Daniel Nichanian (Bolts Magazine)

Yet another profile of Republican efforts to make direct democracy more difficult in states where it has been used for initiatives–such as raising the minimum wage–that reflect public opinion more closely than the party’s current platform.

Oklahoma “has the nation’s shortest window of time for collecting the tens of thousands of signatures needed to qualify citizen-led measures—just 90 days, compared to other states with ballot initiatives, which all give canvassers 180 days or more.”

Now, it is adding to that a variety of other constraints, making it more challenging to get measures onto the ballot, from geographic signature requirements to “mandating that ballot campaigns file weekly reports about their finances” and requiring “anyone who signs a petition to attest that they’ve read its entire text, or had it read to them.”

Proponents say the measure is meant to “empower rural areas,” enabling them to check the power of numbers (“the urban elites in Oklahoma City and Tulsa”).