The initiatives and the limits of policy

Florida voters overwhelmingly supported abortion rights in spite of Ron DeSantis’s taxpayer-funded propaganda and intimidation campaign, but not by quite enough to pass the supermajority threshold:

A ballot initiative that would have enshrined abortion rights in the Florida state constitution failed on Tuesday, falling 3 points short of the 60 percent threshold it needed to pass. The measure would have nullified the state’s six-week abortion ban and legalized abortion to the point of fetal viability, making Florida a haven in the Southeast for abortion access.

This is the first time that an abortion-rights ballot initiative has failed since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, though it was also the first time an initiative had to win a supermajority of votes to pass.

It’s a hard loss for the advocates who’d spent months waging a massive nonpartisan campaign on behalf of Amendment 4. “It’s heartbreaking. I mean, the results may well cost lives. I’m confident saying that,” said Cameron Driggers, the founder of Youth Action Fund, a nonprofit that worked to pass the amendment. He pointed out that 57 percent of Florida voters supported the initiative, which in most other states would have meant a decisive win for abortion rights. (Florida established the 60 percent threshold for new constitutional amendments with a 2006 ballot initiative—which itself passed with just … 57.8 percent of the vote.)

And in Missouri:

Missouri voters approved a measure on Tuesday that enshrines abortion rights in the state constitution and replaces a near-total ban on the procedure. The measure guarantees a person’s right to get an abortion and make other reproductive health decisions. It opens the door to legal challenges of a ban on most abortions that took effect immediately after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The measure made the ballot after an intense legal fight led by anti-abortion advocates who sought to prevent a vote.

Missouri voters also passed initiatives raising the minimum wage and requiring paid family leave. And they voted for a senator and president who opposes all of these things, and state legislators and a governor who will just nullify them like they did the Medicaid expansion. With Trump looking nearly certain to re-take the White House at this point, that’s the dilemma we’re dealing with, and I have no idea what to do about it.