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ballot initiatives
'Promising Milestone': Missouri Campaign Submits Signatures to Protect Voter-Approved Laws
"What voters are saying now is that democracy is sacred."
May 04, 2026
Organizers in Missouri on Sunday said they reached an important milestone in a campaign to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot this year that would stop Republican officials in the state from trying to sabotage ballot initiatives.
Respect Missouri Voters, a coalition aimed at protecting and strengthening the state's ballot initiative process, announced that it has delivered more than 367,000 signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State's office in favor of a constitutional amendment that enact two key policies to protect voter-passed laws.
First, as the Fairness Project summarized on Monday, it would "require that all future ballot measures in the state be summarized for voters in fair, clear, and easily understandable terms"; and second, it would demand "that any attempt by the Legislature to refer a voter-approved measure back to the ballot clear an 80% threshold in each chamber, a high bar designed to prevent politicians from undoing what voters have already decided."
The first part of the amendment is aimed at addressing problems created by Republican Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, who has repeatedly been taken to court for writing ballot initiative summaries that advocates say are misleading or provide incomplete information about what the initiatives would do.
As the Missouri Independent reported in February, a total of five summaries written by Hoskins have been thrown out by courts since October, as "judges at every level of Missouri’s court system have stepped in to block or rewrite ballot language" drafted by the secretary of state.
The second part of the amendment, meanwhile, was written in response to Republican legislators' efforts to overturn ballot initiatives passed in 2024 that legalized abortion in Missouri and established mandatory paid sick leave.
Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, a key backer of Respect Missouri Voters, said the gathering of more than 367,000 signatures is "a promising milestone for Missouri voters and for direct democracy."
"Perhaps more than in any other state, voters in Missouri understand what is at stake,” Hall added. "It’s in Missouri that extremist politicians have worked overtime to undermine the will of their voters, whether it’s been fighting to reinstate a wildly unpopular ban on access to abortion care, gerrymandering congressional districts, or undermining the ballot measure process. What voters are saying now is that democracy is sacred."
However, it's not just Missouri where direct democracy is under attack. The Fairness Project reported last September that “extremist” legislators across the United States “escalated their efforts to dismantle the ballot measure process in 2025 by 95%.”
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No Ballot Measures Qualified in Florida This Year; That Was Not an Accident
If and when other states replicate Florida’s hardball tactics against ballot measures, it would represent the greatest threat to direct democracy in years.
Mar 10, 2026
In February, the Florida Department of State determined that no citizen-initiated measures qualified for the Florida 2026 general election ballot. This was not an accident. This outcome is the culmination of a multi-year, multi-pronged attack on the ballot measure process in Florida, with the most draconian blow coming last May.
On May 2, 2025, the Florida legislature passed House Bill 1205, a law that restricts, criminalizes, and penalizes ballot initiative efforts in Florida. HB 1205 is a direct assault on Florida’s citizen-led constitutional amendment process—imposing vague, burdensome, and punitive restrictions that threaten to chill core political speech and discourage civic participation. Although there are several insidious provisions in this law—severe petition-related fines and penalties, restrictive circulation periods, and burdensome petition circulation training obligations, including for volunteers—one of the most damaging provisions only revealed its true nature weeks after the law went into effect.
Unique to the Florida ballot measure process, statewide initiative proponents are obligated to pay a verification fee for each petition they submit. Prior to HB 1205, the cost averaged about 87 cents per petition. On its face, this obligation was already unconstitutional. However, HB 1205 went even further, redefining the “actual cost” of signature verification and authorizing county supervisors to calculate the new per-petition cost, and begin collecting it from statewide ballot initiatives.
Starting on June 30, 2025, the county supervisors began posting their increased signature verification rates. Many newly posted fees are dramatically higher. For example, Lee County raised fees from $0.95 to $4.40 per petition, a 363% increase, while Gilchrist County raised fees from $0.10 to $2.77 per petition, a 2,670% increase. On average, Florida’s three largest counties increased fees to more than $3.77 per signature. As a result, it will now cost sponsors millions of dollars to verify enough petitions to qualify for the ballot. By comparison, no other state even comes close—the largest filing fee we are aware of is Montana’s fee of $3,700, which a court promptly struck down as unconstitutional under state law.
If the regressive policies of HB 1205 are left unchecked, other states will immediately adopt the same types of policies.
There is no question that Florida has been a breeding ground for bad legislation in recent years. Just to name a few—in 2005, Florida passed the first “stand your ground” law. Florida was one of the first states to ban “critical race theory” from its classrooms and was the first state to ban the AP African American studies course. Attacks on the ballot measure process have escalated in recent years, and there is no question that state legislatures look to one another for novel ideas to make the ballot measure process more restrictive. Once a restrictive policy is seen as permissible in one state, other states move quickly to adopt it for themselves. For instance, several states have tried to increase their ballot measure passage thresholds after Florida increased its threshold to 60%. Likewise, geographic circulation requirements, circulator registration and reporting obligations, and circulator payment restrictions have spread like wildfire across Republican-controlled states. Without a doubt, if the regressive policies of HB 1205 are left unchecked, other states will immediately adopt the same types of policies.
And yet, there is still hope. After HB 1205 passed last year, Florida Decides Healthcare, the Medicaid expansion initiative campaign, immediately filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing that HB 1205 is a direct assault on Florida’s citizen-led ballot measure process. That case went to trial on February 9, where the State attempted to defend its restrictions. If HB 1205 is allowed to stand, it will be prohibitively expensive for any initiative to get on the ballot in Florida. If and when other states replicate Florida’s hardball tactics against ballot measures, it would represent the greatest threat to direct democracy in years. Democracy advocates around the country should watch this trial closely, and we should all applaud Florida Decides Healthcare for standing up for their direct democracy rights.
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A Victorious Hamburg Climate Resolution Is a Model of Hope-Fueled People Power
While the current German government is rolling back or even boycotting climate action, Hamburg is showing the world that grassroots climate action is effective.
Nov 09, 2025
“This is a story of pure hope in times of climate roll-backs around the world.”
Young climate activists like Luisa Neubauer, cofounder of Fridays for Future in Hamburg, have good reason to celebrate: The city of Hamburg recently voted in favor of more ambitious climate action. Famously, Hamburg was where the Beatles took off. Now the city has another big project that could take off. Neubauer: “Germany’s second largest city has shown that citizens—after all—demand climate action and are willing to self-organize around a just transition.”
At a time when the climate crisis has seemingly been pushed aside by too many other crises, the decisive win of Hamburg’s “Zukunftsentscheid” (Decision about Our Future) at the ballot box on Sunday, October 12, was a win for a dramatically more ambitious climate action plan for the second-largest city in Germany. While the current German government is rolling back or even boycotting climate action, Hamburg is showing the world that grassroots climate action is effective. The new law will make climate policy more fair, more transparent, and more responsive to the needs of future generations. The result could be used as a blueprint by other cities in Germany and far beyond. American cities are perfectly positioned to adopt a similar plan. After all, Americans are actually much more familiar with ballot initiatives than Germans.
Hamburg’s over 1.9 million residents were asked to vote in favor of a binding referendum to require annual carbon dioxide reduction targets, with the goal of net-zero emissions moved up from 2045 to 2040, and requirements that all climate policies will have to be socially just. A majority of over 303,000 residents, or 53.2%, said yes; 43.6% of eligible voters participated in the decision.
While the federal government is indeed moving aggressively against climate action, ballot initiatives give power to the grassroots.
The revised bill, in typical German style comprehensively named “Klimaschutzverbesserungsgesetz” (climate protection improvement law) will require that the city administration must present an emissions estimate no later than six months after the end of every calendar year.
There is a lot in this new climate law that the wonky types among climate activists will love. On their website, proponents list the exact amount of tons of carbon (in thousands) the city will be permitted to emit each year until 2040. If the permissible total annual emissions for the previous calendar year have been exceeded, the government must take measures to offset the excess total annual emissions within five months. If the total emissions exceed or fall short of the permissible total annual emissions from the year in which the act comes into force, the difference shall be credited evenly to the remaining total annual emissions for the next five years until 2040 at the latest, thus greatly incentivizing ramped-up action and disincentivizing delay.
But the referendum’s emphasis on a just transition is also key: If climate action is to benefit everyone, not only those with large pockets who after all tend to also be the bigger emitters, measures taken to protect the climate must be designed in a socially acceptable way. The changes to the existing climate protection law will make climate protection more fair for all in Hamburg, impacting housing, energy, and transportation. Homeowners, for example, will be incentivized to retrofit their homes, but won’t be able to push the costs entirely onto their tenants. Public transit will be prioritized without penalizing those who commute by car.
By emphasizing transparency and predictability (“Planbarkeit”), the proponents also took the needs of companies into account that invest in climate protection initiatives. And because the referendum included legislation, the newly revised law will automatically go into effect within a month from this vote, i.e. on November 12, 2025.
Opponents were quick to complain that the new law would endanger jobs in the city. But over 100 businesses had written an open letter in support of the referendum, and the proponents include positive impacts on economic growth and job prospects for the city in their FAQ.
While the federal government is indeed moving aggressively against climate action, ballot initiatives give power to the grassroots. The climate movement in Hamburg had fought for two years to make this referendum happen. A group of volunteers from various backgrounds contributed to drafting and refining the text. Over 80 different organizations joined a broad alliance of supporters, including cultural and religious institutions, companies, and NGOs. Even the soccer club FC St. Pauli cosponsored the referendum. The chances were not high for it to win—typically, a referendum only wins once every 10 years.
Americans have lots of experience with the process of running ballot initiatives. Portland, Oregon, for example, ran a successful initiative that resulted in the establishment of the PCEF (Portland Clean Energy Fund), a smart move that has since brought hundreds of millions of dollars into the city’s coffers. Over 5,000 miles apart, Hamburg and Portland nevertheless have something in common: Hope-filled people power—sometimes a few frogs mix in…Keep ReadingShow Less
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