Op-ed: Missouri officials’ latest voter suppression effort: Block a vote on abortion

The U.S. Supreme Court’s claim to have returned abortion to the people by overturning Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson is a dubious one given the view from Missouri, where we don’t have a truly representative democracy thanks to extreme gerrymandering, Jim Crow voter ID laws, and criminalizing voter registration activities.

And the Dobbs majority’s assertion that “women are not without electoral or political power” since they can lobby and run for office is cold comfort given that having a state legislature, like ours, in which women are underrepresented correlates with having more abortion restrictions and worse outcomes for women and children. Missouri’s legislature being only 29 percent women (approximately 5 percent are Black women) likely has something to do with our appalling maternal mortality rate, and lack of access to contraception, maternity care, and childcare.

However, the Missouri state Constitution enshrines the right to enact policy via direct democracy using a ballot initiative. So in Missouri, the legality of abortion really can be decided by the voters–including often disempowered Black voters, who have a heightened interest in abortion policy given that Missouri’s felony ban causes disproportionate harm to Black women. Black women suffer greatly because of the political games Missouri politicians play with access to health care.  The Missouri NAACP Travel Advisory is a reminder that Black and Brown populations suffer under the current political system.

When legislators fail to enact policy with majority support, Missouri voters have a long history of doing it ourselves. For example, voters have raised the minimum wage, accepted federal funds for Medicaid expansion, and voted to remove money from politics. Now, advocates are seeking to protect reproductive freedom and reverse Missouri’s dangerous and unpopular abortion ban by putting it on the ballot.

Missouri politicians expect that Missouri voters would approve this measure–so they have launched a multi-front assault to deny us our Constitutional right to vote.

First, legislators tried to amend our state Constitution to make it even more expensive and arduous to enact voter-driven policy by increasing the number of signatures required to get on the ballot or requiring that 60% of voters approve an initiative.

Those legislators were completely open about the fact that this effort to take the power from the voters was aimed at keeping Missourians from decriminalizing abortion. As a frustrated House Speaker Dean Plocher put it after the effort to restrict the ballot initiative failed this session: “I think we all believe that an initiative petition will be brought forth to allow choice. I believe it will pass. Absolutely.”

So next, Attorney General Andrew Bailey stepped in to try to block a vote single-handedly.

Bailey refused to perform his pro forma job of certifying the State Auditor’s fiscal note, after the Auditor refused to be bullied into putting the fantastical claim on the ballot made by Bailey that decriminalizing abortion would cost the state 12.6 billion or more dollars. After the ACLU of Missouri sued, the Court explained that Bailey had an “absolute absence of authority” to reject the fiscal note and his claim to have veto power over the initiative process was “preposterous.”

Ordered to certify the fiscal note within 24 hours, Bailey refused. He instead appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, which ruled against him unanimously last week, given that his argument was, indeed, preposterous. But Bailey succeeded in depriving advocates of months of signature collection.

Now, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft will take over this winning-by-losing strategy–which Ashcroft previously used with success to deny voters the opportunity to reject Missouri’s “trigger” abortion banwhen it first passed via the referendum process.

He intends to do it again.

Ashcroft’s gambit this time is to certify a ballot summary of the initiative so filled with flagrantly deceptive and inflammatory anti-abortion language that he can’t possibly expect it to survive Court review. His strategy appears to be to delay the vote away, while making his name as an anti-abortion champion as he runs for governor.

This is a power grab that is rooted in self-serving political gain for politicians while the welfare of the people is left ignored.

Bailey and Ashcroft are free to be anti-abortion crusaders on the campaign trail and in their personal capacities.

They are not free to deprive us of our vote.

Bailey and Ashcroft work for the state of Missouri. What Missouri law requires of them is a fiscal note and a ballot summary that is “neither argumentative nor likely to create prejudice either for or against the proposed measure.”

Knowing the voters aren’t with them, they’ve launched an open attack on Missouri’s democratic process instead.

While this fight plays out in the Courts, now is the time to get organized, build community, and make sure your friends and family are registered to vote.

Nimrod “Rod” Chapel, Jr. is a Missouri trial lawyer and serves as the President of the Missouri Chapter of the NAACP.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Op-ed: Missouri officials’ latest voter suppression effort