| Campaign Legal Center |
Campaign Legal Center and its clients successfully defended a citizen-led ballot initiative introducing ranked choice voting and semi-open primaries in the District. In April 2025, Campaign Legal Center intervened in a lawsuit on behalf of Initiative 83’s proposer Lisa D. T. Rice and Grow Democracy DC to defend the initiative against meritless legal challenges. If successful, those legal challenges would have undermined the will of D.C. voters, who approved Initiative 83 overwhelmingly. But instead, in a victory for the people of the District, the court has rejected baseless challenges brought by partisan actors against Initiative 83, confirming that the initiative’s provisions do not violate District or federal law. The June primary is already well underway and will be conducted using ranked choice voting for the first time in the District.
”Give a voice to residents
“I proposed Initiative 83 to bring much-needed inclusion in D.C. elections and give a voice to residents in the District who have been significantly disenfranchised. Tens of thousands of independent voters in D.C., like me, have been left without a voice in the District’s closed partisan primary elections,” said Lisa D. T. Rice, CEO of Grow Democracy DC. “Initiative 83’s meaningful pro-democracy changes, including ranked choice voting, are straightforward and bring more inclusive opportunities for participation and more representative outcomes to our elections. Now, it is time for the D.C. Council to deliver a democracy that belongs to the people and fully fund semi-open primaries, just as it has already funded Initiative 83’s ranked choice voting provisions.”