Report Details a Doubling of GOP-Led Attacks on Democracy in 2025

As Missouri House Republicans on Tuesday advanced a congressional map rigged for the GOP and new limits for citizen initiative petitions, an advocacy group that promotes progressive policies via direct democracy revealed that "extremist" legislators across the United States "escalated their efforts to dismantle the ballot measure process in 2025 by 95%."

The Fairness Project has "won 39 ballot measures to raise wages, protect abortion rights, stop predatory payday lenders, expand healthcare access, secure more paid time off, and other life-changing policies for more than 23 million people." The group's new report, Direct Democracy Under Assault, details recent GOP moves to thwart such progress.

"During the 2023 legislative session, 76 bills were introduced that would restrict or undermine the ballot initiative process, which was until then the highest number on record," according to the report. "For further perspective, only 33 ballot measure attack bills were tracked in 2017, and a grand total of 377 bills attacking ballot measure processes were proposed by state legislatures in the 23-year span between 2000 and 2023. To see 148 in a single year, 2025, is an extreme acceleration."

"Lawmakers have not just been toying with the idea of undermining ballot measure processes; they've been passing these attacks into law," the publication emphasizes. "As of June 2025, 51 bills altering the ballot measure process had already passed state houses. For comparison, the annual average of enacted attacks on direct democracy between 2018 and 2023 was 34 enacted bills. Once again, 2025 is a troubling outlier."

"The erosion of our democracy isn't just happening in the Oval Office; it's happening in our home states when politicians attack the ballot measure process."

This year's GOP-led efforts to limit direct democracy at the state level come as Republican US President Donald Trump has returned to power and swiftly engaged in various attacks on democracy, from gutting the federal government—including the voting rights unit at the Department of Justice—to issuing a series of unconstitutional executive orders.

"While citizens are rightfully focused on the horror unfolding in Washington, extremist politicians are taking advantage of the moment and attacking the most powerful tools voters have at their disposal to make their voices heard," said Kelly Hall, the Fairness Project's executive director. "The erosion of our democracy isn't just happening in the Oval Office; it's happening in our home states when politicians attack the ballot measure process and replace the will of the voters with their own political agendas."

State legislators have pursued a range of attacks on the ballot measure process. The report notes that "one common tactic—used in states like Ohio, Missouri, Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas—is raising the threshold for passage to a supermajority, making it harder for citizen-led initiatives to succeed."

"Other strategies include increasing signature requirements, imposing strict rules on how and where signatures can be gathered, limiting what issues a ballot measure can address, and imposing high costs on advocates attempting to use their direct democracy rights," the document continues.

Hall stressed that "this isn't reform; it's a calculated effort to strip voters of their constitutional right to shape policy."

While the project tracked bills across 15 states, the report gives special attention to eight "where especially aggressive efforts threaten to significantly erode voters' access to direct democracy." They are Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah.

In Arkansas, for example, during the 2025 legislative session alone, state lawmakers imposed burdensome rules on local initiatives, "criminalized small mistakes," passed restrictions on ballot language, gave the attorney general veto power over petitions, and more. The report says that "taken together, these laws represent a coordinated and deeply undemocratic
effort to strip power from Arkansas voters and insulate elected officials from direct public accountability."

The League of Women Voters of Arkansas is fighting back, and in April filed a federal lawsuit against eight new laws that David Couch, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, said "weaponize bureaucracy to suppress citizen participation and violate the fundamental rights guaranteed by both the Arkansas and US Constitutions."

There's also litigation in Florida and Oklahoma, while in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah, voters will decide next year whether to raise the threshold for future constitutional amendments or citizen-initiated ballot measures from a simple majority to 60%.

"Every voter should be alarmed that politicians are systematically taking away our rights to make change through the ballot," said Hall. "This isn't a time to back down—in fact, these cowardly attacks only underscore the urgent need to defend ballot measures and, by extension, defend our democracy."