Editing Popular initiative (section)

==== United States ====
{{Main|Initiatives and referendums in the United States}}
{{cn span|In the [[United States]], a popular vote on a measure is referred to as a [[referendum]] only when aiming at allowing or repealing an act passed by a state legislature. An initiative may be called a "[[ballot measure]]", "initiative measure", or "proposition".|date=May 2013}}

The United States has no initiative process at the national level, but the initiative is in use at the level of state government in 24 states and the [[List of District of Columbia ballot measures|District of Columbia]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.iandrinstitute.org/statewide_i%26r.htm |title=State by state listing of where initiatives and referendums are used |publisher=Iandrinstitute.org |access-date=2011-01-31 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160211180917/http://www.iandrinstitute.org/statewide_i%26r.htm |archive-date=2016-02-11 }}</ref> and is also in common use at the local government level.

[[Article One of the United States Constitution|Article I, Section I]] of the [[United States Constitution]] [[Vesting Clause|vests]] "all legislative powers herein granted" to the [[United States Congress|Congress of the United States]].<ref>United States Constitution, Article I, Section I</ref> Establishing a national initiative procedure would likely require an [[List of amendments to the United States Constitution|amendment to the Constitution]], which would under [[Article Five of the United States Constitution|Article V]] require two-thirds of both houses of Congress or the application of two-thirds of the [[State legislature (United States)|state legislatures]] to propose, and three-fourths of all state legislatures (or conventions in three-fourths of the [[U.S. state|states]]) to ratify. The Constitution itself, pursuant to [[Article VII of the United States Constitution|Article VII]], was ratified by state conventions rather than by a referendum.

Several proposals have been made to institute a national referendum. The [[Ludlow Amendment]], introduced several times to the [[US House of Representatives|House of Representatives]] by [[Louis Ludlow]] of [[Indiana]] between 1935 and 1940, proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would require a national referendum to [[declare war]] except in the case of invasion or attack. The amendment came closest to overcoming a [[discharge petition]] on January 10, 1938, when it was defeated in the House by a vote of 209 to 188, short of the two-thirds vote required for its passage.

Unsuccessful attempts to get initiatives have nevertheless occurred, but since the proposals were bills, not constitutional amendments, no initiative could probably have lawfully been voted on notwithstanding the bills' passage. The first attempt to get national ballot initiatives occurred in 1907 when House Joint Resolution 44 was introduced by Rep. [[Elmer Fulton]] of [[Oklahoma]]; the proposal was never put to a vote. In 1977, both the Abourezk-Hatfield National Voter Initiative and the Jagt Resolutions never got out of committee. Senator [[Mike Gravel]] was part of that effort.

The modern system of [[initiatives and referendums in the United States]] originated in the state of [[South Dakota]], which adopted initiatives and referendums in 1898 by a popular vote of 23,816 to 16,483. [[Oregon]] was the second state to adopt and did so in 1902, when the [[Oregon Legislative Assembly]] adopted it by an overwhelming majority. The "Oregon System", as it was at first known, subsequently spread to many other states, and became one of the signature reforms of the [[Progressive Era]] (1890s–1920s). Almost every state currently in the union utilizes some sort of State Question or Initiative. A contemporary issue that is commonly decided through this method is the [[Timeline of cannabis laws in the United States|legalization of marijuana]].