After direct democracy attacks, MO campaign attempts to force statewide vote
A Missouri law that overturned paid sick leave protections. Statewide ballot questions that have confounded voters of both parties. Lawmakers’ prolonged quest to strike down a historic 2024 vote that legalized abortion rights.
Missouri legislators have over the past several years sought to overhaul the state’s initiative petition process, a more than a century-old form of direct democracy that allows voters to collect signatures and put policy measures to a statewide vote.
Now, a bipartisan, citizen-led campaign is fighting back. Campaigners behind an effort, called Respect MO Voters, on Sunday said they turned in roughly 362,000 signatures to force a statewide vote on a proposed constitutional amendment that seeks to protect the initiative process from legislative attacks.
The proposed amendment, if approved, would sharply restrict lawmakers from overturning voter-approved laws, prohibit legislators from weakening the initiative petition process and enshrine judges’ ability to rewrite misleading ballot questions.
Without a strong initiative process, Missouri voters’ ability to hold their elected officials in check would be weakened, Benjamin Singer, the campaign’s director, said in an interview before Sunday’s signature turn-in event.
“For over a century, the citizen initiative process has allowed Missouri voters to go around partisan gridlock and keep corruption in check,” Singer said.
Endorsements and donations have rolled in from across party lines. Organizations typically aligned with Democrats, such as the Missouri AFL-CIO and environmental groups, have joined a coalition of Republicans, called Conservatives Against Corruption, in supporting the measure.
Sunday’s event at the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office marked the most aggressive response to attacks on the state’s petition process in recent history after a grueling, months-long race to collect signatures across the state. But the campaign’s path to the ballot and voter approval is still uncertain.
Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins and local election officials will now be tasked with verifying whether the campaign collected enough signatures. If verified, the proposed amendment would be placed on the Nov. 3 ballot unless Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe called an earlier election.
The proposal comes at a crucial time in Missouri politics, setting up several chaotic and dueling scenarios. Missouri Republican lawmakers last year placed a separate constitutional amendment on the 2026 ballot that would dramatically overhaul the initiative petition process.
Direct democracy overhaul
That first-in-the-nation plan, called Amendment 4, would make it virtually impossible for most citizen-led constitutional amendments to pass on the ballot.
Currently, initiatives need a simple majority (50% plus one) in order to pass. If Amendment 4 passed, citizen-led constitutional amendments would need to win both majority support statewide and a majority in each of the state’s eight congressional districts to pass.
That threshold would give voters in just one congressional district the power to veto an amendment, no matter how popular the measure is statewide. Missouri would be the only state in the country with such a requirement, called a concurrent majority, according to a review of state ballot measure rules compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The higher threshold would also not apply to state lawmakers. Amendments placed on the ballot by the General Assembly would still only have to receive a simple majority statewide in order to pass.
Republican lawmakers, who control both chambers of the General Assembly, have for years sought to curtail the initiative petition process. Amendment 4, however, represents the most expansive attempt to weaken it in recent memory.
The Republican criticism comes as voters have used the process to pass policies seen as progressive. Lawmakers critical of the process argue that it’s been too easy for voters to amend the Missouri Constitution and that the current process allows outside interest groups to influence elections.
Critics of the petition process often compare the Missouri Constitution to a thick book that can be updated with few hurdles, such as the 39 pages added after voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2022.
“If you want to change the constitution, you should have broad representation throughout the state,” said Rep. Ed Lewis, a Moberly Republican who sponsored the measure that later became Amendment 4.
Kehoe has not yet said whether he plans to move Amendment 4 to the August ballot.
But voter approval of both Amendment 4 and the Respect MO Voters initiative in the same election could result in a series of lengthy legal battles that would decide whether the two opposing measures are in direct conflict with each other.
“I think it’s probably going to take some litigation,” said Chuck Hatfield, a prominent Missouri attorney. “You could have constitutional provisions in conflict. I mean, that’s something the courts are used to dealing with.”
Throughout its decades-long history, the initiative petition process has served as Missouri’s most visible form of direct democracy.
In recent years, petitions have allowed voters to overturn an abortion ban, raise the minimum wage, legalize marijuana, limit tax increases, expand Medicaid and legalize sports betting.
In the wake of those ballot measures, Singer said his campaign ran a statewide survey asking voters how they would like to improve democracy in Missouri. Halting attacks to the initiative petition process was the No. 1 response, he said.
“We are prepared to fight for the voices of Missourians to ensure that the 350,000 Missourians who’ve signed the petition will have their constitutional freedom fulfilled,” Singer said.
