About half the states allow citizens, by popular vote, to enact laws or constitutional amendments via ballot initiatives or veto legislation via referenda. This power enables citizens to overcome obstacles to fair representation in the legislature, such as gerrymandering and campaign finance rules that make politicians beholden to wealthy donors.
But some state officials have been trying to make ballot measures harder to pass, not because of valid concerns about the process is insufficiently regulated, but because they do not like the policies citizens might enact.
