In 2006, voters in 37 states faced a total of 203 state ballot initiatives and supporters and opponents of these measures raised and spent more than $350 million. Many ballot initiatives were sponsored and supported by labor unions, and often they received help from the little-known Washington, D.C.-based Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which quietly provides assistance in promoting ballot initiative campaigns in states where the initiative process exists. But the Center plays another increasingly important role for Big Labor and its allies. It devises tactics for blocking ballot initiatives by union opponents using aggressive methods.
