Frank White vetoes ballot measures ‘dramatically’ raising elected officials’ pay

County Executive Frank White this week vetoed ballot language for a set of proposed changes to the Jackson County charter that would impose term limits on elected officials and “dramatically increase” the salaries for some of them.

The county legislature could override the veto at its regular Monday meeting, so the measures still could be put to voters in November’s general election. An override requires a two-third majority.

The ordinance putting the measures on the ballot passed 6 to 3 on Aug. 13, signaling that an override is achievable, unless one member of the majority changes his or her position.

But even if an override succeeds, there could be a court challenge.

White laid out the basis for one in his veto message, which singled out the proposed pay raises for criticism, while reserving judgment on the value of term limits.

But White based his veto Thursday not on any one issue but instead on what he said was the legislature’s failure to accomplish what it set out to do in passing an ordinance that he called “misleading, inaccurate and requires voters to consider unrelated proposals in numerous questions.”

For instance, the way the charter changes are written, a voter who favors term limits and new ethical restrictions on legislators would also be approving a big pay raise for them if he or she voted yes on that question. And the same would hold for other office holders, as well, in three other proposals.

The Missouri Supreme Court calls such package deals “legal fraud,” White said, because they commit the “vice of doubleness.”

But even if the ballot measures were separated and voters were better able to pick and choose, White said the ballot language is rife with unintended loopholes.

Term limits is a prime example, he said. The ballot measures say that no elected official may “serve more than ... two consecutive full terms” on the legislature or as county executive, and three terms for sheriff and prosecutor.

But the language says nothing about how many times one can be elected. White said that conceivably an official could be elected to a third term and be able to serve it, too, simply by resigning from office one day shy of finishing the second of two consecutive full terms.

The legislature, therefore, “failed to include enforceable term limits in this proposal,” White said.

The next move belongs to legislators. The deadline for putting something on the ballot is 5 p.m. Tuesday.

This story was originally published August 23, 2018 at 6:19 PM.