When voters want something done on an issue and their elected officials fail to act, they may turn to citizen initiatives to pursue their goals instead. The citizen initiative process varies by state, but in general, citizens collect signatures to have an issue put directly on the ballot for the voters to voice their preferences. Nearly half the states, 24 of them, allow citizen initiatives.
I am an American politics scholar who studies the connection between representation and public policy. In American democracy, the people expect to have a voice, whether that comes through electing representatives or directly voting on issues.
Yet it is becoming increasingly common for lawmakers across the country to not only ignore the will of the people, but also actively work against it. From 2010 to 2015, about 21% of citizen initiatives were altered by lawmakers after they passed. From 2016 to 2018, lawmakers altered nearly 36% of passed citizen initiatives.
When voters want something done on an issue and their elected officials fail to act, they may turn to citizen initiatives to pursue their goals instead. The citizen initiative process varies by state, but in general, citizens collect signatures to have an issue put directly on the ballot for the voters to voice their preferences. Nearly half the states, 24 of them, allow citizen initiatives.
I am an American politics scholar who studies the connection between representation and public policy. In American democracy, the people expect to have a voice, whether that comes through electing representatives or directly voting on issues.
Lebanon's Iran-aligned Hezbollah group confirmed in the early hours of Saturday that its top military commander Ibrahim Aqil was killed, calling him "one of its top leaders", without
A constitutional challenge to the Biden administration program enabling Medicare to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs has been revived by a federal appeals court
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that senior Ukrainian officials agreed in an "emotional" discussion that the country needs to make more weaponry domestically and speed up