Attacks + Threats

Ballot 2026: Direct Democracy Attacks

2024 saw a wave of progressive, community-driven measures, but the emerging 2026 landscape demonstrates how legislatively-referred measures are being weaponized to advance authoritarian agendas — including attacks on direct democracy.

Four states will decide legislatively-referred measures requiring supermajority thresholds:

  • Missouri:  Require citizen-initiated constitutional amendments to pass in each congressional district, rather than statewide.
  • North Dakota: 60% supermajority for constitutional amendments 
  • South Dakota: 60% supermajority for constitutional amendments 
  • Utah: 60% supermajority for citizen-led initiatives making tax-related changes

Missouri legislators are asking voters to repeal 2024’s successful reproductive rights amendment and to reinstate an abortion ban with very limited exceptions. The measure would also permanently enshrine an existing ban on gender-affirming care for minors — using trans youth as political pawns in their strategy to overturn the will of the people.

Another legislatively-referred measure in South Dakota is a backhanded attempt to overturn 2022’s voter-approved Medicaid Expansion by terminating its expanded eligibility requirements if the federal funding match falls below 90%.

Direct Democracy & Competitive Authoritarianism

BISC is tracking the rise of competitive authoritarianism across the country, where those in power don’t cancel democracy outright — instead, they manage it. Voters are still allowed to engage, but only up to the point where they don’t threaten entrenched power.

That framework is essential for understanding why extremist lawmakers are attempting to hollow out the People’s Tool by manipulating rules and weaponizing procedures. Ballot measures are about the people having the power to create meaningful change, and this coordinated assault on citizen-led ballot initiatives is a visible symptom of growing authoritarianism. In fact, BISC’s November 2025 research revealed that efforts to restrict ballot initiatives are widely interpreted by voters as a symptom of rising authoritarianism. Defending direct democracy is not just about preserving the ballot initiative process, it’s about resisting a future where American democracy is replaced by authoritarianism.

Threats to 2024 Ballot Initiative Victories

In the wake of significant ballot measure victories reflecting the power of the people, opponents of specific initiatives and direct democracy at large are exploring paths to challenge the successful measures. When elected officials override or obstruct initiatives passed by their constituents, it allows them to advance increasingly draconian or unpopular policies under the guise of legislative authority, often through legislative-referred measures that face less public scrutiny. Worse still, it empowers a political minority — frequently out of step with prevailing public opinion — to impose its will on the majority.

Economic Justice

  • Missouri Proposition A: Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave
    • Missouri will gradually increase the state’s minimum wage by $1.25 per hour each year until 2026, when the minimum wage would be $15.00 per hour and adjust thereafter based on changes in the Consumer Price Index each January beginning in 2027. Workers will also earn one hour of paid sick leave for every thirty hours worked. 
    • Partial Repeal: House Bill 567 largely overturned the votes of the 1.6 million Missourians who supported Prop. A’s schedule of ongoing, inflation-informed minimum wage increases, and effectively stripped 700,000 workers of the guaranteed right to earn paid sick leave. The day following the bill’s passage, hundreds gathered on the steps of the Missouri state capitol to protest. A leader of United Auto Workers Local 2250 told the crowd “your legislature has gone rogue” and referred to the “unmitigated gall” of lawmakers who insisted voters didn’t understand what they approved at the ballot box.
  • Nebraska Initiative 436: Paid Sick Leave
    • Nebraskans overwhelmingly voted to stand with workers by passing paid sick leave in the state. An estimated 250,000 Nebraskans who currently lack paid sick days can now earn one hour of leave for every thirty hours they work — and be protected from retaliation for using it.
    • Partial Repeal: Nebraska’s unicameral assembly passed LB 415, a bill designed to gut 2024’s overwhelmingly popular paid sick leave initiative. The legislation not only strips seasonal agricultural and temporary workers of the guaranteed right to earn paid sick leave, it also strikes down the ability for workers to sue employers who retaliate against them for legally using their earned sick leave. Paid Sick Leave for Nebraskans has said LB 415 will remove paid sick leave protections for 140,000 Nebraskan workers and their families.

Reproductive Freedom

  • Missouri Amendment 3: Right to Reproductive Freedom
    • Prohibits the government from denying or interfering with a person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom (including abortion, childbirth, IVF, contraception, and more) up until the point of fetal viability. Thereafter, an abortion is permitted if advised by a healthcare professional to protect the life or physical/mental health of the patient.
    • Legislative Threat: With the eleventh-hour passage of House Joint Resolution 73, the Missouri legislature has sent a near-total abortion ban and anti-trans attack to the ballot for voter approval. The proposal aims to repeal the citizen-led reproductive freedom initiative that more than 1.5 million Missourians passed last year. The legislatively-referred constitutional amendment would once again ban abortion in the state with very limited exceptions and bar trans youth from receiving gender-affirming care. The proposed amendment will appear on the November 2026 General Election ballot.

State of Legislative Attacks on the Ballot Measure Process

In 2025, lawmakers introduced or passed more than 150 bills that restrict the ballot measure process by tightening signature requirements, shortening campaign timelines, imposing confusing legal standards, and more.

Examples of 2025 Legislative Attacks on Direct Democracy:

  • Arkansas
    • [PASSED] House Bill 1222 prohibits the standard practice of submitting multiple versions of an initiative to the state attorney general simultaneously in order to ensure that at least one will pass muster. Campaigns must now wait until Version A is rejected before submitting Version B. Additionally, the state attorney general will be tasked with reviewing initiative language for conflicts with the U.S. constitution or federal statutes, likely related to a trend of bills arguing that the U.S. constitution prohibits abortion.
    • [BLOCKED IN COURT – STATE APPEALING] House Bill 1713 relies on a controversial tool to determine if a measure is written at or below an 8th grade reading level.
      • According to an attorney and drafter of the Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment, “If I say right instead of fundamental right, there’s a lot less syllables there and that drops my readability score, but I’m not being as transparent and open and honest with the public about what we’re actually doing,” Standerfer said.
    • [BLOCKED IN COURT – STATE APPEALING] Senate Bill 207 requires canvassers to inform signers that petition fraud is a Class A misdemeanor. If the canvasser fails to do so, they can be charged with a Class A misdemeanor themself.  
    • [BLOCKED IN COURT – STATE APPEALING] Senate Bill 210 requires that petition signers read the complete ballot language in the presence of a canvasser or have it read to them. If they don’t — perhaps because they’ve already done their research on the issue — that canvasser could be charged with a misdemeanor.
  • Florida
    • [PASSED] HB 1205 severely hinders the state’s ballot initiative process by drastically reducing the signature submission timeline, increasing filing fees (including requiring campaigns pay a $1 million bond), permitting criminal investigations into volunteer canvassers, and creating a complicated signature verification process for petitions which would burden election offices.
  • Missouri
    • [PASSED] Introduced during a September special session, HJR 3 was the most extreme of four proposals to raise the vote threshold for citizen-led ballot initiatives. The legislation asks voters to require initiative petitions to pass in each of the state’s eight congressional districts in order to be successful — making it all but impossible for citizen-led efforts to win. In theory under HJR 3, an initiative could receive as much as 95% approval statewide but still fail by losing in a single district.
      • And the bill doesn’t stop there. Among other new requirements are enhanced Florida HB 1205-style criminal charges for petition signature fraud, which would be prosecuted under the exclusive jurisdiction of the state attorney general.
  • Montana
    • [PASSED] House Bill 201 requires that paid signature collectors wear a badge stating that they are paid and disclosing the state where they live.
  • Oklahoma
    • [PASSED] Senate Bill 1027 limits the number of signatures that can be collected in each county to just 11.5% of votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election for a statutory change and 20.8% for a constitutional change. This harmful measure would not only dilute voting power from those who live in more urban areas like Tulsa and Oklahoma City, but would negatively affect those in rural areas as well. For example, only a few dozen voters could have their petition signatures be counted in the state’s smallest county.
  • South Dakota
    • [VETOED] House Bill 1169 would have required campaigns for citizen-initiated amendments to gather petition signatures from each state senate district.
  • Utah
    • [PASSED] Senate Bill 73 holds citizen-proposed state statutes to the same standard as legislatively-referred constitutional amendments by requiring campaigns to publish initiative text in at least one newspaper in every Utah county. At an estimated cost of $1.4 million, such a requirement would make it all but impossible for citizens and grassroots campaigns to lead a ballot initiative effort.

Why are these attacks happening?

The national fight over ballot measures began to pick up around a decade ago whena coordinated push happened across the country to use the ballot initiative process to expand Medicaid and enact other popular, progressive policiesthat fare well with voters across the political spectrum.We have seen another steep escalation in legislatively-referred attacks since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and voters in Red, Blue, and Purple states have been using the power of direct democracy to enshrine reproductive freedom into their state constitutions.

In 2015, BISC began implementing a proactive, long-term strategy co-created with state leaders and grassroots organizers to achieve progressive policy wins and build lasting, equitable power on the ground through ballot initiatives. We’ve been successful, so it’s no surprise that we’ve been seeing a steep rise in ballot measure process bills in state legislatures.