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Many states, especially in the West where they don't trust no gubmint, have a procedure in which ordinary citizens can propose an initiative to pass a law or amend the state's Constitution. If it gets enough signatures (typically 5-10% of the number of people who voted in the most recent gubernatorial election), it goes on the next general-election ballot. If it gets 50% +1 votes, it becomes law or the state's Constitution is amended. This provision for citizen initiatives was included in the more recent state Constitutions because the founders of the state were Populists (note capital letter, which means "member of the original Populist Movement") who didn't trust state officials or legislatures and wanted a way for the people to make an end run around them.
Now, officials in some red states are striking back. They don't like the idea of "the people" passing laws and amendments they don't like. They especially don't like "the people" deciding that abortion should be legal and protected, when the highly gerrymandered state legislature has gone to great lengths to make sure a minority of the state's residents can ban it. This is playing out in numerous states now.
When a group of voting-rights activists tried to get an initiative to expand voting rights on the November ballot, Ohio AG Dave Yost (R) took issue and objected to the title "Secure and Fair Elections" and ruled that the title was misleading so the initiative could not begin collecting signatures. Then the group changed the title to "The Ohio Voters Bill of Rights" and Yost killed it again. So the group went to court to argue that Yost doesn't have the authority to kill an initiative he doesn't like based on the title.
In Arkansas, AG Tim Griffin (R) rejected amendments to expand the use of medical marijuana and increase government transparency. The latter was focused on Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders' (R) habit of spending taxpayer money on things clearly not related to her job and then hiding the expenditures from the state's voters.
In Missouri, the AG held up an amendment guaranteeing abortion rights. In Montana another abortion amendment is being held up. Florida as well.
The same movie is showing in other states. It is always a citizens group that wants to expand voting rights, protect reproductive choice, hold government officials accountable, or something similar and it is always a Republican state attorney general that is ruling that the initiative has some technical defect that prevents it from being on the ballot. In some states, the state Constitution does grant the AG some power to vet initiatives, to prevent blatantly illegal or unconstitutional ones from being put to a vote (e.g., an amendment to make homosexuality a felony or exempt anyone with $10 million in a bank account from paying state income tax). Those provisions were written long ago on the assumption that the AGs would operate in good faith and not try to kill laws and amendments they simply disagreed with. Silly Populists.
National observers say the spate of rulings by Republican AGs is a concerted attempt to thwart direct democracy, something Republicans hate (the minority party, whichever one it is, tends to feel this way, since that party tends to lose when the majority rules). Chris Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, said: "It's all part of this larger puzzle of who gets a say and who gets to participate in our democracy, and where things are popular among constituents but that does not align with whoever is in political power in that state." State AGs usually don't have veto power over initiatives and citizens' groups can resubmit a corrected proposal, but AGs can delay the process past the point where the deadline to get the initiative on the ballot has passed. Then it has to start all over next time.
Almost every state has different rules about getting initiatives on the ballot. Illinois has almost no roadblocks; if an initiative gets the required number of petition signatures, it is on the ballot. In contrast, in Florida, the title and summary must be approved by the secretary of state, AG, and state Supreme Court, any one of which can throw sand in the gears. Consequently, some initiatives are trying to reduce the power of officials to block initiatives. As you can imagine, that does not go over well with the officials whose power the initiative seeks to reduce. Consequently, increasingly, the battles are being fought in court.
Elias Sharkey of the Elias Law Group, which often defends groups trying to get initiatives on the ballot, said: "There's a constant pushback from conservatives to try to stop these measures in their tracks because they know, especially with reproductive rights, if these measures get on the ballot, they're going to win." Figueredo said: "It's ultimately about minority rule." What she means is that conservatives know that if many controversial issues are put to a vote, they will lose, so the conservatives do everything they can to prevent the people from speaking. (V)