The Ballot Measures That Name Nurses or Decide What They Can Do

Part of Nurses on the Ballot, Nurse.org’s research series tracking verified nurses running for office in 2026. This installment looks at the ballot measures where nurses are named in the question, where the measure defines what nurses can do, or where it funds where nurses train.

The nurse who clocks out at 7 a.m. tomorrow could spend the drive home listening to a political ad and never once hear about the ballot measure that would change what she can do at work. Most national election coverage goes to the top of the ticket. The questions underneath, the ones voters often skip, can decide who gets care, who can give it, and who pays for it.

In our September review of nurses running for state legislatures, we noted that no state is asking voters to decide anything about nursing practice itself this November: no staffing ratios, no scope of practice, no licensure changes. Now looking harder, we found measures in five states where ballot text or official definitions name nurses or the clinicians affected, or where the measure directly funds nursing education. Several more will affect how nurses work; those are at the end.

One of them names nurses in the ballot question itself.

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Many nurses don’t vote. An analysis of Ohio nurses’ voting records across three general elections, published in Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, found that 47.7% voted in all three elections, with about 60% regularly engaged in the electoral process overall. The American Nurses Association and others note that nurses historically vote at lower rates than other social-service professionals like teachers, social workers, and lawyers. The shifts, the exhaustion, the moves between states, the licenses that follow and don’t: all of it adds up. Checking your registration takes about a minute, and most states let you register online.

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Registration deadlines vary by state, and some have already passed. Check your deadline and whether same-day registration is available at Vote.gov.

Virginia’s ballot carries a constitutional amendment on reproductive rights that is the only measure in the country we found that explicitly names nurses. The question asks voters whether to “protect doctors, nurses, and patients from being punished” for decisions about prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion, miscarriage management, and fertility care, with exceptions for the patient’s health and for a pregnancy that cannot survive.

For labor and delivery nurses, postpartum nurses, nurses in women’s health, and nurses who manage miscarriage care, this is the ballot measure most directly about them. (Official ballot text.)

Three states are voting on measures that would extend protections to nurses and other clinicians who provide reproductive care.

• Virginia Question 1, discussed above, is the clearest example: it would protect doctors, nurses, and patients from state penalties for reproductive-care decisions.
• Idaho Proposition One would create a statutory right to abortion before fetal viability, with exceptions for medical emergencies and threats to the patient’s physical health post-viability, and includes liability protections for health care providers. Idaho currently has one of the strictest abortion laws in the country.
• Nevada Question 6 would add a fundamental right to abortion to Nevada’s constitution; the right is defined around care “performed by a qualified healthcare professional.” This is the second of two required votes; Nevada voters passed the same measure in 2024.

These measures touch nurses in labor and delivery, postpartum, women’s health, and reproductive endocrinology directly.

Colorado’s Proposition 135 would prohibit certain surgical procedures on minors intended to alter sex characteristics in response to perceived sex or gender, with exceptions, and would bar state funds, Medicaid reimbursement, and insurance coverage from paying for the covered procedures. The measure’s definition of “health-care professional” expressly includes nurses, meaning nurses would be among the clinicians legally barred from performing or providing the covered procedures. (Official measure.)

Missouri Amendment 3 covers similar ground as part of a broader reproductive-rights amendment, noted below.

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Where Nurses Train: Rhode Island Question 1

Rhode Island Question 1 asks voters to approve $275 million in higher-education bonds. $165 million of that would go to a new Integrated Health Building at the University of Rhode Island that would house nursing education, clinical training, and other health professions. It is the only ballot measure we identified that would directly fund new nursing-education infrastructure. (Official voter guide.)

Several other ballot measures this November may affect nurses through clinic operations, hospital finances, Medicaid, or how pharmaceutical research reaches patients.

• Missouri Amendment 3 would repeal Missouri’s 2024 reproductive-rights amendment and replace it with narrower protections, and would also constitutionally prohibit certain gender-transition procedures for minors, including cross-sex hormones and puberty-blocking drugs, with exceptions.
• California Proposition 40 would impose a one-time tax of up to 5% on certain California taxpayers with more than $1 billion in covered assets, with 90% of the revenue going to health care.
• South Dakota Constitutional Amendment I would make the state’s constitutional obligation to maintain Medicaid expansion conditional on the federal government continuing to fund at least 90% of expansion costs. If that share fell below 90%, the state would no longer be constitutionally required to maintain expansion for the roughly 30,000 South Dakotans currently enrolled through it.
• California Proposition 44 would require covered nonprofit federally qualified health centers to spend at least 90% of revenue on qualifying program services, including patient care, subject to specified exceptions and enforcement provisions.
• California Proposition 38 would authorize $8.4 billion in state general-obligation bonds for immunology and immunotherapy research, with a drug-pricing requirement for California.

We found eleven states with no statewide ballot measures at all this November: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas.

If you live in one of those states, your November 3 ballot is about candidates. State legislative races, local judges, school boards, and city council seats are often where the policies that affect your work actually get decided, which is one reason the nurses on state legislative ballots this year matter. At least 140 are running across 42 states.

Hospital staffing laws, Medicaid eligibility, abortion access, FQHC regulations, nursing-school funding: these aren’t abstract policy debates. They decide what nurses can do at work, how many patients they can have, which patients they may be allowed to care for, and whether the clinic down the road stays open.

Nurses are the largest health profession in the country. There are more than four million registered nurses in the United States, and more than one million licensed practical nurses. Nurses are a substantial voting bloc, and in close elections, participation matters.

Election Day is November 3.

Nurse.org is running a Nurse Voter Survey to capture how nurses are approaching this election. Take two minutes to add your voice, then check your voter registration at Vote.gov. 

More From Nurses on the Ballot

🤔 What’s on your ballot this November, and will you be voting? Tell us in the comments below.

About This Data

We reviewed statewide ballot measures certified for the November 3, 2026 general election in all 50 states and the District of Columbia between September and October 2026, using official state election, legislative, and voter-guide sources. We identified measures where ballot text or official definitions name nurses or the clinicians affected, where the measure would decide what practitioners can do, or where the measure directly funds nursing education. We also noted ballot measures that may  affect nurses indirectly through clinic operations, hospital finances, Medicaid, and pharmaceutical research. If we missed a nursing-related measure on a statewide ballot, tell us; we will verify and add it.

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