ballot measures
November 18, 2022 -
Voters across the South weighed in on dozens of high-profile ballot initiatives in this year's general election, directly shaping policy on matters including reproductive rights, prison labor, and ballot measures themselves. In another election to be held next month, Louisiana voters will consider three ballot measures, including one to bar noncitizens from voting in local elections.
September 15, 2022 -
This November voters in Kentucky will weigh in on a proposed constitutional amendment that would deny any state right to an abortion, similar to the one that recently failed in Kansas. We look at the players and money behind Kentucky's anti-abortion ballot measure and the effort to defeat it.
March 23, 2022 -
Arkansas and Florida are the only Southern states that still allow citizens to place questions on the ballot, but Republican lawmakers there want to erect new barriers to this form of direct democracy.
November 4, 2020 -
Though the South trended red in this year's general election, voters in Southern states approved progressive ballot measures that raise the minimum wage, reject Jim Crow-era election laws and flag symbolism, and relax drug laws. They also turned down measures that would have impeded this kind of direct democracy.
September 9, 2020 -
High courts in Arkansas and Florida have blocked ballot measures that would have required nonpartisan redistricting and banned assault weapons. The courts cited new laws that raise the bar for citizens to put constitutional amendments on the ballot.
March 1, 2019 -
A new coalition seeks to end Duke Energy's electric monopoly in North Carolina in hopes of hastening the shift to clean energy. There's also an effort underway to bring competition to the electricity market in Florida, where Duke operates as a regional monopoly.
November 13, 2018 -
They ended racist Jim Crow-era policies in two states and raised the minimum wage in another. But elsewhere, Southern voters embraced racially discriminatory voter ID laws and took steps to restrict reproductive rights. The ballot measures that passed this year reflect a politically divided region.
