The Missouri Senate is debating whether to approve raising the bar for constitutional amendments to 60% but not all conservatives support the measure.
House Joint Resolution (HJR) 43 was introduced by Rep. Mike Henderson (R-St. Francois) to stave off ballot initiatives that are believed to be funded by out-of-state political action committees.
“We don't think it really has much of a chance of getting passed in the legislature nor by the voters of Missouri and so basically we'd be back to square one," said Freedom Principle MO President Byron Keelin.
Freedom Principle MO is a membership-based, pro-citizen Missouri First 501(c)4 organization.
Currently, approving a ballot initiative only requires a simple majority, which is 50% plus one. Amendment 3, for example, was approved by voters last year with a simple majority to legalize recreational marijuana.
Keelin argues raising the threshold to 60% for ballot initiatives could still be easily approved by ignoring the rural vote and focusing on votes in urban population centers like St. Louis and Kansas City.
"We could end up with something like rank-choice voting," he said. "We believe in individual state rep districts because then we could work with local grassroots groups in those state rep districts to prevent a vote for those amendments. It would allow us to better utilize our limited resources to fight against something that could be banned by the Missouri constitution."
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, HJR 43 was approved by the Missouri House of Representatives 108-to-50 in February. Only one Democrat voted in favor of HJR 43. The rest voted against it.
Freedom Principle MO and its supporters prefer a Concurrent Majority Ratification (CMR) because they foresee the process being more inclusive of rural voters.
Sen. Sandy Crawford (R-Benton) is expected to offer a substitute amendment that would implement CMR, according to Keelin.
"The Senate currently is proposing to use congressional districts, which really isn't much better than the percentage aspect of things because out of eight congressional districts, three are in population centers like St. Louis and Kansas City," Keelin told the St. Louis Record.
He accused Speaker of the House Rep. Dean Plocher (R-Des Peres) and Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden (R-Columbia) of blocking CMR bills HJR 30 and SJR 28.
“Speaker Plocher has blocked HJR 30 from coming to a vote because he prefers the 60% method,” Keelin added. “The Senate version, SJR 28, was passed out of committee right before spring break but has basically been ignored by Senate President Caleb Rowden because he also is against the CMR process.”
If approved by the Senate and signed by Gov. Parson, HJR 43 will appear on the November 2024 ballot.