Washington (AP) Voters in some regions of the nation are learning that their voice at the polling station does not always mean the final word, even when the election was more than a month ago.
In a number of states, lawmakers have already started or announced plans to change or revoke certain findings. Republicans in Missouri are beginning to undo voter-approved abortion protections, Democrats in Massachusetts are weakening a voter-led effort to hold the Legislature more accountable, and Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are working to undermine the power of the incoming Democratic governor.
Critics have labeled the acts that followed the election on November 5th as undemocratic, continuing a trend that has escalated in recent years.
Anne Whitesell, an assistant professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio, stated, “I think definitely when you’re a voter and you’re voting on the issue, you’re not thinking about whether someone will then overturn or just ignore the things that you voted on.”
The tactics vary from complete reversals to gradual execution of ballot proposals passed by voters, including lawmakers withholding funds. After voters in their states supported expanding Medicaid coverage after the Affordable Care Act was passed, Whitesell said that was a common tactic used by some Republican governors and senators. The delay between the vote and implementation was prolonged because the issue had to be resolved in court.
According to Whitesell, that is not what you expect when you cast your ballot.
One of the worst instances of a legislature acting against the wishes of the people may be found in North Carolina.
There, voters voted Democrats to almost every statewide post, including governor and attorney general, and broke the Republican supermajority for the next session. Nevertheless, Republican lawmakers convened a lame-duck session to ram through a number of comprehensive reforms prior to losing their veto-proof majority the following year.
Among them is the seizure of authority from a number of Democrats elected to state office. The new governor would no longer have the power to name representatives to the state elections board under the sudden changes. The Republicans in the state Senate overrode the veto of the law by the current Democratic governor, Roy Cooper. Next week is when the House vote is anticipated.
The Republican amendment would give the state auditor, the lone statewide post won by a Republican last month, authority of the state election board. The law also forbids the attorney general from adopting stances that conflict with those of the legislature and reduces the governor’s power to appoint members to the state supreme court and state court of appeals.
Among those who demonstrated against the actions at the state capitol was the Rev. Rob Stephens, an organizer with the Repairers of the Breach and the Poor People’s Campaign. In what he described as a betrayal of democracy, he claimed that North Carolinians had voted to abolish one-party control and choose state representatives to head the next administration, only to have that decision endangered by Republican lawmakers.
More than 5.7 million voters in North Carolina chose the people they wanted and did so knowing what powers those individuals would have, according to Patrick Williamson, chief counsel with the Fair Elections Center, an election reform organization with headquarters in Washington, D.C.
According to him, this is completely at odds with what voters anticipated when they cast their ballots in November.
Additionally, he claimed that the activities were in opposition to the 2018 voter rejection of a proposed constitutional amendment that aimed to reduce Cooper’s authority over the elections board.
Last month, voters in Missouri approved a constitutional amendment that would have made abortion rights a part of the state constitution. A Republican state legislator shortly after that proposed a fresh attempt at a constitutional amendment that forbids performing or inducing an abortion on a woman unless there is an urgent medical need.
The ability to audit the Legislature was granted to the state auditor by a majority of Massachusetts voters. However, Democrats, who hold a majority in both houses, have claimed that the vote is an infringement on the separation of powers.
A reform to the procedure under which they would seek an independent financial audit of their activities was adopted by House legislators following the election. Democratic state auditor Diana DiZoglio, who supported the ballot question, claimed that lawmakers are attempting to weaken the proposal and give themselves more authority over the parameters of any inquiry.
Following the November election, certain legislatures continued a recent trend in their acts.
Legislation that could drastically change an initiative that voters adopted last year to legalize marijuana use for recreational purposes is currently pending in Ohio’s Republican-controlled Legislature. Important adjustments include halving the number of plants per household that Ohioans agreed could be grown at home and tripling the approved tax rate on cannabis for adult use.
In recent years, voters in a number of Texas cities, including Dallas last month, have also approved legislation decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana. However, the Republican attorney general of the state has sued them, claiming that local governments cannot defy Texas’ stringent marijuana prohibitions.
The Republican-led Legislature in Tennessee has been fighting for years to overrule some of the local regulations of left-leaning Memphis and Nashville. In 2008, Memphis voters embraced ranked-choice voting, and ten years later, they rejected an attempt to do away with it. However, in 2022, ranked-choice voting was outlawed statewide by lawmakers.
Voters in Nashville authorized a community monitoring board for the city’s police department, but in 2023, a bill that dismantled similar boards was passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature.
The Utah Supreme Court declared earlier this year that lawmakers had violated voters’ constitutional rights when they created a citizen-led redistricting panel to create new congressional districts. The measure was approved by voters in 2018, but the legal battle began when the GOP-controlled Legislature cut the commission’s power two years later and created its own gerrymandered maps.
In 2018, a voter-approved bill that would have increased the minimum wage for servers and other tipped workers was repealed by the Democratic-controlled District of Columbia council.
North Carolina’s legislative resistance has attracted more outside attention than any other place this year, with some detractors calling the actions of Republican lawmakers a bold attempt to seize power.
Although John Fortier, a senior scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, is unsure of the details of North Carolina’s lame duck session, he said the GOP proposal seems to be a continuation of the parties’ long-running dispute over who should have what authority.
He remarked, “I agree; this does not always look pretty.” You believe there are some standards you should agree upon, but I believe there has been a change in those standards.
The left-leaning Ballot Initiative Strategy Center’s executive director, Christina Melody Fields Figueredo, stated that the center stresses that Election Day is not the end of the effort because of what is occurring in North Carolina.
According to her, activists must inform voters that attempts to disregard or override their choices at the polls are outright attacks on representative governance, but many of these attempts are frequently overlooked by voters.
“The concept of democracy feels very vague to people who are struggling to pay for housing or food,” she remarked.
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This report was written by Associated Press writers Paul Weber in Austin, Texas; Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio; Jonathan Matisse in Nashville, Tennessee; Steve LeBlanc in Boston; and Summer Ballentine in Jefferson City, Missouri.
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