UnderpantsWeevil, 1 month ago

I suspect the legislature would simply overturn the rule if it succeeded. Legislators throwing out or amending to irrelevance ballot initiatives has become increasingly common, with no apparent detriment to the legislators themselves.

In Michigan this past week, two Republican members of the bipartisan Board of State Canvassers blocked initiatives to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and expand opportunities for voting. Each measure had significantly more than the required 425,000 signatures. But GOP board members said the voting measure had unclear wording and the abortion measure was flawed because of spacing problems that scrunched some words together.

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The Arkansas Supreme Court, whose justices run in nonpartisan elections, is weighing an appeal of an August decision blocking an initiative that would legalize recreational marijuana for adults.

The State Board of Election Commissioners, which has just one Democrat among its many Republicans, determined that the ballot title was misleading because it failed to mention it would repeal potency limits in an existing medical marijuana provision. Because the deadline has passed to certify initiative titles, the Supreme Court has allowed the measure on the general election ballot while it decides whether the votes will be counted.

In some cases, legislators are simply changing the rules on ballot submissions to make it increasingly expensive/bureaucratic to achieve.

This coming November, Arizona and North Dakota voters will get a chance to make it harder for future ballot measures to pass. The measure proposed by Arizona lawmakers would require organizers for both initiatives and constitutional amendments to gather a minimum number of signatures in every legislative district. North Dakota’s effort would impose a single-subject requirement on initiatives, raise the number of signatures needed for constitutional amendments, and require proposed amendments to pass in both a primary and general election.

Missouri could soon join Arizona and North Dakota, as Republicans in the state push for higher thresholds for initiatives and constitutional amendments. Senate Democrats have so far filibustered the plan, which would require proposals to pass both statewide and in at least five of the state’s eight congressional districts. But Republicans could again pick up their push for the changes when they return to Jefferson City following a celebration of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory and a statewide Republican meeting.

Consider the Texas model, where you need a 2/3rds majority in both houses to even list a ballot measure.