The D.C. Council on Tuesday gave initial approval to a bill that would put new restrictions on ballot initiatives, raising concerns from critics that lawmakers are trying to kill off the city’s only tool that lets voters bypass the council and directly pass laws themselves.
The bill — authored by At-Large council member Anita Bonds — emerged from growing frustration among some lawmakers and business groups that progressive advocates have increasingly leveraged D.C.’s ballot initiative process to set drug policy, establish new minimum wages for restaurant workers and change how the city conducts elections.
D.C. joins two-dozen states in allowing some type of citizen ballot initiative — something it has done for almost 50 years. Under current law, any resident or group can propose an initiative; if they collect signatures from 5% of the city’s voters, it gets placed on the ballot. Initiatives cannot violate the U.S. Constitution or the city’s human rights law, directly appropriate money or impose taxes.
The marquee change in Bonds’ bill would limit any initiative to a single subject, a direct response to Initiative 83, which D.C. voters overwhelmingly approved in November 2024. It required D.C. to implement ranked-choice voting — first used in the June 2026 primary — and conduct semi-open primaries, which are set to start in 2028.
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“People were confused,” Bonds told The Washington Sun, recounting that she got complaints from residents who supported either ranked-choice voting or semi-open primaries — but didn’t have the ability to vote for one or the other.
The bill would also slow the process from when an initiative is proposed to when its proponents can start collecting signatures to get it on the ballot. That, she said, would give the public more chances to weigh in with concerns.
“When the council proposes legislation, there are many steps that must take place,” she said. “These measures offer the community the opportunity to understand legislation. The initiative does not allow that process. The public is presented with an idea, we all go and we vote, and so therefore the subject is never given the time and attention that you get through the legislative process.”
In a nine-page letter sent to lawmakers last week, former D.C. Board of Elections Chair Gary Thompson criticized Bonds’ bill, saying it aimed to “strangle” ballot initiatives. Ward 5 council member Zachary Parker expressed similar reservations before voting against the bill.
“What we’re doing here is putting up many more barriers and steps and extending the timelines,” he said. “We’re making it harder for the public to engage in [the initiative] process.”
Lisa Rice, the co-founder of Grow Democracy D.C. and one of the main proponents of Initiative 83, was disappointed with the council’s vote, tying it to moves across the country to limit public engagement in government.
“It’s a really disturbing trend,” she told The Sun. “Because politicians don’t like what the voters are able to bring to the ballot, they want to destroy the process. The solution isn’t to firebomb the process.”
Still, some lawmakers said Bonds’ bill missed the broader challenges with the city’s initiative process — and what they said should be done to change it.
“We chose to have a representative democracy, not a direct democracy, for a reason. The bill doesn’t address what I see as their real issue: That a $25 minimum wage issue or rent freeze is something many voters might agree with but would have an impact on our city and economy,” said At-Large council member Elissa Silverman, calling the initiatives an “end run around the 13 of us.”
Silverman was referring to two ballot initiatives that are currently going through the process. One would increase D.C.’s minimum wage to $25 by 2029 and later phase out the tipped wage paid to restaurant workers. (D.C. voters have weighed in on the tipped wage twice before, and the council has repealed those measures in full or in part.) Another would impose a two-year rent freeze and create new rules for how D.C. spends money on affordable housing. Both could be on the ballot in 2027, if proponents collect the required number of signatures.
This November, D.C. voters will weigh in on a ballot initiative that seeks to ban the sale of foie gras.
Silverman said she’d rather D.C. follow the lead of states like Massachusetts and Michigan, which have indirect ballot initiatives. Under those systems, residents or groups can petition their lawmakers to take on a particular topic. If the council doesn’t, the issue is put to a public vote.
Silverman ultimately voted against Bonds’ bill, while Ward 4 council member and Democratic nominee for mayor, Janeese Lewis George, voted present. A final vote on the bill is expected in early October.
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