SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
abortion rights
When Given a Chance, Voters Choose to Increase Equality and Redistribute Wealth
A recent report on citizen-driven initiatives found that people in red and blue states vote for policies that are egalitarian and economically redistributive.
Apr 29, 2025
On the evening of November 5, 2024, I sat at a gathering of organizers and volunteers from the campaign to pass Proposition 139, a citizen-driven initiative in Arizona seeking to enshrine abortion access in the state constitution.
After an hour or so of waiting with bated breath, the bulk of Arizona’s ballot initiative results had been counted and posted online. Our hard work had paid off! Prop 139 had amassed 66% voter support (a number that would decrease to a still impressive 61% by the final tally.) After a significant round of applause and the shedding of a few tears, the party settled into a pleasant thrum.
At first I expected shouting, screaming, and crying—we had won a massive victory! But I quickly understood that the celebration was more subdued than expected because the results were exactly what the lead organizers of the campaign hadanticipated: a win.
Healthcare Rising and Prop 139 won because they refused to partake in party politics and instead tailored their campaign toward fighting for issues that were resonant and supported in their constituency and across the political spectrum.
Ultimately, it was unsurprising that this initiative to enshrine abortion access passed in Arizona, despite voters in the state supporting anti-abortion candidate and now U.S. President Donald Trump, because reproductive freedom itself as a policy has proven to be overwhelmingly popular when put to a vote by the electorate.
A recent report from our team at the Center for Work and Democracy uses data from citizen-driven initiatives—ballot initiatives that are drafted, petitioned, and voted on by citizens themselves—from the last 15 years to see where patterns in voting emerge. Put very briefly, we found that people vote for policies that are egalitarian and economically redistributive.
Egalitarian measures—which equalize rights, resources, and decision-making power in society—pass at a rate of 65.63% across blue and red states alike. Initiatives supporting reproductive rights, for example, are considered egalitarian and prove to be extremely successful at the polls. Despite a difficult loss in Florida in the 2024 election and a complicated voting stalemate in Nebraska, abortion access has been protected by voters in 14 out of 17 cases since the fall of Roe v. Wade.
Redistributive measures are a subsect of egalitarian initiatives that specifically focus on the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor, like raising the minimum wage. With an even greater passage rate than other egalitarian measures, redistributive ballot measures clock in with an impressive win rate of 75%. In red states, this number rises all the way to a whopping 92% compared to 61.29% in blue states. (We found that blue states’ averages are skewed down by California’s initiative results, which are far less progressive than the state’s image.)
When Healthcare Rising Arizona and the other co-organizers of the campaign for Prop 139 set out to get the initiative on the ballot and enshrined in the state constitution, they knew that party politics were not going to help their cause. From day one, the campaign for 139 was clear that their organizing would be strictly nonpartisan because they knew that abortion as a policy was more popular than any individual Democratic candidates, despite those Democrats being vocally pro-choice.
The strategy worked. The Arizona for Abortion Access Act passed with 417,427 more votes than former Vice President Kamala Harris received in Arizona, proving that egalitarian policies like reproductive rights are simply more popular than pro-choice candidates.
Healthcare Rising and Prop 139 won because they refused to partake in party politics and instead tailored their campaign toward fighting for issues that were resonant and supported in their constituency and across the political spectrum.
Our data tells us that egalitarian and redistributive measures are exceedingly popular with red and blue voters alike. So if Republican and Democrat voters both want many of the same things—policies that equalize rights, break down wealth inequality, and support the decision-making power of everyday people—why won’t politicians just give the people what they want?
Keep ReadingShow Less
Hands Off—Yes! But What Are the Working-Class Demands?
Unified and spirited opposition to Trump's destructive rampage is exactly what's needed, but a successful movement will not grow without a vision and proposals to support it.
Apr 09, 2025
On Saturday, April 5th, fifty-seven years after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, hundreds of thousands of protestors gathered across the country to challenge Trump’s attack on, well, just about everything!
I went to the rally in New Jersey, where speaker after speaker had us chanting “Hands off our Social Security!” “Hands off our Medicare!” Hands off our Medicaid!” “Hands off our Abortion Rights!” and so on. This was the national theme developed by the Democratic Party.
A few protestors in the back chanted “Hands off Gaza,” which was not on the agenda. But they soon retreated into silence. One woman carrying a large Trump 2024 banner walked near the edge of the crowd of about 2,000 and took on a few angry shouts, but there was no confrontation. Tensions rose enough, however, that the chair of the gathering did feel obliged to remind us that this was a peaceful, non-violent gathering.
As I looked around at the well-healed demonstrators from our liberal town, I couldn’t help but imagine adding a few other items to the list: “Hands off our IRA’s!” “Hands off the Stock Market!” “Hands off Free Trade!” I’m sure that would have been right on the money.
But why was I raining on this parade? After all, these were my neighbors, good caring people who turned up on this rainy Saturday because they truly want to make our society a better place.
My mind went negative because it was crystal clear that the rally was the opposite of Martin Luther King Jr.’s challenge to the established order that enabled Jim Crow and persistent poverty. Dr. King asked us to envision massive changes to the status quo. Today, we were chanting to defend the status quo that Trump is surely taking a wrecking ball to.
The Democrats who put the rallies together across the country missed a moment to present an alternative vision. This was a chance to announce new proposals to tame runaway inequality, the growth of which has undermined the Democratic Party’s coalition, and to provide job insecurity, the lack of which has given MAGA a foothold in the first place.
Instead, we got pure opposition, spirited to be sure. Its only virtue was to provide collective support to those of us who have been stunned by the revanchist thrust of Trumpism. We can’t believe what is happening and we need each other to shore up our spirits. It was a chance, feeble but necessary, to show some form of communal defiance.
But a successful movement will not grow without a vision and proposals to support it. Why didn’t the Democrats do that? Because, except for a few fellow-travelers like Bernie Sanders, their vision is deeply tied the status quo BT (Before Trump).
That set of BT institutions was working well for the top 20 percent of the income distribution, especially those with college and post-graduate degrees, including just about everyone at our town’s demonstration.
It was not working for those whose jobs had been shipped abroad to China, Mexico, or elsewhere, and who watched their communities then crumble.
It also wasn’t working so well for those who lost their jobs to finance Wall Street stock buybacks and outrageous CEO salaries.
And it wasn’t working well at all for those working at poverty wages, especially immigrant workers, risking life and limb with little protection.
In short, the Democratic Party, long the party of the working class, has no compelling vision today because it has left behind a big chunk of the working-class. As analysts debate what went wrong, they should perhaps ask why the Democrats are so reluctant to support a working-class populist agenda.
The answer lies in how it became the party of the established order and therefore was unable to provide a vision that makes sense to working people who have been screwed by the established order. (Please see Wall Street’s War on Workers.)
And that’s a damn shame. Because we want and need to be inspired by a positive vision. But that will only happen when the Democrats take their hands off their imaginations and ours.
We need to return to the days when the vision was FDRs for four freedoms, not four family tax credits to support the “opportunity society.”
The Democrats still have a chance, the field is open, but really? That is not likely to happen until it is challenged by a new independent party that stands for substantive change, created by and for working people.
I’ll be demonstrating for that.
Keep ReadingShow Less
The Fight for Abortion Care Is a Fight for Equality
Women’s History Month exists because, for centuries, women’s contributions were erased, dismissed, or outright stolen. Today, we see that same erasure in real-time when lawmakers craft policies that disregard the needs and realities of half the population.
Mar 29, 2025
Every March, we celebrate Women’s History Month—a time to honor the trailblazers who fought for our rights and recognize how far we have come. But it is also a time to take stock of the battles we’re still fighting, and one of the most urgent is the fight for abortion care.
Abortion access isn’t just about healthcare; it’s about power, equality, and dignity. It’s about recognizing that pregnant people should have the same autonomy, agency, and opportunities as anyone else. Yet, time and time again, legislation is used as a weapon to strip us of our rights, rendering us invisible in the eyes of those who hold power.
When abortion rights are restricted, the effects ripple far beyond the individual. The economic consequences are devastating. Studies have shown that being denied an abortion drastically increases the likelihood of a person living in poverty. The landmark Turnaway Study found that people who were unable to access an abortion were four times more likely to experience financial insecurity, struggle with housing instability, and be trapped in cycles of domestic violence.
In a system where half the population can be denied life-saving medical care, how can we claim to value equality?
This is not just a coincidence—it’s by design. Anti-abortion legislation is not about “life”; it’s about control. It’s about keeping people, especially women and those who can become pregnant, economically vulnerable and dependent. It’s about ensuring that the structures of power remain unchallenged, forcing people to carry pregnancies they cannot afford while denying them the resources to escape poverty.
The hypocrisy is staggering. Many of the same politicians who push for abortion bans are the ones gutting social safety nets—cutting funding for childcare, slashing paid family leave, refusing to raise the minimum wage, and the list goes on. They claim to care about “life” while making it impossible for parents to provide for their children. This is not pro-life; it is anti-equality.
The United States already has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations, and the numbers are even more alarming for Black and Indigenous people, who die at three to four times the rate of their white counterparts during childbirth. When states restrict abortion access, they force more people into dangerous pregnancies, increasing these mortality rates even further.
The recent surge of abortion bans and restrictions has created a healthcare crisis. Patients experiencing pregnancy complications—such as miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies—are being turned away from hospitals or left to suffer until their lives are at imminent risk. Doctors fear prosecution for providing necessary care, and pregnant people are treated as legal liabilities rather than human beings.
In a system where half the population can be denied life-saving medical care, how can we claim to value equality?
Women’s History Month exists because, for centuries, women’s contributions were erased, dismissed, or outright stolen. Today, we see that same erasure in real-time when lawmakers craft policies that disregard the needs and realities of half the population.
Look at how abortion laws are written—by men who will never face the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy, let alone a dangerous one. Look at how reproductive healthcare is treated as an afterthought, even though it is central to economic stability, personal freedom, and public health.
Every time a law is passed that strips away abortion access, it is another message that we do not matter. That our health, our futures, our choices are secondary. That we are expected to sacrifice our bodies and our well-being to maintain a system that was never built for us in the first place.
This isn’t just an attack on reproductive rights; it’s an attack on gender equality itself.
Abortion access is not a fringe issue—it is fundamental to equality. If we want a world where women and pregnant people are not just tolerated but truly valued, we must fight for policies that recognize our full humanity.
That means protecting abortion access at every level—through legislation, through the courts, through elections, and through supporting each other. It means funding organizations that help people get the care they need, regardless of where they live—organizations like WRRAP. It means holding politicians accountable and refusing to let them silence us.
Women’s History Month is a reminder that progress is not given—it is won. The right to vote, the right to work, the right to own property, the right to make decisions about our own bodies—none of these rights were freely handed to us. They were fought for, tooth and nail, by those who refused to be invisible.
Now, it is our turn. The battle for abortion justice is the battle for equality itself, and we cannot afford to lose.
This op-ed was distributed by American Forum.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular