Indirect initiated constitutional amendment

Ballot Basics
Amendments
Citizen initiatives Indirect initiative Legislative referrals
Statutes
Citizen initiatives Indirect initiative Legislative referrals
Advisory question
Automatic ballot referral
Bond issue
Combined
Commission referred
Recall
Veto referendum

An Indirect initiated constitutional amendment is when constitutional amendments proposed by citizens through initiative do not go immediately to the ballot after a successful petition drive to collect sufficient valid signatures to qualify the measure.

Rather, once the signatures are collected, the amendment that the citizens are proposing must first be submitted to the state legislature for consideration. Only after the state legislature has considered and possibly also taken a limited range of options open to it that may affect the amendment does it go on the statewide ballot for consideration by the voters.

At present, there are only two states that make use of the indirect initiative amendment process: Massachusetts and Mississippi.

Other types of ballot measures

Other types of ballot measures that appear in multiple states are:

advisory question automatic ballot referral legislatively-referred bond question combined initiated constitutional amendment and state statute

commission referral indirect initiated constitutional amendment indirect initiated state statute initiated constitutional amendment

initiated state statute legislatively-referred constitutional amendment legislatively-referred state statute veto referendum

Some related terms:

ballot measure Constitutional convention

Indirect initiative Legislative referral

See also

• Forms of direct democracy in the American states