In August, Kansas voters defied their Republican representatives by voting down an amendment to the state’s constitution that would have enabled the legislature to restrict or ban abortions. The victory for reproductive rights dramatically revealed a growing conflict between voters and legislators, normally obscured in a haze of hyper-partisanship and election handicapping. While media outlets obsess over the “culture war” politics that drive people to the polls, where they’re compelled to choose between mediocre candidates who do little to represent their priorities, voters have been using ballot initiatives to pass legislation their representatives won’t.

The vote in Kansas was dramatic because it came in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and because it seemed to defy the Republican politics of a reliably red state, but the outcome was pretty typical of ballot-initiative politics these days. As our representative system has become more oligarchical, ballot initiatives have become more important to passing majoritarian legislation. And the Left should take note, because a lot of majoritarian issues concern the preservation or expansion of rights and the provision of better wages and benefits to working-class people.