Power to the people: The effectiveness of ballot measures in advancing early care and education

Access to affordable, high-quality child care is critical to women’s ability to participate and be productive in the paid labor force and essential to their children’s development and well-being. Nonetheless, high-quality child care is too often unaffordable or simply unavailable, and the public investment needed to address these problems has been insuffi cient. Th us, advocates are always on the lookout for successful ideas and strategies that can preserve and expand hard-won investments in early care and education and after-school (ECE/AS) programs.

Increasingly, ECE/AS advocates from Seattle, Washington to the state of Florida have taken their case directly to the public—in the form of ballot initiatives and referendums. But are ballot measures an effective way to advance the ECE/AS agenda? And if so, how can advocates maximize their chances for success? Th is report analyzes ECE/AS ballot measures as a group to assess whether some proposals are more successful on the ballot than others, evaluate the accomplishments of the winners and their success in increasing ECE/AS investments over the long term, weigh how these accomplishments stack up against the costs of achieving them, and compare some of the advantages and disadvantages of ballot measures with legislation. It concludes that ballot campaigns can be an effective strategy for ECE/AS advocates and provides lessons from past ballot campaigns that can enhance the chances that a ballot measure will be successful, both on election day and beyond.