Opinion How liberals in red states are working around conservative politicians

“Perry Bacon Jr.October 10, 2024 at 3:40 p.m. EDT

People gather in the parking lot as voters arrive for early in-person voting in Cincinnati on Nov. 2. (Carolyn Kaster/AP) 

Next month, Kentucky and Nebraska might restrict school voucher programs. Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota could add the right to an abortion to their state constitutions. Alaska and Missouri might raise minimum wages to $15 an hour, while Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota could legalize recreational marijuana use.

Those are all red states dominated by Republican politicians. But all of the issues I listed above are being decided by voters via ballot initiatives, which are becoming a critical tool for liberals to advance their goals.

There will be about 150 measures across 41 states on ballots in November, according to Ballotpedia. That’s not an unusually high number. Some are pushing more conservative goals. What’s unique about 2024 is that 11 are about abortion, including those in blue and purple states. All but one of these provisions would either create or expand abortion rights.

This is a continuation of 2022 and 2023, where pro-abortion rights provisions were passed in four states, including conservative Ohio.

The liberal success on abortion is part of a broader strategy. States across the country are increasingly dominated by either one party or the other. Either liberals or conservatives are locked out of official policymaking in most states.

Following Perry Bacon Jr.

In these one-party states, the real political competition happens in primaries. In blue America, pro-business groups often back moderate candidates in Democratic primaries, limiting how far left those states go. But there are not many forces in state-level Republican politics pushing the party to the center. So in red states, most lawmakers are very conservative.

But a big bloc of Republican voters in red states support some liberal policies. Combine that with the Democrats in those states and you often have a majority. The tension between very right-wing legislatures and electorates that are Republican-leaning but not super-conservative has created an opening that liberals are exploiting with ballot initiatives.

Even before the recent abortion push, several red states in recent years had raised the minimum wage and expanded Medicaid through ballot measures. Progressive activists say initiatives to make housing more affordable will be one of their big priorities in future elections.

“Certain issues that become hyperpartisan and hyper-political through politicians, when you put them before the voters, are not as political or partisan. Minimum wage, Medicaid expansion, reproductive rights are all examples” of that, Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the left-leaning Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, told me.

Ballot initiatives are not a panacea for liberals. It is obviously better to have legislators and the governor from your party implementing policy year-round instead of being reliant on the public each November. Only 26 states allow citizens to get initiatives on the ballot. (In others, legislators generally have that power.) Even in states where citizens can advance measures, the process is complicated, often requiring tens of thousands of signatures.

Also, red state Republican officials are increasingly trying to thwart liberal efforts to sidestep them. Arkansas’s secretary of state, a Republican, found trumped-up reasons to disqualify an initiative to create a constitutional right to an abortion there. Republicans in Nebraska and Missouri might also get pro-abortion rights referendums removed from the ballot before voters can weigh in. Republican officials across the country are trying to make initiatives harder to pass, such as requiring 60 percent voter approval instead of a simple majority.

“Red states will continue to escalate” in terms of complicating the ballot process, Fields Figueredo said. “This is part of the larger challenge that we have in the United States around the rise of authoritarianism and minority rule.”

Also, conservative activists can use this process to block liberal goals and advance their own. This year, the biggest conservative cause is cracking down on noncitizen voting. That’s on the ballot in eight states. (A few cities around the country, including D.C. and Frederick, Md., allow people who aren’t citizens to vote in local elections.)

Very Republican-leaning Kentucky, where I live, is one of the 24 states that don’t allow citizens to put measures on the ballot. But to change the state’s constitution, legislators generally need voter approval. In 2022, a bipartisan coalition blocked a push by Kentucky Republican politicians to declare the state’s constitution clearly does not include the right to an abortion.

This year, that same coalition could stop an amendment that would authorize the use of public funds for private schools — a policy likely to result in substantial cuts to public school budgets.

Kentucky, Missouri and Nebraska aren’t going to have laws like Maryland and Oregon anytime soon. But ballot measures give liberals a chance to stop red states from becoming even more conservative and extreme. Thank goodness.“