Mississippi’s Ballot Initiative Restore Effort Exposes Legislative Hesitation and Risk to Sovereignty

In a state where voters once held direct power to shape laws through ballot initiatives, recent developments reveal a legislative hesitation that threatens true democratic engagement. The Mississippi Senate Elections Committee has advanced Senate Concurrent Resolution 518—a bill aimed at partially restoring the statewide ballot initiative process after the Mississippi Supreme Court invalidated it in 2021 over technical issues.While on the surface this appears as progress, the measure is fundamentally a constrained restoration that undermines voter sovereignty by imposing stringent signature requirements and restricting subject matters—most notably barring constitutional changes, abortion-related initiatives, and modifications to public pension systems. This raises...