JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri Republicans launched their latest salvo Tuesday against the ability of voters to change the state’s constitution at the ballot box.
After watching Missourians use the voting booth to legalize marijuana, expand health insurance to more low-income people and raise the minimum wage in recent years, Republicans who control all levers of state government want to make it more difficult to get a measure on the ballot and tougher for it to pass.
House Speaker Pro Tem Mike Henderson, R-Bonne Terre, who is sponsoring one of the plans, said the current set-up results in the signature-gathering process focusing on the state’s bluer areas, including Ƶ, Kansas City and Columbia.
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“People who gather signatures don’t go to southeast Missouri,” Henderson told members of the House Elections and Elected Officials Committee. “I think they should go to all parts of the state.”
Henderson wants to increase the signature threshold to place a question on the ballot from its current 8% of voters in two-thirds of the state’s congressional districts to 10% of voters in each of the state’s eight congressional districts.
Henderson, who sponsored similar legislation last year, also wants to increase the threshold for passage from its current majority of those casting votes to two-thirds of those casting votes.
Another version, introduced by Rep. Ed Lewis, R-Moberly, would require signatures from 8% of the voters in all congressional districts.
Rep. Bishop Davidson, R-Republican, would make it even harder to get a ballot question approved by requiring a majority of all registered voters to sign off on the matter.
The maneuvering by GOP lawmakers comes as abortion rights supporters are considering pursuing a 2024 ballot measure to overturn Missouri’s near total ban on abortion.
Abortion-rights supporters have said they are considering a statewide referendum after watching election results in five other states — California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont — where abortion-rights groups won ballot measures.
Anti-abortion groups are playing defense by pressing lawmakers to act in order to preserve the state’s ban.
“We believe it needs to be harder,” Patricia Skain of Missouri Right to Life told the panel, which met for more than three hours Tuesday. “We need to protect our Constitution.”
Currently, a simple majority is necessary to enact changes to the constitution, a process used by backers of medical and recreational marijuana legalization and Medicaid expansion to override lawmakers on the topics.
A higher threshold for passage would have killed two recent marijuana questions, Medicaid expansion, as well as the 2018 “Clean Missouri” question, which ushered in a series of ethics changes.
Groups like the Missouri Farm Bureau, the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Missouri Soybean Association back the changes.
The Missouri Association of Realtors opposes the change.
“Most citizens of the state of Missouri aren’t real excited about what you’re trying to do,” said Sam Licklider, a lobbyist for the real estate organization. “Any changes that need to be made should be measured and minimal.”
Marilyn McLeod, president of the League of Women Voters of Missouri, said people use the process when they believe their voices are not being heard.
“The process is not easy and the citizens of Missouri have not abused it,” McLeod said. “This is not taken lightly. We must respect the voice of the people.”
If approved, the legislation calling for changes in the process would go before voters in order to go into effect.
Henderson’s legislation is
Editor’s note: Corrects spelling of Marilyn McLeod’s name. Corrects the title of House Speaker Pro Tem Mike Henderson, R-Bonne Terre.