Confused by Amendment 3 on Missouri ballot? Here’s what you need to know before voting
Down a ways on the Missouri ballot, one measure will resemble something voters took up a couple of years ago.
Amendment 3 to the Missouri constitution, if passed, promises to ban gifts to lawmakers from lobbyists, lower campaign contribution limits and change the way legislative districts get drawn up every 10 years.
Sounds like the Clean Missouri amendment from 2018, a voter might think. Yet Amendment 3 alters the reforms that voters approved two years ago. Some of the changes are small, others more substantial.
Clean Missouri was a ballot initiative that voters overwhelmingly — 62% — approved as a means to curb ethics abuses, promote competitiveness in the way House and Senate districts are formed and attempt to make state government more responsive to citizens.
But not long after it was enacted, the Republican-dominated Missouri General Assembly, led by Sen. Dan Hegeman, an Andrew County Republican, voted to put Amendment 3 on the ballot to largely shake up Clean Missouri’s work.
Proponents of Amendment 3 say Clean Missouri’s redistricting reforms were meant to boost the fortunes of Democrats in the state and diluted the voting power of rural voters.
But those who want to reject Amendment 3 say the measure is a cynical attempt to do away with ethics reforms approved two years ago by voters in a state notorious for self-dealing by lawmakers.
So what’s on Amendment 3, anyway?
Broadly speaking, a vote in favor of Amendment 3 would do three primary things:
▪ Prohibit legislators and their employees from receiving any gifts from paid lobbyists;
▪ Reduce maximum campaign contributions to Missouri senators from $2,500 to $2,400;
▪ Change who is involved in redistricting and the priorities used to determine how districts are drawn.
Didn’t Clean Missouri already do something about lobbyist gifts?
Yes, Clean Missouri put a $5 limit on the value of gifts lawmakers could accept from lobbyists.
So Amendment 3 amounts to a minute change: Lawmakers, instead of taking gifts of up to $5 from paid lobbyists, could no longer accept gifts of any value.
Critics of Amendment 3 — they call it “Dirty Missouri” — say eliminating lobbyist gifts when the limits were already so low was a way for proponents to make the amendment sound like sweeping ethics reform.
“That’s the smokescreen,” said Sean Soendker Nicholson, a spokesman for Clean Missouri. “That’s the tell that they’re doing something nefarious.”
Supporters of Amendment 3 say it creates a firm limit between gifts of even some value to none at all.
“It’s going from something to nothing,” said Eric Bohl, director of public affairs and advocacy for the Missouri Farm Bureau. “Getting rid of them just creates a bright line.”
Does Amendment 3 change campaign contribution limits?
Again, this is a modest change. The only change in Amendment 3 is Missouri state senators can accept $2,400. Under Clean Missouri, the limit was $2,500.
The $2,000 limit for Missouri representatives remains unchanged.
Another change is that Clean Missouri allowed for contribution limits to change every two years with fluctuations in the Consumer Price Index. Amendment 3 keeps the limits where they are.
What about redistricting? What changes under Amendment 3?
This is where the more substantive changes occur under Amendment 3.
Under Clean Missouri, a nonpartisan state demographer was put in charge of drawing Senate and House districts. The demographer would prioritize partisan fairness and competitiveness in drawing districts.
Fairness and competitiveness are evaluated through an efficiency gap, an analysis of statewide votes over several cycles to see if too many voters of one party are packed into one district or too spread out among several districts.
If voters pass Amendment 3, the demographer goes away and governor-appointed bipartisan House and Senate commissions would draw the districts. The commissions would attempt to draw districts that are compact and in regular shapes within counties to the extent possible. Amendment 3 still contemplates the partisan fairness and competitiveness, but that would be a lower priority than in Clean Missouri.
Opponents of Amendment 3 say the redistricting language in Amendment 3 would result in Missouri legislative districts more gerrymandered than ever, which is to say drawn in such a way to make districts as uncompetitive as possible.
“Their goal is incumbent protection,” Nicholson said. “They want that, so everything is pre-baked.”
Bohl said Amendment 3’s reforms result in districts that are closer to their communities. He said Clean Missouri could result in irregularly shaped districts
“The first discretionary position is don’t gerrymander,” Bohl said. “Beyond that, after you’ve tried to create normally shaped districts ... then we can also try to work on balancing those political subdivisions to try and create competitiveness.”
Another change in Amendment 3 is language about who gets counted for the purpose of creating legislative districts.
Under Clean Missouri, total population in Missouri and in each district is counted, which is to say anyone living there.
Under Amendment 3, it calls for counting people by “one person, one vote.”
Wait — one person, one vote? What does that mean?
The “one person, one vote” language in Amendment 3 is a major sticking point for critics of the plan.
They say at best, it’s vague and confusing. At worst, they say the language can be interpreted to mean that only eligible voters would be counted for the purposes of creating legislative maps.
Nicholson said that means noncitizens and children, especially, are omitted from the population counts. He said that hurts representation in bigger cities like Kansas City, where there tend to be more children.
An analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice said if only eligible voters are counted, more than one-quarter of Missourians are left off the population counts.
Bohl said it’s speculative to assume that the Amendment 3 language necessarily would leave off children, “and probably not what would actually happen.”
Missouri solicitor general John Sauer was asked during a Missouri Court of Appeals hearing earlier this year about what’s meant by the “one person, one vote” idea.
“My understanding of that is that one is based on absolute population and the other is based on the number of voters,” Sauer said. “So one person, one vote, the criteria is based on the number of actual eligible voters in a relevant district as opposed to an absolute population.”
Hegeman was asked about “one person, one vote” for determining population in a district.
“We’re looking at the people that vote, the people who are able to vote are the people that are counted,” he said during a Jan. 29 Senate floor debate. “Not registered voters, but the opportunity to do that.”
Who supports Amendment 3?
Fair Missouri, a political action committee, supports Amendment 3. It has raised close to $247,000, according to campaign finance filings. But none of that money has been raised this year.
The Republican State Committee gave Fair Missouri $50,000 in 2019 and $150,000 in 2018. The Missouri Alliance for Freedom also gave Fair Missouri $40,978 in 2019.
The Missouri Farm Bureau Fund for Real Representation has also raised money in support of Amendment 3. Its donors include the Missouri Farm Bureau itself and individual contributions from around the state.
Who opposes Amendment 3?
Clean Missouri has raised more than $7 million to oppose Amendment 3, which would repeal much of what Clean Missouri passed in 2018.
The NAACP, the American Association of Retired Persons, the League of Women Voters, labor unions, the Missouri chapter of the National Education Association and the Missouri Rural Crisis Center are among the groups opposed to Amendment 3.
This story was originally published October 30, 2020 at 4:11 PM.
