CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Inside the West Virginia Statehouse sits a copy of a petition to lawmakers that makes a uncomplicated request: Let voters decide whether to restore legal access to abortion.
Republican lawmakers, who hold a two-thirds majority in the House, ignored that request and banned abortion in the state in 2022, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a constitutional right to the procedure.
The petition, with more than 2,500 signatures, is essentially meaningless given the current makeup of the House, but it illustrates the frustratingly confined options facing millions of Americans trying to restore abortion rights as the country marks the second anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling.
West Virginia is one of 25 states that do not allow statewide votes on citizen initiatives or constitutional amendments. This form of direct democracy has allowed voters in many states over the past two years to bypass legislation and defend abortion and other reproductive rights.
Republicans have repeatedly rejected the idea of putting an abortion bill before voters, but in West Virginia that step is left solely to the legislature.
“You wonder what they’re so afraid of,” said Democratic Rep. Kayla Young, one of only 16 women in the West Virginia legislature. “If they’re so convinced that people believe it, then prove it.”
The court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was praised by anti-abortion activists as a decision that returns the issue to the states. Former President Donald Trump, who named three of the justices who overturned Roe, has repeatedly claimed that “the people” now decide abortion access.
“The people decide,” he said recently in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity. “And in many ways it’s beautiful to see that.”
But that is not the case everywhere. In states where citizen initiatives are allowed and where the issue of abortion was put to the vote, voters have affirmed the right to abortion by a immense majority.
Voters in seven states, including conservative ones like Kentucky, Montana and Ohio, have either defended abortion rights or rejected attempts to restrict them on statewide ballots over the past two years. Reproductive rights advocates are trying to get citizen initiatives on the ballot in several states this year.
But in about half of the states, voters have no direct say.
This is especially true for people in the South. Republican-controlled legislatures, many of which have been heavily rigged to give Republicans disproportionate power, have passed some of the strictest abortion bans since the Supreme Court ruling, while rejecting all efforts to expand direct democracy.
States began adopting the initiative process over a century ago during the Progressive Era, giving their citizens the ability to pass or repeal laws through a direct popular vote. Between 1898 and 1918, nearly 20 states adopted the initiative process. Since then, only five states have done so.
“It was a different time,” says John Matsusaka, a professor of economics and law at the University of Southern California. “There was a political movement all over the country where people were trying to do what they thought was good government.”
Some lawmakers argue that citizen initiatives bypass significant checks and balances provided by the legislative process. In Tennessee, where Republicans have gerrymandered districts to gain a two-thirds majority in the legislature, House Majority Leader William Lamberth compared referendums to polls rather than what he called demanding lawmakers’ review of complicated policy decisions.
“We review the bills every year,” he said.
As in West Virginia, abortion advocates or Democratic lawmakers in a handful of states have urged Republican-controlled legislatures to put the abortion issue directly to voters. This tactic has not worked in any state where Republicans have a majority.
“It’s going to be saying, ‘Hey Parliament, do you want to give up some of your power? Do you want to give up your monopoly on policymaking?'” said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego. “You need political momentum and then you need to make the process work.”
In South Carolina, where almost all abortion is banned, a Democratic-backed proposal to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot never made it to the floor this year. Attempts to link the proposal to other bills were quickly blocked by Republicans.
“If you believe you are doing the right thing for all the people of South Carolina – the men, women and babies – then you should have no problem putting this before the people,” said Democratic Senator Margie Bright Matthews, claiming Republicans were afraid they would lose if the question went directly to voters.
In Georgia, Democratic Rep. Shea Roberts said she is frequently asked by her constituents how to get involved in a citizen-initiated ballot measure. Interest exploded after Kansas voters rejected an anti-abortion measure from the House in 2022 and was reignited last fall after Ohio voters overwhelmingly passed an amendment enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution.
But when she introduced a bill to establish a citizen initiative process in Georgia, those efforts were ignored in the Republican-dominated legislature.
“Voters constantly ask us why we can’t do this, and we constantly explain to them that we can’t do this under our current constitution,” Roberts said. “If almost half the states have this process, why shouldn’t Georgia have it?”
The contrast is clear in two swing states in the presidential election. Michigan voters used a citizen initiative to enshrine abortion rights in their state constitution in 2022. Voters in neighboring Wisconsin do not have that option.
Instead, Wisconsin Democrats, who have a novel liberal majority on the state Supreme Court, are working to overturn Republican-drawn districts that are among the most gerrymandered in the country in the hope of ultimately winning a majority in the House.
Analiese Eicher, communications director for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, said a citizen-initiated ballot process would have been particularly valuable to her cause.
“We should have representatives who represent their constituents,” she said. “And if that is not the case, there should be another option.”
In West Virginia, Steve Williams admits that the petition he initiated did not bring about change in parliament.
But Huntington’s Democratic mayor, who is considered a candidate for governor, said the state’s Republicans had underestimated how much voters believed that abortion should be possible again in some form.
Republican leaders pointed to a 2018 vote in which nearly 52% of voters supported a constitutional amendment saying there is no right to abortion in the state. But Williams said the vote also had to do with state funding for abortion, which someone could object to without eliminating access entirely.
The vote was close, turnout was low and it came before the Supreme Court decision that struck down the federal right to abortion. Williams said West Virginia women are not facing the reality of a near-total ban.
“Let’s face it: life in 2024 is very different for women than it was in 2018,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Jeffrey Collins contributed to this report from Columbia, South Carolina. Kruesi reported from Nashville, Tennessee, and Fernando from Chicago.
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