JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Over the past several years, Missouri voters have amended the state constitution to create abortion rights, legalize marijuana and sports betting and expand Medicaid healthcare coverage for low-income adults.
None of those initiatives would have passed under a ballot measure getting decided by voters Tuesday.
Missouri’s proposed Amendment 4 would make it significantly harder to amend the constitution by requiring citizen initiatives to pass in all eight of the state’s diverse congressional districts instead of by a traditional, simple statewide majority. No other state has such a high standard — or has even asked voters to consider it.
“This is a first-of-its-kind,” said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, a national group that backs progressive ballot initiatives like the ones Missouri’s Republican lawmakers are hoping to quelch.
“It would be nearly impossible for citizens to participate meaningfully in any sort of direct democracy,” said Hall, who believes other states could try to copy Missouri’s proposal.
Lawmakers seek to rein in citizen initiatives
The Missouri proposal is the culmination of years of attempts by lawmakers in numerous states to raise the bar for citizen-initiated petitions to qualify for the ballot and win voter approval. Some elected officials contend lawmaking is best left to themselves — the people’s representatives — because citizen initiatives lack the vetting that comes from the multistep legislative process of public hearings, debates and revisions.
The effort to curtail citizen initiatives on state ballots comes as President Donald Trump pushes for greater restrictions on who can vote and how ballots are cast, asserting the integrity of elections is at stake.
Missouri’s measure “fits into the larger narrative and story around what the future of democracy looks like in the United States,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which supports progressive ballot measures.
Citizen initiatives are allowed only in some states
About one-third of U.S. states allow people to bypass their legislatures by gathering signatures to place proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot. Several others allow the process for proposed laws.
In most of those states, a simple majority of voters is all that’s needed to approve constitutional amendments. Colorado requires a 55% vote for most measures, and Florida a 60% vote.
Voters in recent years rejected ballot measures to raise the approval threshold for amendments in Arkansas, Ohio and South Dakota. Still, South Dakota lawmakers have placed a proposal for a 60% approval threshold on the November ballot. North Dakota voters will consider a similar measure, and Utah voters will decide on a 60% requirement for citizen-initiated tax increases.
Missouri’s proposal would apply only to citizen initiatives. Constitutional amendments proposed by the Legislature still would need only a statewide majority. No other state has a dual standard like that.
Missouri proposal requires geographic consensus
Republican state Rep. Ed Lewis, who sponsored Missouri’s measure, said he wants to ensure people in all parts of the state have their voices heard. He said activists funded by out-of-state interest groups have run up large majorities in St. Louis and Kansas City to pass controversial initiatives that failed throughout most of the rest of Missouri.
The abortion, marijuana, sports betting and Medicaid initiatives all were placed on the ballot by petitions between 2020 and 2024 after lawmakers declined to act. All passed with 53% or less of the statewide vote.
