Senate initiative petition resolution gets first hearing in House

BY GRANT GREEN

MISSOURI NEWS NETWORK

JEFFERSON CITY — House members got their first chance Tuesday to hear supporting and opposing opinions on a Senate resolution that could lead to a higher threshold for passing constitutional amendments.

Senate Joint Resolution 74 requires that all proposed constitutional amendments would need to receive a majority of votes statewide and a majority of votes in at least five of the state’s eight congressional districts.

Committee members and witnesses who expressed opposition to the bill in the House Elections and Elected Officials Committee hearing claimed that the bill took away liberties from the people and created “minority rule” in Missouri.

“Initiative petitions are for when we don’t do our jobs,” said Rep. Joe Adams, D-University City.

Adams pointed to the sports betting issue, which is currently getting signatures collected by the Winning for Missouri Education Coalition.

The resolution’s sponsor, Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold, said that the initiative process change is necessary because the constitution is now a book and not a framework for legislating. She added that this proposed change empowers those that aren’t accounted for in a statewide simple majority vote.

“With this bill, rural voices are represented by requiring a majority in over half of congressional districts,” Coleman said.

Rep. Brad Banderman, R-St. Clair, agreed with Coleman that the initiative petition process too easily changes the Missouri Constitution and it should be a framework and not a pot for more legislation.

Between 1910 and 2022, 95 ballot initiatives appeared before Missouri voters; 43 passed, for an approval rate of 45%.

Banderman also noted that the initiative process shouldn’t be easy because there is no platform for dissenting opinions like there are in Congress.

The next step for the bill is to get a vote in committee. Rep. David Tyson Smith, D-Columbia, told Coleman that if the bill has to go back to the Senate, he asks that she not try to add some of the “ballot candy” that she placed on the bill.

The resolution originally began with wording that said no person shall be eligible to vote on any measure submitted unless the person is a legal resident of the state of Missouri and a U.S. citizen.

That is already law and Senate Democrats ended a filibuster of the resolution, allowing the Republican majority to pass it, after an amendment stripped that language.