States approved 36 laws affecting ballot measure processes in 2024

By

Jackie Mitchell

Welcome to the Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, Brew. 

By: Lara Bonatesta

Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:

  1. States approved 36 laws affecting ballot measure processes in 2024
  2. The latest updates election administration state legislative activity
  3. In our new episode of On The Ballot we take a look at the Congressional Review Act

States approved 36 laws affecting ballot measure processes in 2024

During the 2024 legislative sessions, lawmakers proposed 334 bills related to direct democracy processes, including ballot initiatives, referendums, and recalls. In total, lawmakers passed 40 bills and resolutions, surpassing the annual average of 34 enacted bills between 2018 and 2023. 

Thirty-six bills from the 2024 sessions have or will take effect in 2025. In 2023, 45 bills were enacted into law. Legislatures approved 46, but one was vetoed in Louisiana.

Of the 40 enacted:

  • Fourteen would make initiative processes more difficult for those attempting to place an initiative or referendum on the ballot. 
  • Five would make the process less difficult. 
  • Twenty-one would not necessarily make the process easier or harder.

From 2018 to 2024, state legislatures introduced 2,147 bills related to direct democracy, with an annual average of 307 bills proposed across all 50 states. States enacted an average of about 43 proposals each year. 

Ballotpedia categorizes direct democracy-related bills based on their potential effect on a state’s initiative process. For example, if a bill would shorten signature collection times or increase the number of signatures required to put an initiative on the ballot, we would consider that making the process more difficult. If a bill would do the opposite, we could consider that making the process easier.

Bills that would make the process harder

Eight states enacted bills making the processes harder: California, Idaho, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and Washington. Click here to find descriptions of each bill.

Four of the 14 proposed bills making the process harder did not take effect. Voters rejected two constitutional amendments, and a court ruling invalidated the other two. 

Since 2018, the years with the most enacted legislation making direct democracy processes harder were 2021 and 2024, with 14 such bills passed each year. These bills represented 38.9% of all legislation enacted in 2021 and 35% of that enacted in 2024.

Bills that would make the process easier

Four states enacted bills making the processes easier: South Dakota, Kentucky, Nebraska, and Utah. Click here to find descriptions of each bill.

One of these bills, Utah Senate Bill 4003, did not take effect because it depended on the passage of a proposed constitutional amendment that was ruled unconstitutional. The bill would have increased the time to gather signatures for veto referendums from 40 to 60 days.

2024 saw the highest number of enacted bills that would make the processes easier, with five such pieces of legislation. In comparison, four bills in the category were enacted in 2023, and the average from 2018 to 2023 was two.

State with the most proposed changes

Utah enacted the most changes to its ballot measure process last year, approving seven bills. 

Bills that were enacted into law include:

  • One that allows new school districts to be created through the initiative process
  • One that provides for veto referendum powers against local government bond issues
  • A third that creates a process for disabled individuals to sign initiative petitions with an alternative signature verification process

Court Rulings Affecting Initiative Processes in 2024

In 2024, several court rulings addressed the initiative process in multiple states:

  1. Reynolds v. Thurston (Arkansas): The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that it could not review the sufficiency of initiative ballot titles before the Secretary of State issues a statement of sufficiency affirming that petitioners submitted enough valid signatures. This decision dismissed a lawsuit filed by two ballot question committees seeking preemptive approval of their initiatives’ ballot titles. The court also declined to overturn a state law requiring signature distribution across 50 counties rather than 15.
  2. Advance Colorado v. Griswold (Colorado): The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld the constitutionality of Colorado House Bill 1321 (2021), which requires ballot titles for tax-related initiatives to include a list of potentially affected public programs. The court determined that this requirement constitutes government speech and does not violate the First Amendment.
  3. Mothering Justice v. Michigan: The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the Legislature’s practice of adopting citizen-initiated statutes and amending them within the same legislative session violates the state constitution. The decision restored the original text of two 2018 initiatives on minimum wage and paid sick leave, with implementation scheduled for February 2025.
  4. Montana Rulings:
  5. In Mae Nan Ellingson v. Montana, the Montana First Judicial District Court ruled that a $3,700 filing fee for initiative petitions and restrictions on electronic signatures were unconstitutional.
  6. In Montanans Securing Reproductive Freedom v. Montana, the court ruled that signatures from inactive voters must be counted, allowing petitions from three initiatives targeting the 2024 ballot to proceed.
  7. State ex rel. Dudley v. Yost (Ohio): The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the attorney general’s role in reviewing proposed constitutional amendments is limited to summaries and does not extend to initiative titles.
  8. Defend Washington v. Hobbs (Washington): The Washington Supreme Court determined that state law requires only signature validation against voter rolls, not addresses.

Proposed changes requiring voter approval

Lawmakers in Arizona, Colorado, and North Dakota put constitutional amendments on the 2024 ballot that would have changed that ballot measure process. Voters rejected all four.

  1. In Arizona, voters defeated Proposition 134 58% to 42%. It would have created a signature distribution requirement for citizen initiatives based on state legislative districts.
  2. Arizona voters also defeated Proposition 136 61.9% to 38.1%. It would have allowed anyone to challenge a ballot initiative’s constitutionality within at least 100 days of the election date, rather than typically after the election.
  3. In Colorado, voters defeated Colorado Senate Concurrent Resolution 2 55.2% to 44.9%. It would have changed deadlines for filing initiative and referendum petitions and removed one week from the total circulation time. According to Colorado Public Radio, sponsors said the changes would give county clerks more time to prepare ballots.
  4. In North Dakota, voters defeated Constitutional Measure 2 56.4% to 43.6%. It would have established a single-subject rule for initiatives, increased the signature requirement for constitutional initiatives, and required constitutional initiatives to be approved at two consecutive elections.

From 2018 to 2023, there were 21 ballot measures related to citizen initiatives or other ballot measure processes. Voters approved 11 and rejected 10. Legislatures put 17 of those measures on the ballot, and the other four were citizen initiatives. 

You can learn more about our ballot measure legislation coverage here:

Keep reading

The latest updates on election administration state legislative activity

Legislative sessions are underway across the country. Let’s take a look at where lawmakers are considering changes to election administration. A version of this story appeared in our Jan. 17 Ballot Bulletin, our weekly email that delivers the latest updates on election policy. Click here to sign up.

We are following 668 election-related bills this year, including bills carried over from the previous year. At this point in 2023, we were following 757 bills. 

Lawmakers in 22 states acted on 198 bills last week, 120 more than the previous week.  

  • On Jan. 14, the Wisconsin Legislature voted to put a constitutional amendment to require photo identification to vote on the April 1 ballot.  Click here to see our coverage of the amendment from Friday’s Brew. 

No bills were enacted this week. There was one bill enacted during the same week in 2024, none in 2023, and two in 2022.

No bills passed both chambers of any legislature, and governors vetoed no bills. To see all bills awaiting gubernatorial action and their full summaries, click here. To see all vetoed bills, click here.

Click here to see the 2025 bills we’re tracking, and click here to see a list of 2025 state legislative session dates. 

(Note: Legislators file, in some cases, hundreds of bills per day. We are actively reviewing those bills to determine their relevance to election administration. As a result, during this period of heightened legislative activity, year-to-year comparisons may not yet account for all relevant bills introduced in 2025.)

Keep reading 

In our new episode of On The Ballot, we take a look at the Congressional Review Act

In our new episode of On The Ballot, host Geoff Pallay and Ballotpedia Policy Staff Writer Annelise Reinwald will discuss the Congressional Review Act and the role it might play over the next few months. 

During his first term, President Donald Trump (R) signed more Congressional Review Act resolutions than any other president. 

The act, which President Bill Clinton (D) signed into law in 1996, allows Congress to review and reject federal agency rules they believe have gone too far or otherwise aren’t achieving the desired effect.

Under the act, Congress has a window of time to review any new rule, and both chambers have the chance to pass a ‘joint resolution of disapproval.’ The president can then sign or veto the resolution. If it is signed, the rule is overturned, and the agency that created it can’t issue a similar one in the future.

The CRA has been used to repeal 20 rules in its nearly 30-year history, mostly during the last few years and most heavily by Trump during his first term. 

Of these 20 enacted CRA resolutions, presidents signed 18 within the first year of a new administration. The CRA is most frequently used when a new president takes office, with most disapprovals targeting rules from the outgoing administration. CRA resolutions are also passed— and typically vetoed— when Congress and the President have conflicting policy agendas.

Here’s a breakdown of the resolutions of disapproval enacted during each presidential administration:

  • President George Bush (R) signed the first CRA resolution in 2001 to repeal a Clinton administration rule.
  • The CRA wasn’t used again until Trump took office in 2017. Trump signed 16 resolutions during his first term.
  • President Joe Biden (D) signed three resolutions during his administration. 

Presidents have vetoed 17 CRA resolutions in total. President Barack Obama (D) vetoed five, Trump vetoed one, and Biden vetoed 11.

To learn more about Trump’s use of the Congressional Review Act during his first term and to keep up with any future uses during his second, click here. 

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Editor’s note: this post has been updated for grammatical clarity