Fighting continues in Missouri Senate over initiative petition reform

Since the start of the 102nd General Assembly, the Missouri Senate has been mostly stuck in neutral.

Between in-fighting among Republicans and multiple filibusters staged by members of the Missouri Freedom Caucus — a conservative group made up of 11 state legislators across both chambers — and the Democratic Party, the Senate has been held up for weeks because of one major issue: initiative petition reform.

Initiative petition — also known as popular initiative or ballot initiative — is a process where citizens can bypass the legislature and propose new laws, or make changes to existing laws, by gathering a specific number of signatures from registered voters. Once the goal for signatures is reached, the proposed law is submitted and goes through a verification process to ensure its validity.

Upon validation, the proposed law or amendment will be placed on the ballot for the next election and may be enacted if approved by a majority of voters.

According to District 27 Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder, Missouri has some of the loosest laws in the country regarding initiative petition, and she is concerned citizens in the rural areas in the state aren’t having their voices heard.

“States have different initiative petition-type processes. Missouri’s is one of the most lax,” Thompson Rehder said. “You have to gather a certain number of signatures in different places in the state to get something on the ballot to be certified. What has happened in Missouri is you can get enough signatures just by going to these metropolitan places such as Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield and Columbia. Some of these larger places have high Democratic populations.

“What is happening in Missouri is we have a lot of things that are able to get passed on the ballot, but you don’t have a lot of Republican buy-in or a lot of conservative buy-in, so you certainly don’t have the rural voices, which is my issue with the way initiative petition process works now.”

Article III, Section 50, of the Missouri Constitution says initiative petitions regarding constitutional amendments must be signed by 8% of legal voters in two-thirds of congressional districts to appear on the ballot, while 5% is required for petitions proposing laws. Under the proposed Senate Joint Resolution 74 introduced by District 22 Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, the approval method would require a majority of votes in five of the state’s eight congressional districts in addition to collecting the required signatures.

But SJR 74 isn’t the only proposed bill on initiative petition reform, which can be viewed as the cause for many of the current issues, particularly among Republicans, in the Senate.

“It’s confusing, and people deserve to understand what the fight is about,” Thompson Rehder said. “We have several bills, several different options that are being debated and looked at. Some want to change the overall percentage of how many votes it takes. Right now, it’s just your 50% plus one, and some want to change that to 55%. Some want to change it to 60%, but 60% has been beat in other states. Some want to make it to where you have to pass it in every congressional district or by so many congressional districts. Some want you to have to gather so many signatures in all the congressional districts, and some want you to gather so many signatures in all the House districts or pass it by so much in all the House districts.

“There are many different variations going through right now, and that’s why, when you hear that the Republicans are fighting Republicans over the IP reform, while also fighting the Democrats over IP reform. That’s what the fight is about, it’s about what the Republicans are fighting over. What’s the process that’s going to work, because we have to get this right, and the Democrats are saying we don’t need to change it.”

Lawmakers opposed to the proposed IP legislation contend the process will take power away from the citizens of the state and put it into the hands of politicians. Democrats in the Senate filibustered to block a vote on the measure last week before the Senate adjourned to attend the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory celebrations.

“Republicans are trying to take away Missouri’s one person-one vote standard,” District 4 Sen. Karla May, a Democrat from St. Louis County, said on the Senate floor Feb. 13. “I wanted to be clear, under the Republicans’ proposal, Missouri would no longer be a majority-rule state under the Republicans’ SJR 72. A 20% minority of people could block what an 80% majority of voters approve. Under the Republican plan, your vote would count less than someone else’s.”

Most recently, the use of initiative petition in Missouri has resulted in Medicaid expansion in 2020 and the legalization of marijuana in 2022. Currently, an abortion-rights group is collecting signatures to legalize the procedure in the state and Republican legislators fear laws regarding firearms will be targeted next.

“There are currently multiple measures going through the IP process in an attempt to make it on the statewide election ballot in November. The issue receiving the bulk of attention, and the reason many want to ensure all voices are represented on IP ballot measures, is a petition to legalize abortion in Missouri’s constitution,” Thompson Rehder wrote in her most recent weekly legislative column. “No matter your opinion on this issue, I think we can all agree that it is of the utmost importance that the decision on its legalization represents Missouri as a whole, not just in part. I am 100% pro-life, and a poll by Pew Research Center shows a majority of our state is as well. Our laws should reflect that. I am also very concerned that the next attempt to change our laws on the ballot through the initiative petition process will be to tighten our gun laws. I don’t have to explain to y’all how detrimental that could be. We simply cannot allow Missouri’s lax IP process to continue as is.”

Although Senate Republicans want to change the rules, Thompson Rehder said they aren’t planning to completely kill the initiative petition process.

“We’re not wiping away the initiative petition process. With Missouri being one of the most lax states, and with us having our constitution being so large because of this initiative petition process, ours (initiative petition process) is obviously broken,” Thompson Rehder said. “This is simply putting in new reforms that are necessary. It’s not removing the process, the process will still be there when we get this done. I don’t know what it’s going to look like, but it’s still going to be there. You have enough of us who believe that this is the people’s process, and we don’t want it to be completely gone. There will still be a way, we just need to fix it.”