What Happened?
After the Senate Democrats filibustered starting evening of Monday, February 19 through the night and into Tuesday, February 20, the Senate Republicans stripped provisions from SJR 74 deemed by critics as “ballot candy” that the GOP legislators hoped would get Democrats to support the bill. Senate Democrats filibustered for twenty hours, making clear they would not vote on SJR 74 until “ballot candy” GOP legislators included to trick voters into giving away their rights was removed. SJR 74 in its stripped form still makes it more difficult to pass initiative petitions amending the Missouri constitution, requiring both a majority vote statewide as well as a majority vote in five of the state’s eight congressional districts.
The Changes Do Not Make This Bill Any Less Bad for Democracy
Make no mistake, despite Democrats ensuring SJR 74 no longer had “ballot candy” language, SJR 74 is still bad for Democracy. Regardless of political affiliation or your favorite cause, the initiative petition process is a powerful tool given to Missourians to propose policy reforms that the rest of the state can vote on – if the majority of Missourians vote in favor of the policy reform, it becomes law. What an incredible tool! The Missouri legislature should not meddle with the one tool every day Missourians have to put forth policy ideas that the legislature can’t seem to advance on themselves.
Simple majority rule is common sense and already the law of the land in Missouri. Lobbyists and special interests are trying to shred our constitution to undermine the principle of ‘one person, one vote’ because they can’t control citizens the way they control politicians.
What the Senate passed is so brazenly contradictory to this country’s values, like majority rule, that they know they must trick voters to get it done. That’s why politicians use tricky language and have even tried to add illegal ‘ballot candy’ to mislead voters about what this amendment would do: shred the constitution to end majority rule in Missouri.
But Missourians know that if it sounds too good to be true, it is. It is already unconstitutional and illegal for non-citizens and foreign governments to vote in or fund Missouri elections. That is why there is overwhelming bipartisan opposition to the politicians’ plan to end majority rule and their obviously deceptive attempts to trick voters.
This amendment shreds our constitution, ending 100 years of majority rule in Missouri, and taking away your right to decide what happens here by undermining the sacred principle of ‘one person, one vote.’ We need to protect our freedom to determine our future in Missouri, not permanently change our constitution to give up our rights.
What Happens Now?
SJR 74 goes to the House. Call your legislators and ask them to stop SJR 74 in any form! To find their phone numbers, use the Legislator Lookup on the Senate website.