The Intersection of Direct Democracy and Representative Government: State Legislators’ Response to Ballot Measures

Abstract

Direct democracy in the United States exists alongside representative democracy as a forum in which citizens participate in the political decision-making process. Through their cooperation or obstruction, legislators can smooth or impede initiative implementation. Existing scholarship has explored legislative attitudes and behavior in limited contexts, concluding that legislators are hostile to direct democracy and seek to undermine its results. In this manuscript, I examine legislative attempts to amend or repeal ballot measures between 2010–2018 across all initiative states. The analysis focuses on the two issue areas most subject to legislative involvement: marijuana legalization and “governance” policies. I conclude that looser rules governing legislative behavior post-passage, narrower vote margins, and marijuana- and governance-related measures generate more frequent, and more extensive, legislative alteration attempts. The analysis advances the literature on legislative interference, providing insight into when, how, and under what conditions state government actors intervene in the initiative process.