The people of Mississippi should have the power to amend the state’s constitution.

Mississippi legislators on Monday allowed a measure to restore the state’s ballot initiative process to die on the calendar, making 2024 the third year in a row the people of Mississippi are likely to be denied their constitutional right.

The state’s ballot initiative process, introduced in 1993, allowed voters to propose amendments to the state constitution through a petition process. The process was far from easy, requiring signatures of 12% of voters from the last gubernatorial race — about 106,000 today — with an equal number from each of the state’s five congressional districts.

A successful petition would place the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot for voters statewide to either approve or deny. In the 27 years the initiative process was in place, just seven petitions completed the journey to the ballot box and, of those, just three were passed by voters.

The state Supreme Court in 2021 declared the ballot initiative process invalid due to the requirement signatures come from all five congressional districts. Due to population decline, Mississippi lost a congressional district in the 2000 census and now has just four districts. The language in the law, however, was never updated, and justices ruled that was reason enough to make the ballot initiative defunct.

Since then, the state Legislature has in 2022, 2023 and 2024 proclaimed its support for restoring the ballot initiative process and giving voters back their power. When the time comes to do so, however, legislators don’t seem to be as keen to take action.

The ballot initiative is a vital tool for Mississippi voters as it gives ordinary people the power to keep their elected representatives in check. While the process is long, complicated and often ends in failure, voters, up until 2021, had the option to circumvent the political hobnobbing at the Capitol and enact changes legislators were either unable or unwilling to carry out.

Bills introduced so far to restore the process have sharply limited voters’ power by limiting changes made via petition to legislation and not the constitution as it was previously. The change has been billed as a way to help avoid unforeseen complications as changes to legislation are done each year by elected officials while constitutional amendments must be approved by voters.

While the difficulty in updating constitutional amendments is a valid point, giving legislators unfettered power to modify or revoke changes made through the initiative process defeats the point of having a ballot initiative at all.

This year’s proposal would further limit voters’ power by excluding abortion rights, or lack thereof, from the purview of future ballot initiative efforts.

Mississippi’s Legislature has never been a champion for accountability, and the ballot initiative process was one way voters could enact change when their elected officials failed to represent their best interests.

The fight to restore that right would make a great ballot initiative.