Missouri Republicans push legislation to curb citizens’ petition power

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KFVS) – The crusade by Missouri Republicans to fortify the state’s constitution against citizen-led ballot measures is poised to take a big step.

The Senate Committee on Local Government and Elections is scheduled to hear 12 resolutions Monday afternoon, January 29 each of which is aimed at making it more difficult for Missouri citizens to make changes to the state’s fundamental governing document.

Republican lawmakers thrust the issue to the top of their priority list when a campaign was launched, despite a litany of court challenges, to collect the requisite signatures for an abortion rights question to be placed on November’s ballot.

“At this point where there’s so much at stake, gloves are off, and we’re willing to do whatever it takes to protect life, and to ensure that our constitution is protected,” said state Sen. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville, who is sponsoring one of the resolutions and has been openly critical of the initiative petition as an avenue for direct democracy.

In order to obstruct an increasingly likely ballot measure on abortion rights in November, Republicans said they intend to pass their resolution to put their initiative petition question on the August statewide ballot.

The initiative petition process was utilized by Missouri citizens to legalize recreational marijuana, expand medicaid and overturn the state’s “Right to Work” law.

“Politicians are kept under control of the voters by the citizen initiative process,” said Scott Charton, spokesperson for the political action committee Missourians for Fair Governance. “This is over 100 years time, a good process. It works. It doesn’t need fixing. But politicians want to take away the people’s right to set the agenda and to put laws in place. That’s not right. It shouldn’t be weakened.”

Freddie Steinbach was the finance director for former Gov. John D. Ashcroft’s Finance Director and the first mayor of Chesterfield.

“In 1992, my former boss Governor Ashcroft vetoed similar attacks on the citizen initiative process,” Steinbach said in a press release. “The then-Democratic majority was attacking the will of the people, and trying to make the initiative process more difficult, because the Democrats were bitter that conservatives had been using the citizen initiative, including to pass the Hancock Amendment with only 55% of the vote.”

Steinbach now works as outreach director for Conservatives Against Corruption and plans to speak out against the resolutions before the committee Monday.

“In his veto statement, Governor Ashcroft said, ‘the General Assembly should be reluctant…to enact legislation which places any impediments on the initiative power which are inconsistent with the reservation found in the Constitution.’ I ask that this legislature listen to the advice from our former Governor when considering further legislative action.”

Resolutions to be considered Monday:

SJR 48 – Would require constitutional amendments be approved by a simple majority in a majority of the constitutional districts in the state. This would eliminate the power of “one person, one vote,” by weighting any decision for amending the constitution more heavily on less-populated, rural districts.

SJR 49 – Same as SJR 48 and also bans certain topics from being the subject of an an initiative petition, including raising taxes, reducing money for law enforcements or public education. This also includes a “poison pill” amendment, wherein the entire amendment is automatically deemed unconstitutional if any part of a constitutional amendment is found to be so by a court.

SJR 51 – Same as SJR 48 and also bans tax increases on food sales, real estate and property from being the subject of the IP. Also prohibits foreign governments or political parties from sponsoring IPs, and empowers the general assembly to enforce the rules. Critics say this is merely an avenue for the general assembly to kill whatever initiative petition it doesn’t like.

SJR 56 – Tightens the requirements for how narrow the scope of an IP should be.

SJR 59 – Would require constitutional amendments be approved by a simple majority statewide and a simple majority of the votes cast in a majority of the state senate districts. (SJR 48, 49 & 51 aligned with congressional districts).

SJR 61 – Same as SJR 59, except aligning with state representative districts instead of state senate districts.

SJR 73 – Would impose a litany of new requirements and restrictions for voter-submitted ballot measures, including identification requirements for supporting campaigns, passage thresholds tied to campaign contributions, new bureaucratic steps for reporting contributions. The resolution also creates a public complaint structure as an additional obstacle.

SJR 74 – Same as SJR 48.

SJR 77 – Same as SJR 51.

SJR 79 – Same as SJR 49.

SJR 81 – Same as SJR 51, except aligning with state representative districts instead of congressional districts.

SJR 83 – Same as SJR 49, but without the prohibition on IPs related to reducing spending or raising taxes.

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