Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022, the battle over abortion rights has been fought with state ballot measures from Kansas to California.
In November, voters in 10 states — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota — will decide whether to enshrine some abortion rights in their state constitutions.
These referendums come after voters in seven states already weighed in on abortion through ballot measures. All seven states — California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, and Vermont — sided with abortion rights groups.
Will voters in Texas, home to one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans, be given the same opportunity? Not likely.
Most of these votes have been the result of citizen-led petitions that gathered signatures and forced states — even some controlled by abortion foes — to send the issue to voters via direct ballot measures.
About half states in the U.S., including Texas, do not allow any form of voter-led ballot measures. In Texas, the state Legislature has sole responsibility for initiating amendments to the constitution. And unlike most bills, which require a simple majority vote, resolutions proposing an amendment to the state’s constitution must be approved by two-thirds of both the Texas House and Texas Senate. Texas does allow citizen-led initiatives at the local level, but only on issues that do not conflict with state or federal law.
“The reality in Texas is we are unlikely to see such a referendum anytime soon,” said Matthew Wilson, an associate professor of political science at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “In Texas, we elect legislators to pass laws. If we don’t approve of the job they’re doing, we can replace our legislators.”
States that allow citizen-initiated ballot measures are centralized in the western U.S., which has historically been supportive of direct democracy, Wilson said. States such as Texas place a higher value on representative democracy. In fact, Texas voters in 1914 rejected a proposition to allow citizens to initiate ballot measures.
In the 1970s and 80s, some leading Texas Republicans supported creating an initiative process, and until 1994 that was part of the state GOP’s platform. With Republicans in control of state government in recent years, there has been no serious discussion at the statehouse to allow citizen initiatives. Ruling parties have little incentive to push for such measures.
“If you’re out of government, you’re in favor of initiatives,” Republican Jerry Patterson, who served three terms as state land commissioner, told The Associated Press. “If you’re in government, they become not so appealing.”
Still, some legislators have attempted push for citizen-led ballot measures in recent years. In 2023, state Sen. Nathan Johnson, a Dallas Democrat, filed a joint resolution that would have created a system for citizen-led referendums. The bill died without a hearing.
If abortion did go before Texas voters, the outcome would likely be close, at least according to public polling. Texas bans the procedure in all cases except to protect the life of the mother, but some patients and physicians have argued that exemption is vague and confusing.
Nearly half of Texas voters say the state’s abortion laws are too strict, according to a February 2024 poll by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas. Roughly 27% say the laws should be more strict, and 21% say they should be left as is. About three-quarters of Texas voters support abortion access in cases of rape, incest or strong chances of a serious birth defect.
Both abortion rights advocates and opponents have said they would welcome a direct ballot measure in Texas, which has not elected a Democrat to a statewide office in 30 years. A ballot measure in Texas, which is the most populous state to ban abortion, would undoubtedly draw enormous national attention.
“Although we know that the majority of Texans want abortion to be legal and accessible, elected officials continue to oppose their constituency, enacting laws that prevent people from receiving the care they need,” Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in an email to The Dallas Morning News.
John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, said Texans have repeatedly voted for Republicans whose opposition to abortion is clear, and he is assured a ballot measure would be no different. Other red states that sided with abortion rights in direct votes did so because the pro-life movement was misrepresented and distorted, he added.
“Texans have shown time and time again they support pro-life politics,” Seago said. “We’re very confident this trend will continue.”
Another anti-abortion group, Texas Alliance for Life, acknowledged the vote would be difficult to predict. Joe Pojman, founder and executive director of the Austin-based organization, said a ballot measure in Texas would attract a frenzied fight with out-of-state money.
“We’re a huge state of national interest and would likely draw a tremendous amount of money on both sides,” Pojman said. “It’s hard to say.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
