The Right to Petition: A Founding Freedom, Still at Work

This year, in honor of the 250th anniversary of American independence, our League of Women Voters columns are devoted to the rights and freedoms at the heart of our nation’s founding. This month’s column examines the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances — a right that shapes how citizens interact with all three branches of government.

Congress shall make no law…abridging the right of the people…to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The right to petition the government, part of the First Amendment, safeguards other liberties by providing for redress when rights are violated. It is also our vehicle for influencing government policy. The right to petition shapes our interactions with each branch of government, as discussed below.

The Legislative Branch includes local, state and national elective bodies: City councils, school boards, county commissioners’ courts, state legislatures, and the U.S. Congress. Petitioning includes addressing public meetings, gathering signatures, drafting legislation, and lobbying. People generally petition their own representatives, and organizations target those they hope to influence.

The Executive Branch carries out policy at each level, and the goal of petitions is often enforcement of existing laws. Petitions can seek compliance with ordinances or for money to be spent as budgeted. Constituents have the strongest claim with their own executive officers, but campaign contributors from outside a jurisdiction can gain the ear of those who run for reelection.

In the Judicial Branch, petitions may seek compliance with law or other courts’ orders or the granting of some relief, like damages arising from harm. The Justice Department, on President Trump’s instructions, recently created a controversial $1.776 billion dollar fund to pay compensation for certain wrongful prosecutions or job losses, and claimants have filed the first petitions. In criminal courts, prosecutors petition courts to convict offenders in the name of the state. Organizations lobby courts when they file friend-of the-court briefs in civil cases, and an appeal is a petition to a higher court.

The right to petition, like many of our liberties, dates to the Magna Carta of 1215. However, during the Progressive Era, U.S. citizens sought a stronger hand when government was unresponsive to popular will. Reforms that originated in Switzerland in the revolutionary mid-1800s were later enacted by U.S. states and cities to force elected representatives to submit proposals for popular vote. Other democracies also employ them; this year Iceland proposes a vote on joining the European Union, and Alberta will vote on secession from Canada.

These reforms, known as citizen-initiated ballot measures or direct legislation, vary across jurisdictions, but they can be grouped as Initiative, Referendum, and Recall. Each process begins with a successful petition by citizens. Initiative efforts can force consideration of proposals with enough support. Referendum requires that proposed or enacted legislation be put to a popular vote, which may be binding or advisory. As the name suggests, a successful Recall vote ends an elected official’s term of office. For example, an attempt to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom of California failed in 2021.

Beginning in Utah in 1900 and Oregon in 1902, adoption of these reforms was swift across Western states, due to progressive populist alliances among farmers, good-government advocates, and journalists. The Mississippi river divides the country on these remedies, with only seven eastern states having any Initiative or Referendum provisions and only five western states lacking both. Adoption in the West also occurred much earlier, from 1900 to about 1915. After later adoption in Alaska (1956), Florida (1968), Wyoming (1968), Illinois (1970), and Mississippi (1992), 26 states have Constitutional provisions for Referendum and/or Initiative. Every state but Delaware requires popular votes on Constitutional amendments, as California did last November to authorize redrawn Congressional districts.

As successful challenges to the power of elected officials, citizen-initiated ballot measures remain controversial. Across all states over more than a century, voters rejected 65% of laws veto referendums, with taxation the most frequent target. Legislatures have raised the bar for success by requiring more signatures on petitions, and the National Conference of State Legislatures has urged for reform and against further adoption. Texas is one of five states west of the Mississippi that lacks any of these civic tools, although city charters often allow their use for ordinances, and Representative Vikki Goodwin, now Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor, has proposed state-level adoption.

References: Initiative, Referendum and Recall introduction. (2024). Oregon Blue Book. Retrieved 5/2/26 from sos.oregon.gov.

National Conference of State Legislatures. (2002). Initiative and Referendum in the 21st Century. Retrieved 5/2/26 from ncsl.org.

States with initiative and referendum. (2026). Ballotpedia. Retrieved 5/1/26 from Ballotpedia. org.