A growing number of Republican-led states are moving forward with efforts to make it more difficult for citizen-led ballot initiatives to succeed.
The latest move has come in Missouri, where the GOP-controlled Legislature gave final approval Friday to a bill that would significantly raise the threshold to amend the state constitution through that process. The legislation, once signed by the governor, will still need to be approved by voters.
So far this year, lawmakers have advanced or enacted bills that would create more hurdles for the citizen-led ballot measure process in at least seven other states, according to an NBC News review, including Arkansas, Florida and Oklahoma.
And the Fairness Project, a nonprofit organization that helps progressive groups advance ballot measures, released an analysis this month finding that 148 bills had been introduced across 15 state legislatures this year that proposed weakening the process in some way — a nearly twofold increase since 2023.
The uptick comes as progressives have found success with ballot measure campaigns to expand or protect abortion rights in state constitutions following the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022. In 2024, those initiatives passed in seven of the 10 states where they were on the ballot, including Missouri.
“Of course one of the things that has been happening is all of these high-profile ballot measures to advance reproductive rights at the state level,” said Kelly Hall, the executive director of the Fairness Project. “It’s not the only reason that lawmakers are coming after direct democracy, but it is certainly one of the main factors.”
Under Missouri’s proposal, a citizen-led constitutional amendment ballot initiative would require majority support from voters statewide and in all eight congressional districts to pass. Currently, such ballot measures only need a statewide majority.
The bill does not apply to proposed constitutional amendments referred to ballot by the state Legislature. Missouri is one of several states where both processes exist.
“If we’re to change the constitution, there should be broad support,” Republican state Rep. Ed Lewis said during debate on the bill this week, adding that any such effort should require significant “support in each congressional district.”
Other Missouri Republicans, who also passed a new congressional map this week designed to give their party an extra seat in the U.S. House, seemed to acknowledge that there was a more partisan motive.
“The map and the initiative petition reform measures will strike a huge blow to progressives and their efforts to turn Missouri into California,” Senate Republican President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin wrote on Facebook last week.
Missouri’s GOP Gov. Mike Kehoe supports the bill to change the ballot measure process — he convened the special legislative session specifically for lawmakers to address that and the mid-decade redistricting effort — but because it involves changes to the state constitution, it must head to the ballot itself to be approved by voters.
Missouri is just the latest state where Republican lawmakers have attempted to make the citizen-led ballot initiative process more arduous.
In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation in May that installed a host of new requirements for the process. Under that law, voters now face felony charges if they collect more than a certain number of signed petitions or if they don’t register with the state as a petition collector. And those who sign the petitions will now have to include more personal information, including a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. The law also shortens deadlines for campaigns to submit their petitions.
Republicans in Arkansas enacted several new laws earlier this year implementing stringent new rules making it more difficult for citizens to place measures on the ballot. The new measures include requirements for those who sign petitions to show ID and for those who are circulating the petitions to read the title of the ballot issue to every prospective signer. The new laws also make it easier for state officials to throw out petitions they’ve deemed invalid. Similar laws were enacted by Republicans in Montana earlier this year.
In Utah, lawmakers have proposed increasing the threshold specifically for citizen-led ballot measures that create or increase taxes. Voters will decide on it in 2026.
And in Oklahoma, Republican lawmakers enacted a law that significantly changes the rules governing signature collection, limiting the number of petitions collectors can obtain from individual counties.
In North Dakota and South Dakota, Republican lawmakers approved several constitutional amendments, including proposals in each state that future amendments will require 60% support to pass — an increase from the simple majority currently required in both states. The proposal will go before voters in 2026. (Identical efforts failed in South Dakota and Arkansas in 2022, and in Ohio in 2023.)
In Missouri, critics of the latest effort argue that it’s just one of several that amount to a power grab by the Republican supermajority in the Legislature.
The key feature of that effort, they said, is the redrawn congressional map that will carve up the Kansas City seat currently held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, giving Republicans a strong opportunity to pick up an additional seat in the state.
Earlier this year, Missouri Republicans also enacted a measure to undo the paid sick leave law that went into effect after voters approved it with nearly 60% support last November.
And Republicans lawmakers placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would lead to a near-total abortion ban. It would effectively overturn the constitutional amendment that voters approved by ballot measure in November protecting abortion rights until fetal viability. Voters will decide on that measure next year.
“What’s distinct about what’s happening in Missouri is that these are all symptoms of this larger power grab,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, the executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which works with progressive organizations to help advance citizen-led ballot measures.
“We are seeing [lawmakers] undermining the will of the people and undoing what voters have approved and by making efforts to take the very tool that voters have away from them,” she added.
