Ballot Initiative

A Review Of Key 2024 Ballot Measures

November 11, 2024 Emma Cohn and Jennifer Sherer, Economic Policy Institute. Educate! 2024 US Presidential elections, Ballot Initiative, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Education, Finance and the Economy, Health Care, Reproductive Rights, Worker Rights and Jobs

In this year’s election, voters given the opportunity to weigh in directly on questions of economic justice showed policy preferences far more progressive than those reflected in many national and state election outcomes. Across the country, voters seized opportunities to approve state or local ballot measures increasing the minimum wage, expanding paid leave, strengthening workers’ rights to unionize, preserving public education, and protecting access to abortion. These ballot measure outcomes reflect a clear ongoing trend of strong voter support for policies that prioritize worker, racial, and gender justice—and illustrate how state and local governments can continue to play important roles in enacting such policies.

Paid Sick Leave And Higher Minimum Wage On The Missouri Ballot

September 30, 2024 Kay Mills, Portside. Organize! Ballot Initiative, Minimum Wage, Missouri, Paid Sick Leave, Worker Rights and Jobs

“By challenging feelings of isolation and polarization, breaking down division, and creating long-term relationships, we can achieve our goal of building a democracy and economy that works for all of us.”

Ballot Initiatives Activate Voters, Change The Landscape

August 31, 2024 Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, Portside. Organize! Ballot Initiative, Direct Democracy, Legislatures, Voting

As we head into the Fall and the critical final stage of the 2024 election, a large contingent of voters are grappling with feelings of fear, uncertainty, and disillusionment. While the recent shift in the presidential race has helped galvanize a new generation of voters and evoke a sense of hope and excitement, it hasn’t quieted all of the anxieties that have built up over the last several years. We are mobilizing people to vote at a time when more than 80% of adults in the US don’t believe their elected officials care what they think and alarmingly, roughly one-third of Americans say an authoritarian leader or military regime would be a good way of governing.

Minneapolis: Petitions Turned In For Community Control Of Police

May 5, 2024 Loretta VanPelt, Fight Back! News. Organize! Accountability, Ballot Initiative, Community control of police, Minneapolis

Minneapolis, MN – On Wednesday May 1, Minneapolis 4 Community Control of the Police (M4CCP) held a press conference in the Public Safety Center, the temporary home to city hall offices, to turn in their petitions to put community control of the police on the November ballot. The petitions call for an amendment to the city charter, to establish an all-elected Civilian Police Accountability Commission (CPAC). The city charter determines the structure of city government and can only be amended by election, or a unanimous decision of the city council with mayoral approval. Citizens can get issues on the ballot by filing a petition signed by 8943 Minneapolis registered voters.

The Fight To Bring Chicago Home Isn’t Over

May 5, 2024 Kari Lydersen, In These Times. Strategize! Affordable Housing, Ballot Initiative, Chicago, Tax the rich

“Bring Chicago Home.” It was a rallying cry that grew in volume and urgency over more than six years and three mayoral administrations — a demand for a dedicated funding stream to house the city’s homeless residents, numbering over 68,000 according to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, including up to 20,000 students. The source of the funds would be an increased (but still modest) transfer tax on property sales over $1 million. The campaign started in 2017 during the tenure of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, dubbed “Mayor 1%” for his record of investing in wealthy neighborhoods and downtown at the expense of the city’s diverse working class population.

As Petition Deadline Looms, Stop Cop City Wins More Time And Volunteers

August 6, 2023 Katherine Demby, Prism. Resist! Ballot Initiative, Cop City, Legal System, Police

On Thursday, July 27, a federal judge ruled in favor of four DeKalb County residents who sued the city of Atlanta earlier this month, arguing that they should be allowed to collect petition signatures because they live so close to the proposed facility. Under current rules, all petition signers and signature witnesses must be registered to vote in the city of Atlanta. The preliminary injunction granted by U.S. District Court Judge Mark Howard Cohen not only bars the city of Atlanta from banning non-resident signature collectors but also extends the signature collection period, giving organizers until Sept. 25 to collect all signatures.

Labor Unionizing Is Now On Track To Be A Constitutional Right In Illinois

November 12, 2022 Jeff Schuhrke, Portside. Create! Ballot Initiative, Illinois, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Illinois - As companies like Starbucks and Amazon continue their efforts to stop employees from unionizing, voters in Illinois passed a historic measure to safeguard the right to organize in Tuesday’s midterm elections. The Workers’ Rights Amendment (WRA) would enshrine in the Illinois state constitution “the fundamental right [of workers] to organize and to bargain collectively … for the purpose of negotiating wages, hours, and working conditions, and to protect their economic welfare and safety at work.” The amendment also prohibits the state from passing any legislation in the future that interferes with, negates, or diminishes those rights — ensuring Illinois will never enact an anti-union “right-to-work” law like several of its neighboring states have done in recent years, including Wisconsin, Indiana and Kentucky.

Slavery Was On The Ballot In The US Midterms

November 10, 2022 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Create! Abolition of Slavery, Ballot Initiative, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Slavery

As children in the US learn in schools, slavery was abolished over 150 years ago during the nation’s Civil War in 1863. And yet, on the November 8 2022 midterm elections, five states, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, Louisiana, and Alabama, voted on ballot measures that would end slavery in those states. How is the US still be contending with slavery in 2022? The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery. However, it contained a powerful exception—slavery would be legal as punishment for a crime. As a result, hundreds of thousands of prison workers are held in involuntary servitude, often unpaid and always below minimum wage. Tennessee, Vermont, and Alabama voted yes on ballot measures that would end all exceptions to involuntary, forced, and unpaid labor within prisons within their respective state constitutions.

Colorado: Universal Free Meals To Students Is Close To Reality

November 9, 2022 Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, The Denver Post. Create! Ballot Initiative, Colorado, Education, Food and Agriculture, School meals

Colorado - Colorado voters are largely in favor of Proposition FF, which would provide the state’s students with free school meals — no matter their families’ incomes. With tax deduction limits in place, the price tag would fall on wealthy Coloradans. About 55% of voters backed the measure, with 1,011,114 votes, as of 9:07 a.m. on Wednesday, according to unofficial results on the Colorado Secretary of State Office’s website. That number includes all 64 counties, although post-election reporting is still in progress. The initiative would establish and fund the Healthy School Meals for All Program. It would boost taxes for households with incomes higher than $300,000 by curbing state income tax deductions. The move would impact about 114,000 joint and single-filer tax returns, or about 5% of those filed in Colorado.

Voters Could Help Stem The Homelessness Crisis In L.A.

October 19, 2022 Annie Howard , In These Times. Create! Ballot Initiative, Elections, Housing, Los Angeles, Wealth Tax

Los Angeles, California - After increasing nearly 25% between 2018 and 2020, the homeless population in the Los Angeles area has grown more slowly over the past two years. According to the latest count from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, L.A. County’s unhoused population grew from 66,436 in 2020 to 69,144 in 2022, an increase of 4.1%. While there are numerous reasons for this downtrend, government intervention has played an important role. Such measures as Project Roomkey, which used federal, state and local funds to keep more than 10,000 residents in hotels and motels during the Covid-19 pandemic, showed that even modest public programs can make a significant impact on the city’s housing crisis, even as the initiative’s remaining residents lost their housing at the end of September.

How This Rural Wisconsin County Put National Health Care On The Ballot

September 8, 2022 Kay Tillow, Common Dreams. Create! Ballot Initiative, Health Care, Single payer health care, Wisconsin

Dunn County, Wisconsin - Citizens of Dunn County, Wisconsin, have a plan to place national, publicly-funded health care for everyone on their November 8th county ballot. In June and July at meetings of the County Board of Supervisors, many spoke of a broken health care system and their proposal to fix it. After the third meeting, the Board voted unanimously to put the following question on the ballot: “Shall Congress and the President of the United States enact into law the creation of a publicly financed, non-profit, national health insurance program that would fully cover medical care costs for all Americans?” Located in central west Wisconsin and blessed with lakes and farmland, Dunn County is far from bustling cities.

‘Massachusetts Is Not For Sale’ Campaign

February 27, 2022 Massachusetts Is Not For Sale. Resist! Ballot Initiative, Big Tech, Massachusetts, Worker Rights and Jobs

Massachusetts - As the organized opposition to the “Big Tech loophole law” ballot initiative grows in Massachusetts, a number of key consumer, community, and civil rights groups have joined with workers’ rights advocates to announce their commitment of activating and growing the coalition opposing that initiative under a new name: Massachusetts is not for Sale. The new Massachusetts is not for Sale name also reflects the concerns shared by coalition members regarding the record-shattering infusions of cash that Big Tech employers are pumping into the coffers of the corporate-funded committee advocating for the passage of the Big Tech loophole law both at the State House and as a November 2022 ballot question.

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