JEFFERSON CITY — Senate Republicans on Thursday advanced to the House a measure that would ask voters to make future constitutional amendments more difficult to enact.
The 22-9 vote followed several days of debate in the upper chamber, including an about 20-hour stretch of stalling by Democrats earlier this week, in which a bipartisan coalition stripped out so-called “ballot candy†that may have made the amendment an easier sell to voters.
The measure heading to the House reduces the proposal to its core element: requiring citizen-led constitutional amendments to win a statewide simple majority as well as majorities in five of eight Missouri congressional districts.
Such a requirement could block some ballot measures, such as a move to overturn the state’s near-total abortion ban, even if a majority of Missourians vote in favor.
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Extraneous provisions, such as limiting participation on constitutional amendments to U.S. citizens as well as a prohibition on foreign interference in state constitutional amendments, were removed in the Senate on Tuesday.
U.S. citizenship is as a voter registration qualification in Missouri, and federal law already bars foreign spending in U.S. elections.
Senate action on Thursday came as the House approved legislation that would make changes to the signature-gathering process for petitions.
The measure, which advanced on a 104-41 vote, would require that signature gatherers be U.S. citizens, residents of Missouri or in the state for at least 30 consecutive days prior to the collection of signatures. It also bans paying signature gatherers based on the number of signatures they collect.
House Bill 1749, sponsored by Rep. Mike Haffner, R-Pleasant Grove, also would invalidate signatures collected on an initiative petition if a court ordered a substantial change to the official ballot title.
Democrats decried the maneuver.
“This bill is designed to make the process more difficult to collect signatures,†said Rep. Eric Woods, D-Kansas City. “It does nothing to make the process more accessible.â€
The push in the Republican-led Legislature to make it more difficult to change the state constitution comes as a coalition of abortion rights groups, called , is gathering signatures to put a measure on the November ballot that if passed by voters would enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution.
e Senate measure is Senate Joint Resolution 74 The House bill is HB 1749.
Kurt Erickson of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.