Ahead of possible abortion fight, MO Senate passes plan to make it harder to change constitution

Ahead of a possible fight over abortion rights, the GOP-controlled Missouri Senate on Thursday passed legislation that would make it harder for voters across the state to approve amendments to the state constitution.

The constitutional amendment, which passed along a party-line vote of 24-10, would increase the number of votes required for a constitutional amendment to pass on the ballot — from a simple majority of more than 50% of those who voted to either 57% of those who voted or at least 50% of the statewide vote and a majority of those who voted in at least five of the state’s eight congressional districts.

The proposal has the potential to dilute the voting power of the state’s two most diverse and Democratic-leaning congressional districts, which include Kansas City and St. Louis.

The legislation is less restrictive than the version passed by the Missouri House in February, which required at least 60% of voters to amend the constitution and would have killed marijuana legalization, which received 53% support statewide. Because of the changes, it will now head back to the House. If approved by both chambers, it would be placed in front of voters in the November 2024 election.

The amendment would also apply the same threshold to lawmakers, requiring both chambers of the Missouri General Assembly to obtain 57% of the vote to put a question on the ballot.

“They were dead set on taking away the voice of the people because they don’t like when people inject themselves into politics because they pass things that the Republican General Assembly doesn’t like,” Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, an Independence Democrat, told reporters Thursday, referring to Senate Republicans.

The proposal is part of an onslaught of GOP-led bills filed this year that would raise the threshold for voters to pass citizen-led ballot measures, called initiative petitions. It comes in the wake of Missouri voters approving several liberal-leaning policies through changes to the constitution — a portion of which would likely not have passed under the proposed legislation.

Rizzo on Thursday said that Medicaid expansion, approved by voters in 2020 with just more than 53% of the vote statewide, likely would not have passed under the proposal.

“The ones that were probably between that 50% to 52% wouldn’t pass,” he said.

The proposed changes come just a month after a Missouri abortion rights group filed a flurry of petitions to restore abortion rights at the ballot box in Missouri. The procedure was almost entirely outlawed under a 2019 law that was triggered after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

The prospect of an abortion-related initiative petition has bolstered Republican attempts to make it harder to get measures on the ballot.

Since 2018, ballot initiatives in Missouri have led voters to legalize both medical and recreational marijuana, overturn a right-to-work law — which would have prevented unions from requiring employees to pay union dues — and expand eligibility for Medicaid.

Senate Republicans this week argued that the Missouri Constitution has been too easy to change. Some have compared the state’s governing document to a thick book, inundated with policies that belong in state law, not the constitution.

“It should be harder to amend the constitution,” Senate Majority Leader Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican, told reporters Thursday. “It’s just the way it is. We want to incentivize people to put things in the right places.”

Defenders of the current ballot measure process have framed the legislation as an attack on democracy. They say it takes away voters’ ability to directly participate in the democratic process.

“This is a deceptive trick to end majority rule in Missouri,” Kelli Kee, the spokesperson for liberal-leaning Progress Missouri, said in a statement Thursday. “Voters aren’t as stupid as some politicians in Jefferson City think they are.”

Democrats and initiative petition defenders also excoriated Senate Republicans for the deceptive ballot language that would be placed in front of voters. The proposed ballot initiative would ask Missourians to “Allow only U.S. citizens to vote on initiatives,” despite the fact that Missouri law already requires voters to be U.S. citizens.

“Some politicians in Jefferson City are hoping they can trick voters with racist language while they rig the rules for this power grab,” Caitlyn Adams, executive director of Missouri Jobs with Justice Voter Action, said in a statement.

While Republicans say it’s been too easy to change the state constitution, data provided to The Star shows that voters have approved only 40.6% of the 69 citizen-driven initiative petitions placed on the ballot between 1910 and 2022.

State Sen. Andrew Koenig, a Manchester Republican, on Wednesday defended the deceptive ballot question, saying the language is straight from the constitution, and reaffirms current law on who is allowed to vote in the state.

However, state Sen. Barbara Washington, a Kansas City Democrat, said that language is “ballot candy” to draw in people to vote against their interests.

“It is a way to make people vote for this, because we have become so polarized that we have folks thinking that we really have non-eligible people voting in our elections,” Washington said.