By Rudi Keller
On Monday, the Senate Local Government and Elections Committee heard testimony on the House-passed measure that would increase the threshold needed for voter approval of a proposed constitutional amendment from a simple majority to 60%.
House Speaker Pro Tem Mike Henderson, R-Bonne Terre, said the proposal is a response to recent lengthy constitutional amendments that do more than their headline purposes. He argued a 2018 initiative called Clean Missouri was sold as an ethics proposal to limit lobbyist gifts and campaign contributions and included a new method of drawing legislative districts.
“A lot of people feel they have been tricked sometimes,” Henderson said.
Lawmakers rewrote the redistricting provisions and voters approved it in 2020 with 51% of the vote. The first two bullet points that appeared on the ballot summary written by lawmakers that year had nothing to do with redistricting, instead focusing on banning lobbyist gifts and further reducing campaign contributions.
Another reason to make it harder to amend the constitution, Henderson said, is the lengthy amendments that add thousands of words to the state charter.
The state constitution approved by voters in February 1945 was just under 27,000 words long. An amendment protecting stem cell research, added by initiative in 2006, was about 2,000 words. The medical marijuana amendment, another initiative approved in 2018, is almost 8,000 words. Legalizing recreational marijuana in November added 14,000 words in a new section and 2,000 more for revisions to the medical marijuana section.
“I believe it should be a living document but I do not believe it should be an ever-growing document,” he said.
The committee did not hold a vote on Monday, and along with Henderson’s proposal it held hearings on seven other measures – two statutory proposals and five constitutional amendments – intended to make changes in the initiative process.
With Republicans holding supermajorities in each chamber, the early committee hearing increases the likelihood both chambers will agree on a single bill before the session ends in May. If that happens, Missouri voters would see it on the November 2024 ballot or, if he chooses, Gov. Mike Parson could call a special election as soon as August.
Opponents argue that it is a poorly thought-out response to votes in favor of policies Republicans have blocked in the legislature – including Medicaid coverage for low-income adults as well as marijuana legalization and Clean Missouri.
Former state Sen. Bob Johnson, a Jackson County Republican, warned that, in the future, it could be Republicans who want to enact policies Democrats dislike. For most of the time he was a lawmaker, Republicans were in the minority.
“I saw situations where a lot of times the minority in a legislative body doesn’t believe they have been treated fairly and they go to the initiative petition,” Johnson said. “And majorities in legislative bodies change.”
Henderson’s amendment contains two other provisions. One would require a public information meeting organized by the Secretary of State’s Office in each congressional district more than 15 days before an election including an initiative proposal.
The other, called “ballot candy” by detractors, would restate a current requirement that only Missouri residents who are citizens of the United States are eligible to vote.
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