Law360: Ballot Measure Fights Spilling From Voting Booth Into Court

This article originally appeared on the Law360 website.

The language used to explain ballot measures, the rules for getting those measures on the ballot and the vote thresholds needed to pass them have all become hotly contested fronts in fights between citizens and several states over how much say voters should have over state laws.

Citizens behind these initiatives say state officials are unconstitutionally erecting barriers to an initiative process that is rightly theirs, while those officials insist that state constitutions leave the power over these initiatives and the policies they address in their hands, not those of the voters."You're getting legislatures where the policy is to the right or to the left of median citizens, and citizens are trying to fight back," Kevin Johnson, executive director of Election Reformers Network, told Law360 Pulse. "And I think that is being reflected in these ballot initiative disputes."

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"In a situation where we need neutral referees to decide what's neutrally the most objective way to present this proposition, we get people who are playing for one team."