Legislature will debate restoring ballot initiative–again

When lawmakers return to the Mississippi Capitol this month, they will once again confront a question that has divided the legislature since 2021: whether to restore Mississippians’ ability to place constitutional amendments directly before voters.

The ballot initiative—a mechanism of direct democracy that allows citizens to bypass the legislature—has been inoperative since the state Supreme Court struck it down nearly five years ago. Despite bipartisan acknowledgment that voters should have some avenue for direct action, the House and Senate have been unable to agree on what a restored process should look like.

The disagreement is substantive. Senate leaders want a more restrictive system with higher signature thresholds and argue that social media and online organizing have made it too easy for well-funded outside groups to qualify measures for the ballot. House leaders have generally favored restoring something closer to the previous system, which was already among the more difficult in the nation.

A House Select Committee on Voting Rights examined the issue during the fall and heard testimony from policy experts and advocates. But testimony and hearings have not translated into legislative consensus during previous sessions, and there is little indication that 2026 will be different.

A century of contested direct democracy

Mississippi first adopted initiative and referendum rights in 1914, during the Progressive Era, when populist movements nationwide sought to wrest political power from entrenched financial interests. Voters approved the measure by nearly 70 percent.

The state Supreme Court initially upheld the process in 1917. But five years later, when citizens attempted to use the initiative to slash the $40,000 annual salary of State Revenue Agent Stokes V. Robertson—roughly $635,000 in today’s dollars—Robertson asked the court to invalidate the entire system. In Power v. Robertson, the justices reversed their earlier ruling, holding that because the constitutional initiative power had not been approved as a separate amendment in 1914, the entire provision was unconstitutional.

The right lay dormant for seven decades. In 1991, the Supreme Court acknowledged that its 1922 ruling had been “wrongly decided” but allowed it to stand, citing a biblical passage about not removing “ancient landmarks.”

The following year, the legislature and voters restored the initiative process through a constitutional amendment. From 1992 until 2021, only seven citizen-initiated proposals reached statewide ballots. Of those, voters approved just three: eminent domain protections, voter identification requirements, and a medical marijuana program.

The 2021 collapse

The initiative process collapsed again in Butler v. Watson, decided on May 14, 2021. The court ruled 6-3 that the process was “unworkable and inoperable” because the state constitution required petition signatures to be gathered evenly from five congressional districts, and Mississippi now had only four districts since the 2000 Census resulted in reapportionment.

The ruling nullified Initiative 65, the medical marijuana program that 74 percent of voters had approved just months earlier. Justice Josiah Coleman wrote in the majority opinion that the drafters “wrote a ballot-initiative process that cannot work in a world where Mississippi has fewer than five representatives in Congress.”

Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler, who filed the original lawsuit, said in a statement following the ruling that the city was “pleased that the Supreme Court followed the plain language of the Mississippi Constitution and recognized that, unfortunately, the current voter initiative process is broken.”

The legislature subsequently passed a medical marijuana law, but efforts to restore the broader initiative process have repeatedly stalled.

House and Senate at odds

The impasse centers on how restrictive the restored process should be. Senate leaders have proposed requiring petitioners to collect a larger number of signatures than the previous system demanded, while House leaders have pushed for something closer to the original framework.

Some lawmakers have questioned whether Mississippi needs an initiative at all, expressing concern that wealthy out-of-state interests could manipulate the process. Others argue that the changing landscape of digital organizing—where online petitions can gather signatures rapidly—necessitates higher thresholds to ensure grassroots legitimacy.

Samantha Buckley, policy director at the nonpartisan Secure Democracy Foundation, told the House committee in September that the simplest fix would be changing the constitutional language from five districts to four, or adopting language that automatically adapts to whatever number of districts exists at the time of a petition drive.

Twenty-three other states, plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands, have some form of functioning ballot initiative process.

Uncertain prospects

Whether lawmakers can bridge their differences in 2026 is uncertain. House Speaker Jason White established the Select Committee on Voting Rights last summer and has signaled support for addressing the issue. In a statement announcing the committee’s formation, White wrote that “the House’s legislative priorities will be clear and informed from the start as we maintain our focus and energy on preparing for the 2026 legislative session.”

Any legislation must also pass the Senate and receive Gov. Tate Reeves’s signature. During previous sessions, the two chambers were unable to agree on signature thresholds, eligible topics or whether successful initiatives should amend the constitution or merely create statutory law.

For now, Mississippi is the only state to have adopted, then lost a statewide initiative process—not once, but twice.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​