ICYMI: Ballot Initiative Strategy Center Executive Director Chris Melody Fields Figueredo’s Democracy Docket Op-Ed on the Importance of Ballot Measures

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WASHINGTON — Last week, Democracy Docket published an op-ed by Ballot Initiative Strategy Center Executive Director Chris Melody Fields Figueredo on the importance of ballot measures, the current attacks against the ballot initiative process, and what voters can do to ensure their power is protected. 

Read Chris’s op-ed HERE

  • “Ballot measures (also called ballot initiatives, amendments or referendums) are a way for citizens to express the will of the people by putting important issues directly to the public for a vote.


  • “These restrictive measures take a variety of forms, but they all have the same function: to undermine the will of the people and diminish their decision-making power.


  • “Legislators are eager to create supermajority requirements for policies that the people bring forward while keeping a simple majority for policies they want to pass.”


  •  “If this is happening in your state, this is an opportunity to come together with your neighbors, to take collective action and to let legislators know that these efforts are unacceptable.”


  • Our will, our power and our freedom are at stake; with restrictions on voting rights also on the rise, it is more important than ever to protect our freedom to shape the laws that govern us, especially through ballot initiatives.”


  • “Once this freedom is lost, there’s no going back. The time to act is now, before the opportunity is lost forever.

 

To speak with BISC Executive Director Chris Melody Fields Figueredo about preserving the people’s power, please contact Britton Lee at [email protected]