Vote 'yes' on Amendment 3 to keep communities intact

Vote yes on Amendment 3 and you'll be voting yes for rural Missouri and voting to keep out-of-state dark money far away from our redistricting process.

You've probably been inundated with TV ads trying to convince you to vote no. That's because the opposition has amassed over $7.2 million, mostly from out-of-state dark money. That's money from New York, Washington, D.C., and, strangely, Houston. Why do these metro areas care about Missouri's redistricting process? Why would out-of-state billionaires spend their money telling us what to do?

Let's follow that money to find out. A list of donations to the "No on 3" campaign reads like a who's who of liberal activists: Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the Sierra Club, radical gun control groups like Mom Demands Action, overtly socialist political parties, community organizers, national labor unions and trial attorneys. Just last Thursday, the "No on 3" campaign reported that George Soros's primary political arm, the Open Society Policy Center, had written it an emergency $500,000 check.

"No on 3" isn't stopping there. They have also enlisted Hollywood personalities like Jennifer Lawrence, Andy Cohen and Arnold Schwarzenegger to help. Would Missourians really be convinced by a celebrity that doesn't even live -- much less vote -- here? "No on 3" seems to think so.

If this type of out-of-touch grasping sounds familiar, you may remember when the same collection of carpetbaggers came to town selling a slick package of goods they called "Clean Missouri." At first glance, it looked like positive ethics reform. They sold it as capping lobbyist gifts, stopping legislators from becoming lobbyists and limiting campaign donations. But beneath these distracting positive changes was a dirty underlying agenda: a massive change to the way boundaries are drawn for Missouri Senate and House of Representatives districts.

This "Clean Missouri" amendment changed the state constitution to require legislative districts to be as close to 50-50 Republican and Democrat as possible. They made this sound fair and good on its face, but it was just another bag of tricks.

Let's look at Cape Girardeau County, for example. In 2018, the county gave 70.7% of its vote to Republican Josh Hawley in his race against Democrat Claire McCaskill, who earned 27.3%. Under "Clean Missouri," Cape County's 43-point Republican lead would now be diluted by splitting up its communities and tying them to a more heavily Democratic area. But where to find them? Perry County? No -- it was even more red, voting 72% for Hawley. Ste. Genevieve was slightly more purple, but still gave Hawley a 52-44 majority. Even traditional union stronghold Jefferson County turned 54% red.

No, you'd have to go all the way to St. Louis County, with its 62-35 Democratic lean, to find a pocket capable of balancing out Cape's vote. Does anyone think tying St. Louis voters and Cape County's voters into the same district makes any sense? Much less, would Cape County citizens like to be represented in the state legislature by someone in St. Louis?

Maybe not all districts would have to snake all the way from the Gateway Arch to Dunklin County. Under "Clean Missouri," only a not-yet-hired bureaucrat called the state demographer knows what the districts would look like. The only thing we do know is that districts would be required by law to be massively gerrymandered to minimize the partisan gap in each district as much as possible. Trying to help certain politicians win elections is the entire point of "No on 3."

Fortunately, the state legislators that you voted into office put together Amendment 3. It keeps and improves the "clean" parts of "Clean Missouri" by closing loopholes for lobbyist gifts and permanently capping campaign donations. Amendment 3 takes out the dirty trash they pushed on us two years ago and returns us to our Missouri values.

The Yes on 3 movement is fighting hard for Missouri. It's a true grassroots movement, waging its fight in these pages and on social media. We don't have the millions of dollars from D.C. billionaires helping us out.

We feel the point of redistricting should be to keep communities intact, first and foremost. Rural voters deserve rural voices in the capitol, and metro voters deserve their own voices. And, most importantly, we believe Missouri's redistricting should be decided by Missourians, not political activists airdropping money into our state from the coasts.

On Nov. 3, vote for real representation. Vote Yes on Amendment 3.

Eric Bohl is director of Public Affairs and Advocacy with the Missouri Farm Bureau.