Missourians will decide whether to overhaul direct democracy. Inside Amendment 4
Missouri voters will decide in August whether to approve a first-in-the-nation proposal that would make it virtually impossible for citizens to collect signatures and amend the Missouri Constitution.
The proposed constitutional amendment, called Amendment 4, will appear on the Aug. 4 ballot, Gov. Mike Kehoe announced in a highly-anticipated news release on Friday. The measure was one of four items the Republican governor moved from the Nov. 3 election to August.
The proposal takes aim at Missouri’s century-old petition process, the state’s most visible form of direct democracy that allows citizens to collect signatures and put policy measures to a statewide vote.
The process, in recent years, has allowed Missourians to bypass the state legislature and overturn an abortion ban, increase the minimum wage, legalize marijuana, limit tax increases, expand Medicaid and legalize sports betting.
Republican lawmakers, who control both chambers of the General Assembly, have for years sought to tighten the process, arguing that it is too easy for voters to amend the state Constitution. But Amendment 4 represents the most expansive attempt to weaken it in recent history.
“If you want to change the constitution, you should have broad representation throughout the state,” Rep. Ed Lewis, a Moberly Republican who sponsored the measure that later became Amendment 4, previously told The Star.
Currently, initiative petitions need a simple majority (50% plus one vote) in order to pass. Under Amendment 4, citizen-led constitutional amendments would need to win majority support statewide and also win a majority in every one of the state’s eight congressional districts.
On both conservative and liberal-leaning policy measures, that threshold would give voters in just one congressional district the power to veto an amendment, no matter how popular it is statewide.
Missouri would be the only state in the country with such a requirement, which is often called a concurrent majority, according to a list of state ballot measure rules compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The 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.
A host of groups have lined up against the proposal. Opponents frame the measure as a broader attack on democracy and an attempt to hand state lawmakers more power over state policies.
Scott Charton, a spokesperson for Missourians for Fair Governance, a group opposing the measure, said on Friday that it “violates the principle of one person, one vote.”
“Amendment 4 would effectively kill the century-old citizen initiative petition process and majority rule in Missouri,” Charton said.
