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USING BALLOT� INITIATIVES TO WIN

USING HISTORY AND POSITIONS

ON MISSOURI INITIATIVES TO SWAY VOTERS

The correct statement that best describes the ballot initiative is: Ballot initiatives were promoted by late-nineteenth-century Populists and Progressives as an antidote to interest group influence in the legislative process.

The initiative process allows citizens to collect signatures to place a new statute or constitutional amendment on the ballot.
The referendum process, also called a veto referendum or citizen's veto, allows citizens to collect signatures to ask voters whether to uphold or repeal an enacted law.
Mo IMPLEMENTED IN 1908.

Initiatives and referendums, along with recall elections and popular primary elections, were signature reforms from the Progressive Era (1896–1917) when people sought to moderate the power of parties and political bosses. These powers are written into several state constitutions, particularly in the West.

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SOME BACKGROUND ON BALLOT MEASURES

WHY DO PEOPLE VOTE FOR CANDIDATES WHO

HATE BALLOT INITIATIVES THEY LOVE?

MISSOURI GOP ATTACKS ON BALLOT MEASURES

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SOME BALLOT MEASURE HISTORY

Initiatives and referendums were signature reforms from the Progressive Era (1896–1917) as a form of direct democracy to moderate the power of parties and elected officials. 1

These powers are written into several state constitutions. 26 states allow for citizen-initiated ballot measures.

18 allow for initiated constitutional amendments.

21 allow for initiated state statutes . 2

Legislatures are required to seek voter approval to amend their state constitutions in 49 of 50 states.

For over a hundred years the MO Constitution has granted the right of MO citizens to propose or reject laws and amendments to the constitution by the initiative process,and it gives citizens the power to approve or reject by referendum any act of the general assembly. 3 2

In Missouri, a total of 131 ballot measures appeared on statewide ballots between 1985 and 2020. 83 were approved, and 48 were defeated for an approval rate of 63%.

List of ballot measures 1910-2022.

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NOTABLE MISSOURI MEASURES PASSED

1921 Enabled women to hold any office in the state.
1924 Provided funding for the maintenance and construction of the state’s highways
1940 Constitutional amendment to establish a nonpartisan system for the nomination &

appointment of judges. Copied by several states and now known as the "Missouri Plan" for judicial selection.

1980 "Hancock Amendment" which limited state and local taxes.
1992 Term limits for representatives and senators.
1994 Campaign finance reform approved.
2002 Allowed citizens of the City of St. Louis to amend or revise their present charter
2006 Increased state's minimum wage to $6.50/hour
2010 Missouri Healthcare Freedom Act, was a legislatively referred state statute.The proposed measure aimed to block the federal government from requiring people to buy health insurance. Ballot passed but was later overturned by the courts.

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NOTABLE MISSOURI MEASURES PASSED

2018 Voters repealed a right-to-work law enacted by the state legislature.
2018 Missouri’s minimum wage increased to $12 by 2023.
2018 Clean Missouri . Voters approved (62%) changes to stop gerrymandering of districts, change lobbying laws, impose campaign finance limits for state legislative candidates, and expand sunshine law.
2020 “Cleaner Missouri” passed by 51%. This GOP legislatively referred ballot amendment reinstated gerrymandering undoing the chief goal of Clean Missouri.
2020 Medicaid Expansion was approved with 53.25% of the vote.
2022 Marijuana legalized.

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Citizen initiative	Amendment 2	Legalize and regulate sports wagering in Missouri
Citizen initiative	Amendment 3	Amend the Missouri Constitution to provide the right for reproductive freedom
Legislature initiative	Amendment 6	Define the administration of justice to include the levying of costs and fees to support the salaries and benefits for law enforcement personnel
Legislature initiative	Amendment 7	States that only citizens who are Missouri residents can vote and prohibits ranked-choice voting
citizen-initiated ballot measure amending state statute.	Proposition A	Establish a $13.75 per hour minimum wage by 2025, which would be increased by $1.25 per hour each year until 2026, when the minimum wage is $15 per hour, and also requiring employers to provide one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked

2024 BALLOT MEASURES

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Why do voters favoring a ballot initiative also vote for Missouri GOP candidates where:

the candidate or GOP is opposed to that ballot initiative

and

The candidate’s Party has a history of obstructing and failure to implement passed initiatives

and

the GOP has repeatedly tried to gut the ballot

initiative process ?

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SOME ANSWERS

1. Initiatives are presented as “non-partisan’ so the pro or con stance of a Party or candidate doesn’t occur to them.

2. Voters don’t know a candidate’s or Party’s position on an initiative. Candidates may not take positions on popular initiatives they oppose.

3 Voters don’t know how a candidate/Party has opposed or failed to follow through on implementation of popular initiatives in the past. (Would voters care?)

4. Voters don’t know how the GOP has attempted to gut the initiative process.

5. Party identity: the Party “brand” of a candidate is more important to voters than any other consideration, i.e. brand trumps whatever they might desire on initiatives.

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MISSOURI GOP HISTORY OF UNDERMINING DIRECT DEMOCRACY

THWARTING THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE FROM START TO FINISH

OBSTRUCTING INITIATIVES FROM GETTING ON THE BALLOT

DELAY/DECEPTIVE BALLOT LANGUAGE/BALLOT CANDY/FRAUDULENT COST ESTIMATES

FLAWED OR SABOTAGED IMPLEMENTATION OF INITIATIVES

IGNORING OR BOTCHED IMPLEMENTATION, NO OR INADEQUATE FUNDING, STATUTES TO LIMIT EFFECTIVENESS

REVERSING THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

“RESPONSE” LEGISLATION TO REVERSE AN INITIATIVE. “CLEANER” MO

THE GOP ENDGAME PLAN FOR BALLOT INITIATIVES

RENDER IT USELESS BY RAISING THE BAR FOR APPROVAL

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GOP THWARTING OF VOTER INITIATIVES

MEDICAID EXPANSION ballot measure was approved as a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment in 2020. ( 1 )

The Missouri House and Senate refused to fund expansion and were joined by Gov. Parson in stopping implementation.

It went to court where the MO Supreme Court ruled the amendment was constitutional and the administration must implement.

Expansion began in Oct 2021. Medicaid via MO Healthnet continues to struggle to provide health services to those qualified. The budget recently passed by the super majority Republican legislature requires Medicaid to keep shrinking.

The plan is simple. Make the entitlement increasingly difficult to access through a lack of staff and resources, despite the expressed will of the people.

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GOP THWARTING OF VOTER INITIATIVES

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS SOS Ashcroft(R), an abortion opponent, declined to approve the petition to be on the 2020 ballot until a court ordered him to do so.

He then delayed final release leaving 14 days to collect 107,510 signatures.

An impossible task. The initiative never made it onto the ballot.

The state Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that Ashcroft’s procedural hurdles in the referendum process violated the state constitution.

In 2024 AG Bailey (R) attempted to increase the cost impact of the initiative from $51,000 to $12.5 billion and refused to certify the abortion right initiative.

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that Bailey had improperly held up his approval of the ballot initiative. Despite Bailey’s attempt to run out the clock like Ashcroft in 2020, the initiative is on the ballot.

Two GOP state legislators recently sued to block the abortion-rights amendment from the November ballot and a judge has put ballot placement in jeopardy.

2019 Sec of State Ashcroft declined to approve a citizens referendum on MO law banning abortions until a court ordered him to do so.

He took the maximum allotted time to release the referendum petition in mid-August. Supporters failed to collect 107,510 signatures in 14 days.

The state Supreme Court ruled that Ashcroft’s procedural hurdles in the referendum process had violated the state constitution.

The state Supreme Court ruled the state’s attorney general Bailey was improperly stonewalling the effort.

The court ruled unanimously Thursday that Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) was using “misleading” and “incorrect” arguments to justify delaying his approval of the cost estimates ballot measure that would allow residents to vote on whether to legalize abortion, a crucial step in the certification process.

The Missouri legislature delayed the implementation of renewable energy standards primarily through procedural and legislative maneuvers. Here are some key ways they achieved this:

Amendments and Rule Changes: After the Missouri Public Service Commission issued rules to implement the renewable energy standards adopted by voters in 2008, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules made significant amendments. They removed provisions that required renewable energy credits (RECs) to be produced in Missouri or delivered to Missouri customers ¹. This change allowed utilities to purchase RECs from anywhere, which slowed the development of in-state renewable energy projects.
Legislative Stalemates: Legislative sessions often ended in stalemates, with the House and Senate unable to agree on specific provisions related to renewable energy. This lack of consensus delayed the passage and implementation of effective renewable energy policies ².

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CLEAN MISSOURI (2018) and “CLEANER” MISSOURI (2020)

Clean Missouri would have established a process to avoid gerrymandering, severely limit lobbyist gifts, lengthen the wait time for a legislator to become a lobbyist, and extend the sunshine law to state legislators. It passed with 62% of the vote.

Amendment 3, aka Cleaner Missouri, was a GOP legislative action placed on the 2020 ballot to reverse Clean Missouri and the expressed will of the people.

The original GOP worded ballot summary was taken to an appeals court over its vague wording, which described it as "misleading, unfair and insufficient."

Cleaner Missouri had slightly lower limits on lobbyist gifts and campaign contributions to deceive voters into thinking they were voting for an improved Clean Missouri, but it re-introduced GOP capacity for gerrymandering, the chief GOP goal.

GOP THWARTING OF VOTER INITIATIVES

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GOP THWARTING OF VOTER INITIATIVES

PUPPY MILLS

2010 Missouri voters passed an initiative imposing restrictions & standards of care.

GOP legislature reversed the will of the voters at the behest of the dog-breeding

industry.

GOP lawmakers passed a constitutional “right-to-farm” amendment that was a thinly

disguised shill to puppy mills.

2024 A Humane Society report listed 23 problematic puppy mills in Missouri, the most in

any state.

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GOP THWARTING OF VOTER INITIATIVES

RENEWABLE ENERGY STANDARDS

The Missouri legislature long delayed the implementation of renewable energy standards through procedural and legislative maneuvers.

RANKED CHOICE VOTING (RCV)

The GOP has placed amendment 7 on the 2024 ballot, which will ban RCV, as a preemptive strike to prevent future attempts to get RCV passed in the state. It’s their way of keeping the right-wing extremist pipeline open and fending off more centrist candidates.

Ballot candy: To entice voters, the initiative also states that only citizens who are Missouri residents can vote, which of course is already law.

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GOP THWARTING OF VOTER INITIATIVES

Repeated patterns of obstruction from beginning to end.

Delays by administrative inaction and court challenges
False or misleading ballot language
Failure to fund and implement
New laws to limit effectiveness of initiatives
Attempts to overturn passed initiatives

Since 2021, Missouri legislators have introduced over 71 bills to change the initiative process according to data from the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.

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THE GOP SUPERMAJORITY

FINAL SOLUTION

FOR DIRECT DEMOCRACY

KILL IT!

RAISE THE THRESHOLD SO THAT ONLY

23% OF VOTERS CAN STOP PASSAGE

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THE GOP “FINAL SOLUTION” FOR BALLOT INITIATIVES

Since 2021, Missouri legislators have introduced over 71 bills to change the initiative process according to data from the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.

Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Despite Republicans being in the supermajority(veto-proof) in the MO House and Senate, and holding state-wide offices, that’s not enough power for them.

Their goal is to snuff out completely one of the last remaining checks on their power-the direct voice of the people- by gutting the ballot amendment process.

The GOP general assembly has made repeated attempts to kill off the ballot initiatives process by raising the bar for passage so high that few if any initiatives would clear it.

That will further obstruct citizens ability to participate in the public policy process directly and independently.

In the midst of all the finger pointing about why the bill to gut ballot measures failed during the past session, the new presumptive speaker of the House made it clear that the urgency to pass a bill to change how the state constitution is amended will still exist when the new legislative session convenes next year.