One of my long-term goals is to start a 501(c)3 nonpartisan organization to educate the public in support of direct democracy (if no one else does it first).

I understand that the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC) does an amazing job in supporting the use of the ballot initiative from a progressive standpoint. However, their Defend Direct Democracy campaign page, IMO, doesn’t exactly address how their organization defends the use of direct democracy from legislative and bureaucratic attacks. And they don’t seem to have a resource for model legislation or how to advocate for adding direct democracy to more state laws, including state constitutions.

If there is one thing that more states need – especially states with part-time legislatures, especially Southern states, especially states which lack nonpartisan redistricting – it is direct democracy. But no one is trying to push these states to adopt direct democracy into their state laws, and BISC seems to only play defense for the right to the ballot initiative.

I wouldn’t want this hypothetical organization to duplicate any of BISC’s work, only to do the following:

• educate the public on the nonpartisan necessity for the ballot initiative system
• build a political and social culture for ballot initiative systems in states which lack such systems
• train election administrators on how to implement ballot initiative systems in their election regimes
• train and support advocates on expert talking points supporting the ballot initiative system

It is sad that the ballot initiative system only was adopted in some states through the Progressive era of the 1890s-1910s and then largely fell off afterward (save for brief victories in Florida and Mississippi). But just like how once-nearly-abandoned election systems like ranked-choice voting have made a comeback through the likes of FairVote advocating to the public, I want to duplicate the success of the ranked-choice voting movement for the ballot initiative system.

So here’s me sending this idea “out to the universe”: a 501(c)3 nonpartisan organization supporting the right to the ballot initiative system in more states.