The Hot Sheet

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE BALLOT MEASURE LANDSCAPE RIGHT NOW

March 2026

On the Ballot

• Colorado #109: Trans Student Exclusion from School Sports (CI)
  • What’s Proposed: Would force all school sports programs to restrict student participation based on sex assigned at birth. It also prohibits organizations from filing complaints, opening investigations, or assigning consequences to schools who follow this rule.
    
• Colorado #110: Ban on Gender-Affirming Surgeries for Minors (CI)
  • What’s Proposed:Forbids healthcare providers from administering, and prescribing, gender-affirming care for minors. It also places new restrictions on insurance coverage, ensuring no state or federal funding can be applied.
    
• Colorado #108: “Children Are Not For Sale Act” (CI)
  • What’s Proposed: While this initiative appears on its surface to be strengthening existing human trafficking laws, its vague language could potentially be used to criminalize travel related to gender-affirming care for minors.
    
• Maine: “An Act to Designate School Sports Participation and Facilities by Sex” (CI)
  • What’s Proposed:Requires all schools to designate sports teams, bathrooms, and locker rooms by a person’s sex assigned at birth: male, female or co-ed. This has raised notable concerns among critics, as gender identity remains a category protected from discrimination under the Maine Human Rights Act.
    
• Missouri Amendment 3: Near-Total Abortion Ban & Prohibition on Gender-Affirming Care for Minors(LR)
  • What’s Proposed:Although presented as an abortion measure, this constitutional amendment contains language that would block gender-affirming care for minors.
    
• Washington IL26-638: Trans Student Exclusion from School Sports (CI)
  • What’s Proposed: Explicitly prohibits 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.
    

Potential Measures

• Arizona House Concurrent Resolution 2003: Trans Student Exclusion from Schools Sports and Facilities (LR)
  • What’s Proposed:Under this proposed amendment, trans students would be barred from joining sports teams that best align with their gender identity. Use of bathrooms and locker rooms would also be limited to sex assigned at birth.
    
• Arizona Senate Concurrent Resolution 1006: Ban on Trans Student Names and Pronouns in Schools (LR)
  • What’s Proposed:Amends the Arizona constitution to prohibit teachers, counselors, and other school staff from referring to trans students by their chosen name or pronouns without written permission from parents. Also bans trans students from using bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity.
    
• Nebraska: Anti-Trans Sports Ban Affecting K-12, Collegiate, Intramural Teams (CI)
  • What’s Proposed: Would amend the state constitution to designate K-12, collegiate, and intramural sports teams as being either male, female, or co-ed and restrict teams designated ‘female’ to only athletes assigned that sex at birth.
    
• Nevada C-07-2026: Anti-Trans Sports Ban (CI)
  • What’s Proposed: Bans trans athletes from competing in female sports altogether and is part of Gov. Lombardo’s broader reelection campaign rhetoric, which aims to drive his potential supporters to the polls at the expense of the well-being, safety and belonging of trans students across the state.

Ballot measures that target trans people including youth are an attack on fundamental freedoms and an attempt to write discrimination into law. Voters deserve policies that protect people’s dignity, not political tactics that single out vulnerable communities. These efforts are part of a broader strategy to hijack the people’s tool for political gain at the expense of the trans community’s well-being and belonging. Targeting groups through the ballot is not governance — it’s cruelty disguised as policy. We will continue to support our partners pushing back on these discriminatory attacks and building a world where all communities can flourish.

2026 Ballot Measure to Watch

Kansas: Establishing State Supreme Court Elections (LR)

What It Does: Amends the Kansas state constitution to provide for direct election of state supreme court justices. It would abolish the existing supreme court nominating commission tasked with vetting and recommending potential justices to the governor based on merit.

Why It Matters: Injecting partisan politics into the state’s highest court threatens the independence and impartiality of the Kansas Supreme Court — and Kansans’ ability to trust in it as a free and fair judicial system.

BISC ANALYSIS: The Politicization — and Polarization — of State Courts: Unfortunately Kansas isn’t alone in the trend to politicize state courts. Calls to instate supreme court races, or to make existing judicial races partisan, have intensified in recent years as judges have ruled out-of-step with elected officials’ desired outcomes. For example, it’s no secret that powerful lawmakers have been upset with the Kansas Supreme Court’s past decisions to uphold reproductive rights and education funding in the state. And therein lies the heart of the matter: our courts, especially our supreme courts, must be able to operate free from these kinds of political pressures and judges’ decisions must be shaped by law rather than partisan ideologies or popular trends. 

Proposals threatening an independent judiciary are part of a larger effort to consolidate partisan power and remove the critical system of checks and balances that we rely on to keep our democracy running. But advocates for free and fair courts are fighting back. The ACLU of Kansas, American Federation of Teachers-Kansas, Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, and others were outspoken opponents of the Kansas measure as it worked through the state legislature last year. And further north, Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts are currently collecting petition signatures for CI-132, an initiative to permanently safeguard the state’s nonpartisan judicial elections. 

It’s important to note that BISC has a vested interest in protecting free and fair courts as courts are increasingly being used to undermine the people’s right to direct democracy, especially through bad-faith legal interpretations. Authoritarians will not stop their efforts to consolidate power and we cannot stop fighting to defend the People’s Tool and the democratic systems that it relies upon — including an independent judiciary.

2026 Ballot Measure Landscape

As of March 19, BISC is tracking 78 measures qualified for 2026 ballots. BISC is tracking 17 initiative campaigns that have submitted petition signatures that are currently being verified by state officials.

2026 Outlook: Direct Democracy at a Crossroads

The 2025 landscape marked a turning point for direct democracy in the United States. Across the year, BISC’s analysis documented a clear shift: attacks on ballot initiatives are no longer isolated, reactive, or limited to election cycles. They are increasingly systematic, institutionalized, and forward-looking — designed not just to block individual measures, but to permanently constrain the People’s Tool itself. As we enter 2026, these patterns point to a more coordinated and consequential phase of democratic contestation.

The most consistent trend of 2025 was the migration of conflict after voter approval. Nebraska’s delayed and restricted medical cannabis rollout, Missouri’s continued legal resistance to voter-approved reproductive rights, and repeated post-election litigation across states show that implementation has become the preferred terrain for neutralizing voter power.

In 2026, implementation fights will continue to intensify. Likely tactics include emergency or interim rulemaking that narrows voter mandates, strategic appointments to implementing bodies, serial lawsuits designed to delay benefits beyond election cycles, and legislative efforts to condition, sunset, or retroactively weaken voter-approved laws. These moves preserve the appearance of democratic compliance while denying voters the substance of their decisions.

Courts emerged in 2025 as central arbiters of direct democracy — and increasingly as targets. Judges who enforced voter-approved reforms faced political backlash, threats of impeachment, and public intimidation. Attorneys general and secretaries of state relied more heavily on preemptive and serial litigation to control outcomes through process rather than persuasion. In 2026, courts will remain pivotal. We should expect more efforts to delegitimize judicial enforcement as “anti-democratic,” even as courts serve as one of the last institutional checks on post-election sabotage.

If 2025 was the year these trends became unmistakable, 2026 will be the year they either consolidate or are interrupted. Direct democracy is being targeted not because it fails, but because it works — particularly for communities shut out of legislative power. The outlook for 2026 is clear: defending direct democracy will require early intervention, attention to rule changes as much as policy outcomes, and sustained focus on implementation and enforcement. The stakes are not confined to a single election cycle. They extend to whether popular sovereignty remains a living principle — or becomes a procedural illusion.

Attacks on the Ballot Measure Process

In 2017, BISC monitored just 33 bills relating to the ballot measure process. Compare that to 2025 legislative sessions in which 295 bills were introduced in 43 states that would impact the ballot initiative process, at least 156 of which sought to restrict or undermine the process. 

What does an attack on direct democracy look like?

Some tactics used by lawmakers who are attempting to weaken the ballot initiative process include:

• Proposing legislation to make the ballot process harder to access
• Bringing forth legal challenges against initiatives that have been already been approved by voters
• Blocking the implementation of ballot measures that have already passed

Why are the attacks happening?

Efforts to undermine and weaken ballot measures have been increasing since the 2016 election in response to progressive wins and people-powered democracy at the ballot box. 

In many states, some politicians and wealthy special interests are trying to make it harder for voters to propose and pass ballot initiatives under the cover of so-called “reforms.” These attacks have escalated and have become more nuanced, sophisticated, and would have deeper impacts on the initiative process. These restrictive measures take a variety of forms, but they all serve the same function: to undermine the will of the people and diminish their decision-making power. BISC and our partners are fighting back against these attacks and spearheading the movement to #DefendDirectDemocracy. 

As we continue to face rising restrictions on voting rights, reproductive freedoms, and civil liberties, it is more important than ever to protect our freedom to shape the laws that govern us — especially through ballot initiatives. Together, we can fight against the anti-democracy initiatives that threaten our livelihoods and work to build a democracy rooted in equity and justice, where all people are treated with dignity and thrive.

For more information on our analysis or to schedule an interview with one of our policy experts, please email [email protected].