Missouri Senate advances GOP plan to weaken direct democracy after removing ‘ballot candy’
The Republican-controlled Missouri Senate on Tuesday advanced a plan to make changing the state constitution more difficult — in part by weakening the power of urban residents’ votes — after Democrats spent days blocking a vote on the measure.
The legislation, from Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, an Arnold Republican running for Congress, would overhaul Missouri’s century-old initiative petition process that allows voters to place constitutional amendments on the ballot by gathering signatures. It comes as abortion rights supporters seek to place an amendment on the ballot later this year.
Coleman’s plan advanced on a voice vote and needs one more vote before it heads to the House, a chamber that on Monday also advanced a separate proposal that would make it harder for voters to amend the constitution. Voters would have final say over the measure.
Coleman’s legislation — which is itself a constitutional amendment — would require amendments to the state constitution be approved essentially twice, a majority vote in at least five of the state’s eight congressional districts and a majority vote statewide. Currently, constitutional amendments only need a majority vote statewide.
The change would give rural residents more power in statewide votes on constitutional amendments. A coalition of rural congressional districts would have effective veto control over amendments, no matter how popular a measure might be in Kansas City or St. Louis.
“It’s just a fundamentally unfair and undemocratic premise that one voter would have more power than another voter in different parts of the state,” said Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Kansas City Democrat.
Senate Democrats and voting rights advocates have criticized the legislation as an attack on democracy and Democrats spent three days blocking a vote on the plan, including holding the floor overnight Monday into Tuesday. Democrats ultimately agreed to relinquish the floor after Senate Republicans stripped deceptive provisions in the bill that were intended to entice voters.
An initial version of the measure would have also asked voters to ban foreign interference in ballot measures and allow only U.S. citizens to vote on constitutional amendments, two situations that are already illegal under federal law.
Democrats have referred to the extra provisions as “ballot candy,” a phrase in politics that refers to inserting unrelated but popular ideas into a measure to encourage people to vote in favor of it. After Democrats spent hours blocking the vote, Sen. Mike Cierpiot, a Lee’s Summit Republican, offered an amendment that removed the extra provisions.
The decision by Democrats to end the filibuster signaled that the minority party believes voters would reject the measure on its merits if the extraneous questions were removed.
Coleman last week touted her legislation, saying that the state constitution “should not be able to be changed just with a simple majority of vote.”
“It should have to have a majority of congressional districts as well,” she said.
