Season 1, Episode 7

The war on the initiative

State legislatures across the country have taken notice of how ballot initiatives are creating political change. And now they're trying to make it more difficult for citizens to create and pass a ballot measure.

Many state leaders are fighting to restrict access to this tool of democracy—or get rid of ballot initiatives altogether. While challenges to voting rights in states across the country captured the news cycle throughout much of the last two years, those same forces also seek to make it more difficult to engage in direct democracy. 

With 12 states battling restrictive bills to limit citizen-led initiatives, the “democracy reform movement” is stepping up across the country to save them. If legislators are successful in making it harder for people to use ballot initiatives, will politics still be within reach of the everyday citizen? Follow along as these campaigns play out in Idaho and Missouri.

In This Episode

David Daley

David Daley, journalist and author of Unrigged: How Citizens are Battling Back to Save Democracy and Ratf*cked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy. He is a senior fellow at FairVote and a digital media fellow at the University of Georgia’s Wilson Center for the Humanities and the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia

Don Frankenfeld

Don Frankenfeld, Republican chair of South Dakota’s Initiated Measure 22 campaign in 2016 that aimed to revise state campaign finance and lobbying laws and creating a publicly funded campaign finance program and an ethics commission. The measure passed but was quickly overturned by the state legislature in early 2017.

Benjamin Singer

Benjamin Singer, CEO of Show Me Integrity. He has worked with Republican, Democratic, and independent reformers since 2012 on local, state, and federal advocacy campaigns to create a more effective, ethical government of, by, and for the people. He has worked on ethics, campaign finance, redistricting, and electoral reforms with leaders across the political spectrum.