JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KY3) – On Thursday, the Missouri Senate voted along party lines to approve a resolution which, if voters ultimately sign-off, would create a new threshold for the passage of future citizen-led initiatives.
Under the resolution, an amendment would require both a majority of votes statewide as well as a majority in at least 5 of Missouri’s eight congressional districts, six of which are currently represented by Republicans.
The issue has been a desire of many lawmakers in the majority for several years, but was rocketed to the top of Republican priorities after the overturning of Roe versus Wade.
That monumental decision by the Supreme Court left states scrambling to reckon with their own regulations of the procedure. In Missouri, which now has one of the nation’s most-restrictive abortion bans, the decision mobilized a bipartisan coalition of abortion rights supporters who launched an initiative petition campaign to restore the right in Missouri.
Republicans have said they plan to put their IP resolution on the August ballot in an attempt to make the abortion rights vote a higher hurdle in November.
The chief argument among elected Republicans, particularly those in the Missouri Freedom Caucus, is that the state’s constitution is too vulnerable to out-of-state meddling, asserting that Missouri voters can be easily “hoodwinked” by a well-funded issue campaign.
“Missourians I’m talking to, they want to protect their constitution,” said State Sen. Bill Eigel, who is running for Governor. “They don’t like the idea that these out of state powerful special interests are coming into Missouri, spending a ton of money lying to the people of our state.”
Opponents of the changes have described the policy as more consolidation of political influence to elected leaders in Jefferson City and a rollback of citizen’s voting power.
Benjamin Singer leads the organization Show Me Integrity, a bipartisan coalition that’s fighting the proposed changes to the IP process.
“Politicians and special interests in Jefferson City are trying to take away majority rule and have an attack on the people’s power to hold our leaders accountable through the initiative petition process,” Singer said.
Former finance director for Gov. John Ashcroft and former Mayor of Chesterfield Fred Steinbach is also strongly opposed to the idea of making the IP process more difficult.
“I believe that this is an issue that is taking away the freedom of the people and taking away from one vote one person,” said Steinbach. “I think they are wrong on this issue and I am very frustrated by the fact that they’re trying to trick the people.”
Steinbach referenced a set of provisions that were stacked at the beginning of the IP resolution, including a ban on non-citizens voting – and a ban on foreign contributions to campaigns.
Because those two prohibitions are already in state and federal law, Steinbach and others have called those provisions “ballot candy,” a term which describes a non-controversial provision added to a less-popular one in order to make a resolution appear more attractive to voters.
A series of filibusters by Democratic senators led to those provisions being stripped out of the version which ultimately passed.
Steinbach also pointed to an apparent hypocrisy of the Missouri Freedom Caucus who claim to be restoring power to the people and “draining the Jefferson City swamp,” but are backing a policy which would further consolidate power with elected officials.
“If you do want to drain the swamp, you need to get rid of the people who are trying to prevent the voters from having their say,” Steinbach said. “It’s unfortunate that lobbyists who have access to our elected officials, more so than an individual voter, will try to overly influence that voter and that’s a bad thing.”
“They are actually making the swamp worse, with this deceptive and illegal proposal to concentrate power in politicians hands, we need to stop this attack by the legislature and protect majority rule,” Singer said.
The IP Resolution will now head to the Missouri House of Representatives, which has passed a version of the policy each of the last several sessions.
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