Missouri Republicans, who have supermajority control of both the Missouri State House and Missouri State Senate, are trying to pass misleading legislation intended to trick voters into weakening their constitutional rights with a proposed amendment that would change the way initiative petitions work and what it would mean for one to be successful. The proposed change, or at least one example of the proposed change, would require 60% of voters to vote for an initiative petition to pass instead of 50%, the amount that is used for every other type of election.  This proposed change was intentionally designed to make it easier for the Republicans to pass legislation without Missouri voters being able to easily step in to fight back. The Republican Party has recently tried the same thing in Arkansas and South Dakota.

The proposed change to the Missouri Constitution would go before voters for approval, likely either this August or in November of 2024, but that’s where things get tricky. The language that would be presented to voters specifically includes misleading “ballot candy”.

The proposed amendment that voters will vote on asks about the initiative petition, but also asks if the constitution should be amended to “allow only citizens of the United States to qualify as legal voters.”

Here is the problem with that: that’s already the case. It’s very clear in the Missouri Constitution that only citizens can vote. Article VII, Section 2 of the Missouri Constitution already clearly limits the right to vote to only citizens of the United States. Missouri Secretary of State Jay Aschroft, a Republican, also has clearly stated that current state law says “you have to be a citizen to register to vote.”

“We know it’s put in there to be deceptive to voters,” said House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Democrat from Springfield.

“There is zero evidence of wide- scale non-citizen voting in Missouri,” said Travis Crum, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, in an interview with KCUR. “The specter of non-citizens voting has been a boogeyman for years around the country, and no one who’s pushing this theory has come up with any proof that it’s a systemic problem.”
Republicans in Jefferson City won’t even admit what they are doing. When House Speaker Dean Plucher was asked why the misleading “ballot candy” was included in the amendment, he said, “I couldn’t tell you.”

So, Republicans in Jefferson City are trying to weaken your constitutional right as a citizen to pass amendments,
proposed by anyone with enough citizens supporting them, via the initiative petition process, and are trying to include ballot language that tricks voters into thinking this is a resolution about keeping non-citizens from voting, when it clearly isn’t. Missouri union members are smarter than that and must reject this ridiculous trojan horse. The initiative petition process has allowed for Missourians to pass commonsense legislation around important bi-partisan issues that the Republicans in Jefferson City continually block, like marijuana legislation, expanding Medicaid, and the Clean Missouri legislation that helped to reduce a number of unfavorable political practices.

This isn’t about wanting an arbitrary 60% to vote in favor for something to pass, it’s about stopping the process entirely so the Republican legislature, elected from gerrymandered districts, can steamroll over the will of Missouri voters.

It’s past time to stop the games and respond to the needs of working-class people in Missouri. If you live in Missouri, call your legislators, regardless of party, and tell them you oppose it. Put pressure on Democrats and Republican elected officials at the state level, because this is a waste of time and a waste of hard-earned Missouri tax payer dollars.