Last month, Nevada organizers celebrated a flood of voter signatures in support of putting a measure guaranteeing abortion rights on the November ballot.
But their work is not done, not even close.
Nevada is among a dozen states where abortion activists are working to put reproductive rights protections in the hands of voters, as California did two years ago. But unlike liberal California, organizers in some of those states must navigate a patchwork of onerous bureaucratic hurdles and overcome hostile political opposition.
Ballot measures in neighboring Nevada that seek to amend the state constitution must be approved by voters in two consecutive general elections.
“We will have to go through the process again,” Tova Yampolsky, campaign director for Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom, said in May at a coffee shop just minutes from casinos along the Strip as election officials officially counted signatures. throughout the state.
For organizers like Yampolsky, that means at least two more years of uncertainty in an already uncertain political landscape after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down abortion rights nationwide in 2022. While former President Trump, the presumptive nominee Republican for 2024, has so far stopped dead. From calling for a national ban on abortion, he has supported limiting access and has taken credit for appointing the conservative justices who overturned Roe v. Wade.
Yampolksy's team will have to fight for attention in the perpetual swing state, but in some ways, getting voter approval is the easy part. Recent polls show strong support for abortion among Nevadans.
What is proving difficult is the road to the elections. The campaign has already avoided Republican-backed legal challenges over the ballot measure's language. Now, they wait to see if they gathered enough eligible signatures equal to 10% of the total votes cast in the most recent general election, more than California's 8% threshold. While California has no geographic requirement for signatures, in Nevada, support must be drawn equally from each of the state's four congressional districts.
“We're going to have to fight for every vote,” Yampolsky said. “We don't take anything for granted.”
Within weeks of the Supreme Court's decision that struck down federal abortion protections, the California Legislature was one of the first in the nation to pass a state-level ballot measure to guarantee the “fundamental right to choose to have an abortion.” Top Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, helped pump millions of dollars into the campaign, and nearly 67% of voters approved the measure in the November 2022 election.
Voters in a handful of states, including Ohio, Michigan and Vermont, approved similar protections. More initiatives are currently underway in states such as Arizona, Montana, Colorado, Arkansas and Florida.
“We are seeing the important role that direct democracy plays in ensuring that the will of the people is heard,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Election Initiative Strategy Center, which supports progressive causes. “Electoral measures are a key part of a thriving democracy. “It’s about giving people the ability to vote on issues that are incredibly popular and often transcend partisan lines.”
Some states have a more difficult path to abortion rights through direct democracy than others, and legislative attempts to make the ballot initiative process even more difficult have proliferated in recent years.
“Every legislative session we see new efforts to undermine the will of the people,” Fields Figueredo said.
California ballot measures require a simple majority of votes to win. In Florida, where abortion is banned after six weeks of pregnancy, initiatives require a supermajority of 60% of the vote to pass, and state Republicans recently attempted to raise that threshold even further to two-thirds of the vote, or about 66%.
Abortion is banned in Arizona after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and reproductive health advocates remain wary about future access after a state court recently attempted a near-total ban. Organizers say they have already obtained more than enough signatures to qualify for a ballot measure to guarantee abortion access in November.
To appear on the ballot in Arizona, initiatives must obtain signatures equal to at least 15% of the electorate, and the Legislature has proposed adding a new requirement for that threshold to be met in every congressional district, not just the entire state. Arizona Republicans also tried to pass a law that would have allowed the Legislature to control some decisions made through ballot initiatives, but ironically, that proposal had to go to voters and was rejected in 2022.
Republican lawmakers in Arkansas and Missouri, where abortion rights ballot measures are underway, have also tried to make it harder for residents to legislate at the ballot box.
The timing is no coincidence, said Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom For All, formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America.
“They don't have a majority and haven't had a majority in a long time on this issue,” Timmaraju said of anti-abortion lawmakers across the country. “They have orchestrated an entire mechanism to subvert and circumvent the will of the majority in this country.”
Anti-abortion activists have been working to thwart the initiatives, with some backing competing ballot measures, a move that abortion rights groups say is aimed at deterring and confusing voters.
Nevada Right to Life director Melissa Clement opposes the proposal in her state and accused Democrats of “making one of the most difficult and traumatic decisions a woman can make and using it as political fodder.”
While organizers see the proposed new rules as strategic obstacles that hinder the success of citizen-led initiatives, Republican supporters say changing state constitutions is a serious matter that requires more safeguards.
Some states do not allow any citizen-led initiatives, including Texas and West Virginia, where most abortions are banned.
As in California, abortion is legal in Nevada up to 24 weeks, and providers have reported seeing an influx of patients from other states. In 1990, Nevada voters approved a referendum protecting abortion rights after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of more abortion restrictions at the time.
Lindsey Harmon, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes Nevada, said that even before the Dobbs decision, Nevadans prioritized “individual freedoms.” While abortion is legal in her state, she fears the future depends on who is in office.
“There are still threats out there,” Harmon said. “Even when a measure is passed successfully, you have to go back and enforce it. We must get the Legislature to repeal old laws that are no longer constitutionally viable. Regulatory bodies need to be asked to come in and change the regulations to match what is now in the state constitution. So this is a never-ending battle.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
