JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) \u2014 Over the past several years, Missouri voters have amended the state constitution to create abortion rights, legalize marijuana and sports betting and expand Medicaid healthcare coverage for low-income adults.<\/p>\n
None of those initiatives would have passed under a ballot measure getting decided by voters Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Missouri’s proposed Amendment 4 would make it significantly harder to amend the constitution by requiring citizen initiatives<\/a> to pass in all eight of the state’s diverse congressional districts instead of by a traditional, simple statewide majority. No other state has such a high standard \u2014 or has even asked voters to consider it.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a first-of-its-kind,\u201d said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, a national group that backs progressive ballot initiatives like the ones Missouri’s Republican lawmakers are hoping to quelch.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be nearly impossible for citizens to participate meaningfully in any sort of direct democracy,\u201d said Hall, who believes other states could try to copy Missouri’s proposal.<\/p>\n Lawmakers seek to rein in citizen initiatives<\/p>\n The Missouri proposal is the culmination of years of attempts<\/a> by lawmakers in numerous states to raise the bar for citizen-initiated petitions<\/a> to qualify for the ballot and win voter approval. Some elected officials contend lawmaking is best left to themselves \u2014 the people’s representatives \u2014 because citizen initiatives lack the vetting that comes from the multistep legislative process of public hearings, debates and revisions.<\/p>\n The effort to curtail citizen initiatives on state ballots comes as President Donald Trump pushes for greater restrictions<\/a> on who can vote and how ballots are cast, asserting the integrity of elections is at stake.<\/p>\n Missouri\u2019s measure \u201cfits into the larger narrative and story around what the future of democracy looks like in the United States,\u201d said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which supports progressive ballot measures.<\/p>\n Citizen initiatives are allowed only in some states<\/p>\n About one-third of U.S. states allow people to bypass their legislatures by gathering signatures<\/a> to place proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot. Several others allow the process for proposed laws.<\/p>\n In most of those states, a simple majority of voters is all that\u2019s needed to approve constitutional amendments. Colorado requires a 55% vote for most measures, and Florida a 60% vote.<\/p>\n Voters in recent years rejected ballot measures to raise the approval threshold for amendments in Arkansas, Ohio and South Dakota. Still, South Dakota lawmakers have placed a proposal for a 60% approval threshold on the November ballot. North Dakota voters will consider a similar measure, and Utah voters will decide on a 60% requirement for citizen-initiated tax increases.<\/p>\n Missouri\u2019s proposal would apply only to citizen initiatives. Constitutional amendments proposed by the Legislature still would need only a statewide majority. No other state has a dual standard like that.<\/p>\n Missouri proposal requires geographic consensus<\/p>\n Republican state Rep. Ed Lewis, who sponsored Missouri’s measure, said he wants to ensure people in all parts of the state have their voices heard. He said activists funded by out-of-state interest groups have run up large majorities in St. Louis and Kansas City to pass controversial initiatives that failed throughout most of the rest of Missouri.<\/p>\n The abortion, marijuana, sports betting and Medicaid initiatives all were placed on the ballot by petitions between 2020 and 2024 after lawmakers declined to act. All passed with 53% or less of the statewide vote.<\/p>\n Requiring \u201c50% in each of our congressional districts is not a difficult barrier for anything that has a consensus,\u201d Lewis said. But \u201cit is a difficult barrier for either a very conservative or a very liberal initiative petition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re going to change the constitution, shouldn\u2019t it be broadly accepted?\u201d Lewis asked rhetorically.<\/p>\n Amendments to the U.S. Constitution require ratification by three-fourths of the states.<\/p>\n Critics say Missouri’s proposed amendment could undercut consensus, because an initiative backed by large margins in seven congressional districts still would fail if opposed by a slim margin in just one district.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is an astonishing level of unfairness, and it crushes our notion of one person, one vote and majority rule, which we learned about in school as kids,\u201d said Scott Charton, a spokesperson for the Missouri Realtors campaign committees, which have backed previous initiatives.<\/p>\n Republicans are divided over initiative restrictions<\/p>\n Though Amendment 4 was referred to the ballot by Republican lawmakers, people at a recent Republican club meeting in Jefferson City were divided about whether to make it harder for citizens to amend the state constitution.<\/p>\n Rick Kolb said he supports the tougher standards.<\/p>\n \u201cOur country was founded as a republic not a democracy,\u201d he said. When initiatives appear on the ballot, \u201ceverybody votes on these things that they haven\u2019t put any thought into it.\u201d<\/p>\n But Jim Bryan said he opposes the amendment, fearing it could allow voters in St. Louis or Kansas City to thwart measures supported by the rest of the state.<\/p>\n \u201cThe popular vote is what I want,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A new petition could fortify citizen initiatives<\/p>\n Regardless of the outcome, Tuesday’s vote may not be the last on Missouri’s citizen initiatives.<\/p>\n The Respect Missouri Voters coalition<\/a> submitted more than 300,000 petition signatures \u2014 currently being verified by election officials \u2014 to try to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot protecting the initiative process. It would reverse the Legislature’s amendment by requiring only a statewide majority to pass citizen initiatives. It also would bar the Legislature from increasing the number of signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, shortening the time to do so or imposing other requirements that weaken initiative rights.<\/p>\n The measure also would make it harder for the Legislature to reverse or amend voter-approved initiatives by requiring an 80% vote in both the House and Senate instead of a simple majority. That comes after the Legislature last year repealed a paid sick leave law<\/a> approved by voters and referred a new constitutional amendment to the November ballot to reverse voter-approved abortion rights<\/a>.<\/p>\n Supporters insist their measure is nonpartisan, noting that Democratic lawmakers also tried to restrict citizen initiatives before Republicans gained control of the Capitol.<\/p>\n \u201cPoliticians in power want all the power in their hands,\u201d said Benjamin Singer, co-founder of Respect Missouri Voters. \u201cThey don\u2019t want citizens to have a check on their power.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) \u2014 Over the past several years, Missouri voters have amended the state constitution to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,2724,6747,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-795847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-associated-press","tag-missouri","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}