Missouri politicians keep overturning the voters. That’s not democracy | Opinion

Something is deeply wrong in Missouri when the people go to the polls, make their voices heard and then find that their own lawmakers have quietly undone what they voted for.

Over and again, our legislature has found ways to change, weaken, or outright reverse the will of Missouri voters. It doesn’t matter whether the issue was about ethics reform, clean elections, animal welfare, wages or health care — the pattern is the same. Missourians vote. Politicians in Jefferson City don’t like the outcome. So they change the rules, adjust the language or simply pass a new law to cancel it out.

This isn’t democracy. It’s defiance.

The examples stretch back decades, and they cross party lines, but our recent history is especially troubling.

In 2010, Missourians voted for Proposition B — the Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act. It passed fair and square. Less than a year later, politicians in the General Assembly repealed and rewrote it. They called it a “compromise.” Voters called it a betrayal.

Then came 2018, when we overwhelmingly approved Clean Missouri, a constitutional amendment meant to reduce political corruption and make congressional redistricting fair. It created a nonpartisan state demographer and laid out clear standards to keep districts competitive and communities together. Two years later, lawmakers put another amendment on the ballot — Amendment 3 — that effectively dismantled what voters had just approved. They changed the redistricting process, weakened ethics rules and wrote a ballot summary that many Missourians later said was misleading. It squeaked by, and with that, years of citizen-led reform were undone.

Fast-forward to 2024. Missouri voters once again took the time to study the issues, debate, and cast ballots on two major proposals — one to restore reproductive rights (Amendment 3) and another to raise the minimum wage and guarantee paid sick leave (Proposition A). Both passed. Both reflected the will of the people, not the will of politicians.

And now, just one year later, our legislature has voted to repeal Proposition A entirely and is undermining the abortion rights amendment as well. It’s like déjà vu for democracy: We vote. They reverse, or put the vote back to us, obfuscating the issue by pairing abortion rights with an unrelated transgender child initiative, hoping the voters will be confused and reverse course.

This isn’t about being a Republican or a Democrat. It’s about basic respect for the voters of this state. Regardless of whether you supported those initiatives, we should all be able to agree on one principle: When the people of Missouri make a decision at the ballot box, it should stand.

Medicaid expansion, medical marijuana

Every time lawmakers overturn a voter-approved measure, they chip away at public trust. They send the message that the people’s votes are temporary, conditional and subject to political convenience. They tell us that our hard work — gathering signatures, organizing volunteers, educating neighbors — can all be undone with the stroke of a pen in Jefferson City.

Our state’s initiative petition process exists for a reason. It’s the people’s check on power. It’s how Missourians have stepped in when politicians wouldn’t act — from Medicaid expansion to campaign finance reform to medical marijuana. It’s how ordinary people have shaped this state for the better. But lately, instead of respecting that process, some lawmakers have made it their mission to weaken it: raising signature thresholds, changing ballot summaries, or, when all else fails, just rewriting what we passed.

If this continues, the ballot initiative will become nothing more than a suggestion box — a place where citizens pour their hopes and energy only to be told later that their votes don’t count.

We deserve better than that.

Democracy doesn’t end when the election results are certified. It ends when elected officials stop listening. Whether you’re conservative, liberal, independent or somewhere in between, you should be furious at the idea that your vote can be erased because politicians in power didn’t like it.

Missourians are a fair-minded people. We may disagree on policy, but we believe in playing by the rules. We believe that when a vote is taken, the outcome matters. It’s time for our elected officials to remember that too.

If lawmakers don’t like the people’s decisions, they can try to persuade us next time — not overrule us afterward. The ballot box belongs to the people of Missouri, not the politicians who think they know better.

Jennifer Parker is a Park University graduate who lived in Kansas City for 20 years. She works as a property manager in Marshfield, Missouri.