What’s behind the Respect MO Voters petition? Organizers tell us | Opinion
The organizers behind Respect MO Voters began an arduous task last fall: collecting 300,000 signatures to protect Missouri’s initiative petition process. They have succeeded. On Sunday, they told The Star their campaign 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 bipartisan, citizen-led campaign is in response to state lawmakers repealing measures voters have passed, such as paid sick leave, and putting forth ballot measures to repeal 2024’s abortion rights law and lawmakers attacking direct democracy.
Members of The Kansas City Star Editorial Board — Opinion Editor Yvette Walker, Deputy Opinion Editor Derek Donovan and Opinion Columnist Toriano Porter — met with Respect MO Voters director Benjamin Singer and volunteer Pam Whiting shortly after they launched the campaign. In a wide-ranging conversation, they told us what the petition would do for voters and for the future of Missouri.
The Star Editorial Board: What kind of proposed amendment would this petition create?
Benjamin Singer: A big part of this is tightening the language, and as you can see in the legal language as well, it says that future ballot summaries have to be clear, unbiased, fair, accurate and easy to understand, that they cannot be misleading. And it protects the court’s power to rewrite ballot language if it does not meet those criteria.
The Star Editorial Board: Why is this necessary now?
Pam Whiting: I’ve watched the Missouri legislature and have been frankly appalled at many of the steps they’ve taken, (including) the special session when they basically gutted the initiative petition process, which to me is pure democracy, and is something that should be celebrated and protected and not messed with … Missouri voters should be respected and not disrespected in the way they have by the legislature.
The Star Editorial Board: How did the campaign get started?
Benjamin Singer: We launched not only from Kansas City and Springfield and Jeff City and St. Louis, but we were also launching from St. Joe, from Joplin, from Camdenton, from Troy and Rolla, and St. Robert and Washington — places that campaigns never launch from — by really empowering and training volunteers. We’re able to actually build an even more powerful process and use the citizen initiative process the way it was intended. And we launched with a listening tour of 25 town halls across the state, starting in rural areas plus three in Kansas City. We didn’t schedule any in St. Louis until the second half — that we did because we wanted to make sure the rest of the state was listened to first.
The Star Editorial Board: How do you know this is what the people want?
Benjamin Singer: Our polling is really strong across the spectrum. I didn’t expect that a lot of these town halls where we had activists showing up who were not exclusively liberal, but a lot of them were, that a lot of what we were hearing would be validated in our polling. But it turns out it doesn’t matter if you’re a (Democrat) from Kansas City or a Trump voter from Camdenton. Across the spectrum, voters don’t like the idea that politicians are overturning what the people voted on. They want politicians answering to them.
The Star Editorial Board: Could this impact other issues in Missouri?
Benjamin Singer: I’m hopeful that after we pass this, we will be able to finally end gerrymandering. We’ll be able to move to nonpartisan primaries and do other things to make sure that we can truly hold our leaders accountable to the will of the people, instead of the system being set up in a way that is less democratic than it should be — with a lowercase d.
Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins and local election officials must verify the signatures collected by Respect MO Voters. If enough are verified, the proposed amendment will be placed on the ballot in an upcoming election. We will continue following this story.
