In this reported series, Jenna Spinelle tells the stories of activists, legislators, academics, and average citizens who changed their cities, states, and the country by taking important issues directly to votes — like Medicaid expansion in Idaho, sentencing reform in California, and LGBTQ workplace protections in Ohio.

From The McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, When the People Decide explores the pros and cons of this largely overlooked tool of government and its impact in the last half century.

Learn more about the podcast at thepeopledecide.show and follow us on Twitter @PeopleDecidePod.

A campaign in Michigan to end partisan gerrymandering in 2018 is part of a legacy of ballot initiatives dating back to the 1800s. After becoming disillusioned with the results of the 2016 election, Katie Fahey took to Facebook to gauge the interest of grassroots mobilization amongst her colleagues, friends and family.

Now the executive director of a nonpartisan voter reform organization, Fahey shares how the ballot initiative excited everyday people about becoming active in politics, including its 10,000 volunteers, and how they were inspired to make political changes in their communities.

In this episode, host Jenna Spinelle explores the basics of the ballot initiative, the history of how it caught on in the United States, and the pros and cons that she will explore throughout the series.

Learn more about the podcast at thepeopledecide.show and follow us on Twitter @PeopleDecidePod.

Resources

Giving Voters a Voice: The Origins of the Initiative and Referendum in America by Steven Piott.

Katie Fahey's organization, The People

Katie Fahey on Twitter

From property taxes in the 1970s to immigration in the 1990s and the gig economy more recently, ballot initiative trends often begin in California. The state's Three Strikes law was no exception.

Enacted in California in 1994, with similar initiatives implemented in 22 other states that same year, Three Strikes was seen as necessary to ensure public safety and prevent violent crime. Since its inception, however, many criminal justice experts have debated whether the price tag of incarceration has been worth the taxpayer’s money—or if it’s preventing crime at all.

In the years since the Three Strikes propositions have entered their way into the criminal justice system, many reforms and repeals have been established to mitigate the unintended consequences that the initiative and its nuances have since revealed. Jenna talks to those impacted by the Three Strikes Law and the advocates who are fighting against it, and breaks down just how much work, and money, goes into fueling, and fighting, such a powerful ballot initiative.

Learn more about the podcast at thepeopledecide.show and follow us on Twitter @PeopleDecidePod.

Resources

Three Strikes Project at Stanford Law School

Repeal, Reinute, Reinvest California - Zakiya Prince's organization

State of Resistance by Manuel Pastor

Christian conservatives in Ohio used the ballot initiative in the 1990s to restrict protections for LGBTQ folks in the workplace. The community fought back—how else? With their own initiative. In 1992, when anti-gay legislation was sweeping the U.S., Citizens for Community Values, one of the most active Christian right organizations in Cincinnati, seized on the opportunity to propose their own discriminatory campaign, Equal Rights, Not Special Rights.

As pro-LGBTQ lawyers, activists and advocates rallied across the city to repeal the initiative, they soon realized that they not only had to be well-versed in grassroots mobilization, they needed to nail the timing to be successful—and as always, having powerful allies always helps. In this episode, Jenna Spinelle examines how this anti-LGBTQ ballot initiative gained momentum in the 1990’s, and analyzes the societal cues and shifting status quo that eventually made a repeal against the discrimination ban possible.

Note: Roger Asterino, who you'll meet in this episode, responded to our request for an interview after production on this episode was finished. Jenna had an amazing conversation with him that we'll release as a bonus episode at the end of the season.

Learn more about the podcast at thepeopledecide.show and follow us on Twitter @PeopleDecidePod.

Resources

Kimberly Dugan's book: The Struggle Over Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Rights. Facing Off in Cincinnati.

National LGBTQ Task Force

Cincinnati Pride History

The Buckeye Flame - Ohio's LGBTQ news source

In the early 1900s, birth records of children given up for adoption were sealed and confidential, an effort to shield mothers and children from the societal shame of being born out of wedlock. Fast forward to the advent of the Internet, and adopted adults used the power of the web to form online networks connecting the community, and as helpful as these support groups were, adoptees still lacked the legal protections to access their birth records.

Groups like Bastard Nation helped its members navigate access to birth records, as well as fight the stigma of adoption altogether. It was out of this radical group that the very intimate issue of adoption made its way to the ballot box, begging the question, what are the limits of making the personal, political? This episode explains how this initiative addressed the social stigma around adoption and addresses the longstanding debates around the power of ballot initiatives.

Learn more about the podcast at thepeopledecide.show and follow us on Twitter @PeopleDecidePod.

Resources

Bastard Nation

Measurable Rights documentary by Paul Fornier/Storm Rock Films

Measure 58 online archive

Adoption Politics by E. Wayne Carp

For decades in Nebraska, people would gather in the parking lot of state prisons to tailgate executions of prisoners on death row. A new crop of state legislators decided to put a stop to the death penalty, but the state’s residents—and its governor—had other plans, and used a ballot initiative to achieve them.

We often think of public policy as having the best interests of society, but given the chance, do individuals vote on what is valued in their communities, or their own personal beliefs? Until now, we’ve explored how people have come together to make changes their lawmakers won’t, but in this episode, we explore another pivotal angle of ballot initiatives.

Learn more about the podcast at thepeopledecide.show and follow us on Twitter @PeopleDecidePod.

The polarization that exists in U.S. politics has some voters questioning the integrity of our two-party system—whose interests are the politicians really representing? Ballot initiative organizers claim that they are building new coalitions that transcend party lines, and unite voters on their values, not their partisan affiliations. In doing so, they echo progressive reformers of the past, who created big changes and prompted observers to call their work part of an “invisible third party of reform.”

Ballot initiatives that are largely popular with everyday citizens, like Medicaid expansion and voting rights restoration, but that are seen by politicians as too progressive for bipartisan support, are finally reaching voters at the ballot box. In this episode, we examine how the current era of political reformers ushers in alternatives to stalled legislation by going beyond party lines and bringing the issues straight to voters, and asking the question, what do ballot initiatives say about the kind of political system we want in the U.S.?

Learn more about the podcast at thepeopledecide.show and follow us on Twitter @PeopleDecidePod.

Resources

Florida Rights Restoration Coalition

Reclaim Idaho

Let My People Vote: The Battle to Restore the Civil Rights of Returning Citizens by Desmond Meade

The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915 by Jon Grinspan

Many state leaders are fighting to restrict access to this tool of democracy—or get rid of ballot initiatives altogether. While challenges to voting rights in states across the country captured the news cycle throughout much of the last two years, those same forces also seek to make it more difficult to engage in direct democracy.

With 12 states battling restrictive bills to limit citizen-led initiatives, the “democracy reform movement” is stepping up across the country to save them. If legislators are successful in making it harder for people to use ballot initiatives, will politics still be within reach of the everyday citizen? Follow along as these campaigns play out in Idaho and Missouri.

Learn more about the podcast at thepeopledecide.show and follow us on Twitter @PeopleDecidePod.

Resources

Show Me Integrity

The Fairness Project

David Daley's books Unrigged and Ratf*cked