MINIMUM WAGE. Increasing the minimum wage is an easy way to get more money in the pockets of people who need it the most, especially in states with low wages and low costs of living. Arkansas, for instance, raised its minimum wage to $8.50 an hour by 2017, even at the same time as they were turning out Mark Pryor by double digits—Issue 5 passed overwhelmingly, 66-34. In Alaska, Measure 3 passed 69-31, increasing the minimum wage to $9.75 by 2016.

In Nebraska, Initiative 425 passed 59-41, raising the minimum wage to $9 by 2016. In South Dakota, Measure 18 passed 55-45, raising the minimum wage to $8.50 in 2015 with inflation-adjusted increases annually after that. And in Illinois, a legislatively referred advisory vote in favor of raising the minimum wage to $10 passed 66-34, although now it's not clear whether it'll clear the legislature (despite having Democratic supermajorities in both chambers) because of a few conservaDem holdouts. (Illinois does allow the initiative process, so if it doesn't pan out this time, it's a strong argument in favor of trying bypassing the legislature entirely next time, not just in Illinois, but in other states as well.)

GUNS. There was some worry that Washington might pass two contradictory measures after gun rights activists filed a vaguely worded competing measure to try and thwart an initiative to require stricter background checks. In the end, though, Washingtonians figured out the difference between the two, passing universal background checks in Initiative 594, 59-41, and defeating Initiative 591, which would have prevented implementing new background checks, 45-54. The gun issue is a prime example of one where legislators wouldn't touch the issue with a 10-foot pole, but where NRA pressure doesn't mean anything to the electorate as a whole ... and 59 percent is actually a very good margin in Washington, which, despite its blue-state status is still a western state with fairly high gun ownership rates.

PERSONHOOD. The "personhood" issue is one of the last gasps of social conservatives to try to use ballot measures to their advantage, but it's one where they're having trouble succeeding even in red states (you might recall that several years ago, a "personhood" amendment even failed in Mississippi, probably the most tailor-made state for that kind of thing). This year, it failed not only in the swing state of Colorado, with Amendment 67 going down 35-65, but even in the red state of North Dakota, where polls had previously shown it passing. In North Dakota, not only did Measure 1 fail 36-64, but its Republican sponsor got bounced out of her dark-red state Senate seat.

The only place where an anti-abortion measure passed was Tennessee, but this wasn't a "personhood" amendment at all—it was simply a legislatively referred measure clarifying that the legislature has the power to enact statutes about abortion, which still passed only 53-47 in this heavily evangelical state. (This being Tennessee, though, you can probably guess what direction the legislature is going to move in.)

ENVIRONMENT. You typically think of Alaska as being a gung-ho pro-extraction state, but Alaskans have their limits too. (Especially when it's framed as a fight between two different extractors, and the fishermen in Bristol Bay come across as a more sympathetic bunch than the mining companies.) Measure 4, which passed 65-35, allows the legislature to prohibit mining projects that will interfere with salmon fisheries.

In Oregon, Measure 92 would require the labeling of genetically modified foods. This measure looked like it had failed on Election Day, but (as is often the case in vote-by-mail states, where the ballots submitted last tend to be the most liberal) the late-counted votes broke strongly in its favor and the measure is currently trailing only by 1,500 votes, with a recount likely.

MARIJUANA. Here's perhaps the ultimate topic that no legislature would ever do anything about, but, when the issue is put into people's hands, they'll do the right thing. Alaska and Oregon joined Colorado and Washington in the ranks of the states allowing recreational use of marijuana. Alaska's Measure 2 passed 52-48, while Oregon's Measure 91 passed 56-44 (after a similar measure failed in 2012, thanks to, ironically, a lazy and disorganized campaign in favor of it). Washington, D.C., also legalized marijuana use, via Initiative 71, which passed 70-30.

The trailing-edge issue of medical marijuana was on the ballot in Florida, where Amendment 2 failed 58-42. If you're wondering how something can fail with 58 percent of the vote, Florida has a cumbersome requirement requiring 60 percent of the vote to pass an initiative.

VOTING. As I'll get to shortly, the initiative process offers one of the best venues for Democrats to fight back against Republican attempts to make it harder for people to vote. Two states passed measures along these lines in 2014, although they're both kind of "meh" in terms of their actual effects. In New York, voters approved a redistricting commission via Proposal 1, which passed 57-43. This is only a "bipartisan" commission, consisting of members appointed by the state legislative leaders, not a truly "independent" commission a la California or Arizona, so we might not see much change from the existing maps; it's not a good-government effort so much as an effort by Andrew Cuomo and his moderate Republican legislative allies to preserve the status quo. And in Illinois, the people overwhelmingly passed a "Right to Vote" amendment, 73-27. This amendment, however, is as vague as possible, but it's clearly intended to be a foot in the door to prevent imposition of onerous voter ID laws.

Oregon also turned down a move to join its neighbors, Washington and California, in the silly realm of the open Top 2 primary. In fact, the margin was huge, with Measure 90 failing 32-68. It's not clear to me whether the supporters just ran a lousy campaign, or if Oregonians got an earful from friends and family in neighboring states who are expressing some buyer's remorse about the switch to the Top 2.

GRAB BAG. One of the most important initiatives of 2014 was California's Proposition 47, which passed 59-41. This measure reclassified most non-serious property and drug crimes from felony to misdemeanor. Not only is it good policy in terms of saving the state huge amounts of money on incarcerating nonviolent offenders, but this could kick-start broader moves in sentencing reform across the country. Two other measures in California failed in the face of strong insurance company opposition, though. Measure 45, which would have required notice and approval for insurance rate changes, failed 41-59, and Measure 46 which would have raised caps on non-economic damages in medical malpractice suits, failed 33-67.

Washington's Initiative 1351 still hasn't been called yet, but appears to have passed 50.2-49.8. This is a sweeping set of limits on class size, limiting K-3 classes to a maximum of 17 students and grades 4-12 classes to 25, which would result in the hiring of more than 15,000 teachers statewide. The funding mechanism, however, is unclear from the ballot's language, probably leaving this one to die of neglect in the Republican-controlled state Senate.

One initiative that flew under the radar, but may have been one of the most consequential, was Maine's Question 1, which failed 47-53. This measure would have banned certain bear-hunting practices, like use of baits and traps. Some observers think this actually drove turnout more so than the hotly contested gubernatorial election, and the rural turnout that it drove may have contributed to Republican Paul LePage's surprising re-election.

WHAT NEXT? If economic populism isn't going to come around through Congress or the state legislatures, it's clear that the initiative process is one route to push that. Minimum wage, in states that haven't increased it yet, is the most obvious tip of the spear. But the initiative process could be used to protect or restore collective bargaining rights. And although it's a tough sell, it could even be used to create new sources of revenue. (Though that requires some caution about when you try it—activists in Washington, for instance, tried to create a high-income income tax by initiative in 2010. Unfortunately, given the nature of that particular year, it failed, leaving supporters gun-shy about trying again. That's the kind of proposal that might benefit from being timed to coincide with presidential-year turnout.)

As I said above, gun safety regulations and marijuana are two issues that legislatures simply aren't going to touch, and those are the issues for which going directly to the people through the initiative process is the clearest route to enacting policies that we want. But we should start thinking outside the box, about other big-picture issues where there's a big gap between what the people want and what the legislature and governor want. How about making the Affordable Care Act work smoother and expanding who it reaches? That could mean initiatives to force Medicaid expansion or state-level exchange creation in the red states, or maybe even creation of a state-level "public option"-type system in blue states that would drive down costs and force insurers to be more competitive. Again, that's a big sell, but if it's framed as a state-specific improvement (like the successful "KyNect" framing in Kentucky) instead of in terms of the ACA, then it might well work.

But where this could really have the biggest effect—in terms of jump-starting Democratic efforts to retake the U.S. House, especially—would be by using the initiative process to fight for people's ability to vote, and have their votes truly count. Partly, that could mean initiatives that are proactive efforts to limit Republican legislative attempts to impose overly difficult voter ID requirements or protect other aspects of the voting system that are Democrat-friendly, like early voting periods or requiring certain numbers of polling places per population. It could also mean using the initiative process to move more states to vote-by-mail (which, if the recent experience in Oregon is any indication, is one of the best ways to encourage high turnout and good electoral results even in off years).

And most significantly, it's an opportunity to end gerrymandering, by creating truly independent redistricting commissions and taking the redistricting process away from state legislatures. Unfortunately, a lot of the states where the map is the screwiest are the ones where there is no initiative process whatsoever (like North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), but the initiative process is available in Florida, Michigan, and Ohio. Getting independent commissions in these states (not just the "Fair Districts" initiative in Florida, which had only a token effect) should be an absolute top priority for Democrats, and with those states controlled by GOP-held legislatures, the initiative process is the only way that can happen. (Activists attempted this in 2012 in Ohio, but the initiative failed, partly because of a poorly-financed campaign because of a terrible-sounding ballot description crafted by the Republican Secretary of State.)

The initiative process is also a way we could make other key electoral changes that could help us partly avoid the midterm turnout problem in general, like moving those same key states' gubernatorial races from midterm years to presidential years. (Or ... this is kind of meta, but in Florida, we could use the initiative process to reduce the initiative approval rate to a simple 50-percent majority, undoing the 2006 move by the GOP-controlled legislature to make the initiative process more difficult.)

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, not every state allows the initiative process. Only 24 truly allow initiatives, with two (Maryland and New Mexico) allowing the public to initiate a veto referendum, but not allowing the public to propose new legislation. (At the top of the article, you can see a map of which states do allow initiatives.) So that's one more avenue for pressure: putting pressure on the state legislatures in the states that don't allow the initiative process to change the state constitution to allow it.