COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio is teed up for a political fight over ballot initiatives this summer, after Republican Ohio lawmakers voted last month to set an Aug. 8 election to make it harder to change the state constitution.

But Ohio is just part of a broader national battle over ballot issues, generally pitting Republican state lawmakers against backers of left-leaning policies, many of which have fared well at the ballot box.

Ohio will be the third state in the past two years to hold a vote on raising its approval threshold for state constitutional amendments from 50% to 60%. Last year, Republican state legislators in Arkansas and South Dakota placed similar measures on the ballot. This year, Missouri nearly became the fourth state to do so —like in Ohio in response to a looming abortion-rights measure — but it unexpectedly failed to follow through before the end of its legislative session.

The fight over ballot issues began to pick up around a decade ago when a coordinated push happened across the country to use the process to expand Medicaid, the government-funded healthcare program for the poor and disabled.

It got hotter in response to progressive criminal-sentencing reform ballot measures across the country, like a 2018 ballot measure in Florida that restored voting-rights to people convicted of certain felonies.

And it’s intensified even more after the U.S. Supreme Court voted last year to overturn Roe v. Wade, setting off a series of abortion-rights related ballot...

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