials (Values, MOUS, RFPs, etc.) —  to campaign debriefs and memos highlighting best practices. This library is a unique resource that can help campaigns and organizations build strategies and operationalize racial equity. To request access to the library, please email [email protected]