JEFFERSON CITY — The Republican-controlled Missouri House on Thursday approved a plan that would ask voters to make the state constitution more difficult to amend, sending the measure to the Senate for further debate.
In doing so, the House rejected a previous Senate compromise approved in February that stripped additional measures — derided by Democrats as “ballot candy†to deceive voters — from the potential ballot question.
But with three weeks remaining in the legislative session, and a number of other high-profile measures — including the over $50 billion state budget — still in limbo, the resolution’s fate in the Senate remained in question.
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If approved by a simple majority of state voters later this year, the ballot question would require voter approval in five of eight U.S. congressional districts to enact a new constitutional amendment, in addition to a simple statewide majority.
Such a requirement could block some ballot measures, such as overturning the state’s near-total abortion ban and legalizing sports betting, even if a majority of Missourians vote in favor.
The House-approved plan would also ask voters to limit constitutional amendment participation to U.S. citizens, forbid foreign governments from funding constitutional amendments, and require a voter-review mechanism for constitutional amendment initiatives.
Mention of those three provisions appears in a proposed ballot summary before the description of the proposed higher threshold.
“What this is is to deceive Missourians,†said Rep. Maggie Nurrenbern, D-Kansas City. “Voters are smart. They will see right through this. They will see that folks in power are trying to take their power away and give it to politicians.â€
Rep. Alex Riley, R-Springfield, who carried the resolution through the house, said the plan included four things primarily “because it recognizes that the Constitution in the state of Missouri is a sacred document.â€
The resolution only cleared the Senate in February after nine Republicans joined with Democrats to strip the extra provisions from the bill, focusing the question on the higher constitutional threshold.
The Republican push to get rid of the current simple majority requirement comes after a string of progressive victories at the ballot box on Medicaid expansion and marijuana legalization.
A campaign to overturn the state’s near-total abortion ban is also collecting signatures for a ballot question that could appear on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The secretary of state’s office has said that if voters approve the higher threshold in the Aug. 6 primary election, it would be in effect for the Nov. 5 election.
House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, expressed confidence Thursday that the abortion-rights campaign would submit enough signatures to make the ballot later this year.
After the vote to send the ballot measure back to the Senate, Quade also said she believed there was a “very good possibility that this dies.†The legislative session ends May 17.
“It absolutely could’ve been part of the plan to make sure that this dies,†she said of the Republicans. “We all know that the Senate right now is not a functioning body.â€
While nearly all Republicans present voted for placing the measure on the ballot, the lone “no†vote among Republicans came from Majority Leader Jonathan Patterson, R-Lee’s Summit, who is set to become the next House speaker. He didn’t show up to a post-vote press conference.
“There’s gonna be a lot of discussions over the next week or so about what the Senate is going to do with that bill,†Riley, the bill carrier in the House, said.
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