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MAY 19, 2022
Meyerson on TAP
Putting Choice on the Ballot
In some key states, voters can use initiatives and referendums to secure
choice and boost Democrats in November.
In many states with clear pro-choice majorities, or at minimum clear
majorities opposed to the Court's revocation of
**Roe v. Wade**, voters have a way both to ensure their state remains
pro-choice and to elect more pro-choice Democrats in November: ballot
measures.
In some of those states, voters won't even have to collect the
signatures required to place such a measure on the ballot. In
California, for instance, both Gov. Gavin Newsom and leading legislators
have said they'll go the referendum route by having the heavily
Democratic legislature vote to place a state constitutional amendment
ensuring women's right to choose before voters in November.
(California has had a pro-choice statute since then-Gov. Ronald Reagan
signed it into law in 1967, but this measure would enshrine that right
in the state's constitution.) In other states, including such key
swing states as Arizona, Florida, Michigan, and Nevada, voters, through
gathering sufficient signatures, can have their state's ballots
include propositions that would create either a pro-choice law or a
pro-choice constitutional amendment. In Arizona, Florida, and Michigan,
where such changes have no chance being enacted by Republican
legislatures, the initiative process is the only way choice can win
legal standing (though Arizona Democrats have some hopes of winning
control of the legislature in November).
Such measures are also likely to help any number of Democratic
candidates in November as well. Once a measure on so fundamental an
issue qualifies for the ballot, there's really no way a candidate can
plausibly refuse to take a position. And in swing states and districts
with pro-choice majorities, that dynamic will surely boost the prospects
of Democratic candidates. By my estimate, there are quite a number of
districts now held by Republicans in California and Nevada, at minimum,
where Republican candidates would be put in a bind by such measures. At
the level of statewide offices, the same dynamic is likely to play out
in the swing states I listed above.
Only about half the states (26, according to the National Conference of
State Legislatures
)
have enacted laws creating the initiative or referendum process,
however. A number of states where such measures could help Democrats
statewide (for instance, Pennsylvania) or in district races (for
instance, New York) have no such options. But in states that do,
pro-choice and Democratic strategists tell me they're either looking
hard at what it would take to mount such campaigns or are already laying
the groundwork for them. In a year when both the pro-choice movement and
the Democratic Party need all the help they can get, the initiative and
referendum may be their best friends.
~ HAROLD MEYERSON
Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter
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Counterparts
The situation, which dates back 15 years, could be remedied by the Biden
administration, which has vowed to make the federal government a
'model employer.' BY DAVID DAYEN
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