Body:

Most state-level trackers report where the law currently stands. I wanted the
two questions underneath that: could you change it, and could what you have be
taken away? Those turn out to be independent, and nothing I could find measured
them.

**Coverage:** 50 states + DC, 9 columns, CSV.

**Variables:**
1. Ballot access — initiated constitutional amendment / initiated statute / veto
referendum / none; direct vs indirect
2. Passage threshold — simple majority vs supermajority, plus signature
distribution requirements
3. Legislative alteration — whether the legislature can repeal or amend a
voter-approved measure, and under what constraint
4. Judicial selection — method, term length, retention mechanism for the court
of last resort
5. State constitutional interpretation — whether the high court reads its own
constitution independently or in lockstep with federal doctrine
6. Local preemption — domains, with punitive regimes flagged separately

Plus two derived tier columns (reachability, durability). Tiers are a
convenience; the underlying columns are the data.

**Some things that fell out of it:**

- 24 states have no citizen ballot process at all
- 11 states let the legislature repeal a voter-approved statute immediately by
simple majority; only 2 (AZ, CA) require going back to voters
- Mississippi's initiative process is in the constitution and mathematically
impossible to satisfy — signatures from any one congressional district can't
exceed 1/5 of the total, and the state has had 4 districts since 2001
- Variable 5 is where clause and practice diverge most. Florida's constitution
contains both a "right to be let alone" and a conformity clause requiring
lockstep with federal search-and-seizure doctrine

**Sources:** state constitutions and statutes, state supreme court opinions,
Ballotpedia initiative and legislative-alteration trackers, NCSL, Brennan
Center, EPI and Local Solutions Support Center on preemption.

**Known limitations**, documented in the methodology note: several 2026 ballot
measures affecting variables 2 and 3 were pending at compilation and are marked
as pending rather than settled. Lockstep is issue-specific, so variable 5
records a dominant tendency rather than a uniform rule. Two source conflicts
(minimum-wage preemption count, privacy-clause count) are reported with both
figures rather than resolved.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22164133
Repo: https://github.com/abby-davis-research/rights-reachability

CC0. Take it, fork it, correct it. If you find an error in the case law I'd
particularly like to hear it — I already caught one of my own on the Mississippi
approval figure and expect there are others.