When Direct Democracy Breaks Right

Looking only at the contents of the 2024 California state ballot measures prior to the election, one could be forgiven for taking heart. Of the ten referenda to make it on the ballot, seven were immediately recognizable as left-friendly measures (de jure marriage equality, repealing limits on local rent control, increasing the minimum wage, etc.), two did not wear a left or right orientation on their face (a tax on managed care services and a complicated restriction on health care provider spending), and only one was of a clearly retrograde bent (a harsh increase in penalties for drug and property crimes). This assessment of the individual measures is confirmed by the official recommendations of California progressive organizations like California Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Richmond Progressive Alliance, which endorsed seven of the ten measures and only opposed two.

The results, however, tell a bleaker story. The most decisive outcome for any of the measures was the draconian Proposition 36, which drastically expanded the punishments available for low-level theft and drug offenses, garnering 68 percent of the vote. The result was consistent with national-level trends: of this year’s five state ballot measures on criminal courts and punishment (in Arizona, California, and Colorado), all were designed to reduce the rights of criminal suspects, defendants, and convicts, and all won with at least 62 percent of the vote. “Tough on crime” promises are perennial winners with the American public, and putting them directly to the vote seems only to intensify those leanings.

Perhaps even more disturbing was California’s rejection of Proposition 6, which would have removed involuntary servitude as a constitutionally accepted criminal punishment. The measure lost by 3 percent. What is particularly striking about this failure is its contrast with successful similar initiatives in what are usually regarded as much more conservative states. Alabama and Tennessee, for example, both abolished unfree labor as a criminal punishment — a practice which opponents identify as a modern form of slavery — by popular referendum in 2022, carried by 76 percent and 79 percent of the vote, respectively.

That this practice’s abolition could fail in one of the most reliably Democratic states in the union and succeed overwhelmingly in bastions of Confederate nostalgia should make us question certain pro-initiative arguments. A common rhetorical line from left-wing supporters of ballot measures is that favorable outcomes on progressive measures even in solidly Republican states demonstrate a widespread preexisting sympathy for progressive policy among the public, which ballot initiatives can productively harness. If our causes can carry the day even in the rural Midwest and deep South, the implicit reasoning goes, that should prove they can win more or less anywhere.

This a fortiori style of argument suffers from only looking at surprising results in one direction. Left-wing policies can and do win on the ballot in highly conservative states, but California especially has repeatedly proven that right-wing policies can equally well win on the ballot in highly liberal states. The correct conclusion to draw from salutary “red state” referenda victories is not that such referenda are a wise strategy everywhere, but that there is less of a connection than one might expect between which party is more generally popular in a state and which policies the public in that state will vote for when posed directly. This is cause not for universal optimism about left-wing prospects on ballot initiatives but for pessimism about the predictive power of Republican or Democratic voting patterns.

Beyond hot-button social issues around crime and punishment, economic populism also suffered in the voting booth in California. All three of the identifiably economic populist ballot measures this election — an increase in the state minimum wage, a repeal of Costa-Hawkins limits on local rent control, and a lowered vote threshold for approval of local housing and infrastructure funds — lost out. (The issuance of state bonds for educational facilities and environmental causes, while commendable, reflects less a public appetite for state largesse than it does California’s dysfunctional legislative system, which requires public approval for any new debts incurred of more than $300,000.)

Again, the Golden State’s failure (with the third-highest cost-of-living index in the union) to pass an $18 minimum wage even as Missouri (with the sixth-lowest) raised its own this year to $15 provides a counterbalance to the “red state economic populism” pro-initiative talking point. Any hope kindled by wins like Missouri’s should be tempered by losses on the other side.

Failures That Set Us Back

When confronted with our own failures on ballot initiatives, we might be tempted to say, “No harm, no foul.” So what if good ballot initiatives sometimes fail?  We can always try again, and our own losses don’t make our opponents’ victories any more likely — right?

There are a couple of flaws in this line of thinking. First, certain success stories have led some left-wing strategists to propose making the scope of ballot initiatives itself an organizing issue. They propose that the Left prioritize fighting against limits, old or new, on ballot measures in general. Discouraging outcomes like California’s should raise concerns about such a strategic path.

More importantly, unsuccessful ballot measures can do active damage to their respective causes. Take another example from California. In 2018, a Service Employees International Union (SEIU)–backed measure was put to a vote that would have required dialysis clinics to refund patients and/or their payers for revenue above 115 percent of the costs of treatment. Without even regulating the industry directly, it would have incentivized more investment in actual patient care, a serious problem in an industry notorious for severe understaffing and underregulation. Unfortunately, the measure lost with just 40 percent of the vote. The campaign was vastly outspent by industry lobbyists who effectively smeared union support for the measure as money-grubbing indifference to the health of dialysis patients. A typical story of defeat so far.

The wider lesson for electoral strategy, however, comes from subsequent California ballot measures on the same issue. In 2020, the SEIU sponsored another, more directly regulatory measure addressing the same concerns as the 2018 proposal, and in 2022 yet another. With each loss, voters became more decisive in their rejection: from 60 percent in 2018 to 63 percent in 2020 to a staggering 68 percent in 2022. (The three attempted repeals in recent years of Costa-Hawkins have similarly lost with worse margins each time, though the decline was less drastic.) What initially looked like a potential winning issue for the Left in California (outrage at for-profit dialysis companies had enough mainstream appeal to receive a much-discussed episode of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver in 2017) quickly became a liability. Anti-reformers were now able to successfully paint the recurring initiatives to voters as the entitled solicitations of a greedy union lobby that would not take no for an answer.

Ballot initiatives can backfire in more direct ways, too. Another ballot measure last November in California was Proposition 34, which was narrowly tailored to limit the spending of the nonprofit AIDS Healthcare Foundation. This had a well-known political meaning within the context of the 2024 California election: the foundation was the primary sponsor of Proposition 33, which would have lifted statewide limits on local rent control, and Proposition 34 was designed to punish that initiative’s backers for their infraction against landed interests. Donations for the Yes campaign came overwhelmingly from the California Apartment Association, a powerful landlord lobbying body. The measure was accordingly opposed vehemently by left-wing organizations, like the state chapter of the DSA, as a direct attack on tenants’ rights organizing. Proposition 33 lost; Proposition 34 won.

In both cases just mentioned, of course, the moral blame falls squarely on the opponents of progressive reform. The goals were avaricious, and the tactics were dirty. The companies DaVita and Fresenius spent lavishly on a campaign that threatened dialysis clinic closures were they forced to hire more staff, holding their patients hostage while perversely accusing organized labor of the same.

The propertied backers of Proposition 34, similarly, are the ones principally at fault for the dubiously constitutional sanctions to have fallen on the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. But this only goes to my point: when they face attacks on the ballot, elites will not play back nice. Doubly so when you are going after them where it hurts. Any ballot initiative campaign targeting well-placed moneyed interests needs to be prepared to handle this backlash, because failing to counter it can leave its organizing in a worse position than when it started.

Choose Your Battles

What are the practical implications of these considerations? I would suggest two broad takeaways:

1. First, be wary of placing progressive reforms on the ballot where you are unsure of popular support. This means going out of the way to assess public opinion, clearheadedly and without presumptuous optimism. It also means being honest with ourselves about an often hostile political climate, especially on sensitive topics like crime.
2. Second, be prepared to mobilize against reactionary countercampaigns. The Left, naturally, is frequently at a financial disadvantage to our opponents, especially on economic causes. This David and Goliath imbalance is only exacerbated when the political resistance includes significant apathy (or pushback) from within the local Democratic Party; the other side to ballot initiatives cutting past ordinary two-party politics is confronting our current political marginalization. We should not ride into such an uneven playing field without confidence in our ability to out-campaign the opposition.

The upshot is: only play when you have real reason to think you can win. Following this cardinal rule will sometimes mean leaving battles for noble causes unfought, which is no doubt a painful proposition. But it is a poor service to the broader left project to rush in where angels fear to tread.

None of this is to suggest that ballot initiatives do not have a place in progressive organizing in the United States. Their proponents are right to point to surprising and even inspiring recent successes and to hail their ability to transcend major party politics. But they are a tool to be wielded with care and discretion. Some important progressive causes, like defendants’ and convicts’ rights, are consistent losers in these sorts of direct democratic contests. Some economic populist agenda items, like minimum-wage hikes and health care reforms, often have potential when put to a direct vote — but still, their proponents cannot take a “silent majority” for granted without working hard to gauge and shape public opinion.

Blanket support for ballot measure campaigns as a strategy, heedless of the circumstances, is unwise. In the end, referenda can do as much harm as they can good.