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Some are states where ballot measures got Medicaid expansion in their states. South Dakota is one of them—voters there just passed Medicaid expansion after fighting for years to get it done. Now organizers are looking to pivot to abortion rights for the 2024 ballot.
“We’re already in the streets collecting for 2024,” and an abortion rights initiative, Rick Weiland, co-founder of the group Dakotans for Health, says.
In Idaho, the defeated Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, Terri Pickens Manweiler, is translating her campaign for office into an abortion rights initiative with help from the National Organization for Women and Planned Parenthood Advocates of the West. The groundwork for a successful initiative process in Idaho was laid by the Medicaid expansion effort, which won big in 2018, showing other activist groups how to get it done.
“This election is not the last time you will see me—far from it,” Pickens Manweiler wrote in a statement after this election. “I have already begun working on to build an initiative campaign regarding abortion rights in Idaho. Women in Idaho will not stand silent as the state and a minority of extremists force us to carry unwanted pregnancies by outlawing abortion services. Stay tuned.”
Ohio activists are strategizing on an initiative, spurred on by a Republican sweep of the Ohio Supreme Court an end to any hope that the courts would protect abortion rights in the state. “It’s a when,” said Kellie Copeland, executive director of Pro-Choice Ohio. “It’s not an if.”
Kelly Hall, the executive director of the Fairness Project, is planning big. The national organization helps local groups with progressive ballot measures. Hall explains that citizens’ initiatives are “a much more distilled way of getting a sense of voters’ enthusiasm as opposed to candidates where the candidate is not just responsible for their views on abortion, but also the economy and immigration and social security and all sorts of other things.”
“When voters have a chance to decide on this issue, they choose to protect their rights. Everyone deserves access to reproductive care, and we’re looking forward to building off this momentum to pass ballot measures to protect abortion rights wherever we can.”
The Fairness Project is also looking to help in the South Dakota and Ohio efforts, as well as North Dakota, Arkansas, Arizona, and Missouri—states that have restrictions. “Ballot measures are at their most powerful when there’s a large disconnect between the beliefs of most voters and those of their politicians,” she said. “And that’s evident all across the country.”
That’s part of what happened in Kentucky, where ticket-splitting meant that, while voters might support Republican candidates, they were going to make sure as hell those Republicans didn’t take away their rights. So Sen. Rand Paul got 62% of the vote, and abortion rights got 52%. That demonstrates, D. Stephen Voss, associate professor of political science at the University of Kentucky, that “not a small number of genuine Republican voters are still pro-choice.” Voss said, “Mathematically, it’s clear that a lot of people who supported Republican politicians nonetheless cast a vote against the abortion limitations.”
Abortion protections can be won in red states, and need to be. While these ballot initiatives might not secure big Democratic wins there, they can sure as help turn purple states blue, or make blue states bluer. Witness Michigan, where Democrats secured a trifecta—House, Senate, governorship—for the first time in 40 years.
There’s little guarantee that the gridlocked Congress operating on the smallest margins possible is going to get anything done to protect abortion. The courts sure as hell aren’t going to do it, not consistently. So the people have to take it on, wherever they can, and the next election is always the time to do it.
We need to send Reverend Warnock back to DC, and keep our Senate majority. Help us write postcards to mobilize voters for the Georgia runoff election. You MUST order them by Tuesday.
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