Missourians will vote in November on whether to hold a state constitutional convention
Since the start of 2003, Missouri voters have amended the state constitution 26 times.
They approved a mix of conservative and liberal ideas that include making English the state’s official language, prohibiting same-sex marriage, legalizing medical marijuana and expanding Medicaid eligibilty. The conservative ideas generally flow from the Republican-led General Assembly; the liberal proposals often take the initiative petition route.
But nearly 1,750 proposals never reached the ballot, victims of legislative inaction or failure during the expensive and time-consuming chore of gathering signatures.
How would a Missouri constitutional convention work?
This fall, voters have a once-in-20-years chance to bypass both the General Assembly and the initiative petition process. Because of an automatic referendum clause, voters in the Nov. 8 election will be asked if Missouri should hold a Constitutional Convention, with power to submit an entirely new constitution or a series of amendments.
If the convention is approved, it will set off a potentially heated fight to shape the convention’s outcome. Sixty-eight delegates would be chosen in state senate district elections and 15 nonpartisan at-large delegates by statewide vote.
The power of a Constitutional Convention is beyond the reach of the governor or the legislature. No veto can block its work and no sanction is needed from lawmakers. The limit will be any idea supported by a majority of the 83 delegates that doesn’t violate the U.S. Constitution.
The current constitution is in need of revision, said Bob Priddy, who retired after a career as news director for Missourinet and is past president of the State Historical Society Board of Trustees.
“In the last 20 years,” Priddy said, “there has been a lot of stuff added to the constitution that shouldn’t be there.”
The state constitution approved by voters in February 1945 was just under 27,000 words long. An amendment protecting stem cell research, added by initiative in 2006, was about 2,000 words long. The medical marijuana amendment, another initiative approved in 2018, is almost 8,000 words.
The thought of bypassing both regular paths to constitutional revision is an attractive idea, said former state archivist and historian Ken Winn. But the divisive nature of current politics makes him question if now is the time.
“A constitutional convention right in the middle of a culture war would bring out ideologues of all stripes, and you would have the fiercest political strife,” Winn said. “Everybody with an agenda would be trying to write their ideas into the constitution.”
The 77 years since the current constitution was enacted is the longest period in state history without a new document.
The automatic referendum is similar to that used in 13 other states. Since the adoption of the 1945 Constitution, Missourians have voted three times, in 1962, 1982 and 2002, on the question of whether to hold a convention.
The “yes” side on the last vote was less than 35%.
Initiative overhaul
Legislation on a fast track in the Missouri House would make it harder to put initiatives proposing constitutional amendments on the ballot and require a supermajority of voters to approve them.
State Rep. Mike Henderson, R- Bonne Terre, wants to require petitioners to collect signatures from 10% of the registered voters in all eight congressional districts. To become part of the constitution, two-thirds of voters would have to agree.
Currently, an initiative proposing a constitutional amendment needs signatures from 8% of registered voters in two-thirds of the state’s congressional districts. That is the standard chosen by lawmakers who offered initiatives as a constitutional amendment in 1908.
Henderson’s proposal could be debated as early as this week in the Missouri House. If passed in both chambers, it would become part of the constitution on a simple majority vote, as has every other amendment — and full constitution — considered favorably by voters.
Because the constitution can only be changed by a vote, putting an initiative idea in the constitution protects it from lawmakers who may not like the policy enacted. That played out last year on Medicaid expansion, when the General Assembly tried not to fund it, and in 2020 on legislative redistricting, with lawmakers sending a successful proposal to the ballot to gut an initiative passed in 2018.
Requiring a supermajority to approve constitutional amendments would make Missouri just the seventh state to have a threshold higher than a simple majority.
“We have one of the easiest procedure processes in the country for amending our constitution,” Henderson said during a January hearing on his proposal.
If passed as written, Henderson’s proposal would increase the number of signatures needed to qualify a constitutional amendment for the ballot by 75%, from just over 170,000 to a little more than 300,000.
During a Jan. 26 hearing on a similar proposal, lobbyist Sam Licklider of the Missouri Realtors Association said getting an initiative to the ballot is not easy.
“You don’t just wake up one morning and say I am going to amend the constitution,” Licklider said. “Well, you can, but you will fail.”
The Realtors sponsored two of the successful initiatives of the past 20 years — banning taxation of real property sales in 2010 and barring expansion of the state sales tax to services in 2016.
It is a time-consuming, expensive process, Licklider said.
“You have got to have a fairly large, robust organization in order to get through all of the pitfalls that are there right now,” he said.
The House Elections and Elected Officials Committee was hearing a proposal from state Rep. David Evans, R-West Plains, that would, along with making changes similar to Henderson’s legislation, prohibit people who don’t live in Missouri from working as petition circulators.
“Many people in this state believe that there are special interest groups outside the state of Missouri funding many of those,” Evans said.
State Rep. Joe Adams, D-University City, told Evans that proposals making it harder to petition for an amendment are a reaction to ideas Republicans don’t like.
“I see these ideas as a way to prevent citizens from getting a change,” Adams said.
The upcoming vote
The provision sending voters the question of whether to hold a constitutional convention is obscure enough that some political operatives who started working since the last vote don’t know about it.
One Republican consultant said it was the first they had heard about it “and if it ever happened it could be a huge game changer for everything we’ve been working on. If you really want to change Missouri, this is the way you do it.”
The consultant asked to be anonymous because they may be asked to take sides if a campaign develops.
It isn’t listed yet on the ballot measures certified for the November ballot, but Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has months before that routine action must be taken.
State Rep. Peggy McGauh, R-Carrollton and former clerk of Carroll County, said she thinks it is time for a convention.
“We need a constitution that will help us move forward,” said McGaugh, who is vice-chair of the elections committee.
But voters need education on what they are voting on, she said.
“What I remember is massive confusion” in 2002, she said.
A convention would consider everything about how the state is governed. Along with a Bill of Rights and stating the qualifications, power and limitations on state officials, the constitution organizes the executive branch, describes the organization of local governments, states who is eligible to vote and directs when elections occur.
There are articles on education, taxation, corporations and the process of amendment.
And, Winn said, it is loaded down with policy directives like medical marijuana and campaign contribution limits that in the past were done by statute, mainly because of mistrust of the legislature.
“The 1945 constitution is a mess in that there have been a lot of amendments to it and it has grown like Topsy,” Winn said.
Adams, a retired history professor, agrees with Winn that the time is not ripe for a constitutional convention because of the bitterness and factionalism in modern politics.
“I’m fearful of who would be in that convention,” Adams said. “Being a representative and seeing some of the ideas that have floated around as possibilities, I’m fearful that that convention could be stacked and we could have a very strange document coming down.”