The ballot measure, called Amendment 3, passed last November, making Missouri the first state to overturn an abortion ban after the fall of Roe v. Wade.
The constitutional amendment to legalize abortion was placed on the ballot through Missouri’s initiative petition process, a more than a century-old mechanism for direct democracy used by voters of both parties to put measures to a statewide vote.
The process has allowed Missourians to raise the minimum wage, legalize both recreational and medical marijuana and expand Medicaid in recent years. Werner, a 69-year-old former religion instructor, voted in favor of each of them.
“The initiative process is about letting the voters decide what they want the policies of the government to be,” said Werner, who has lived in both Kansas City and St. Louis. “This is democracy working.”
But, under a first-in-the-nation plan to overhaul the process over the next two weeks, a majority of voter-backed policy measures are likely to fail at the ballot box.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, has called on lawmakers to weaken the initiative petition process and gerrymander the state’s congressional map, setting up perhaps the most consequential special session in recent history that could change the trajectory of Missouri for years to come.
Kehoe and Republican lawmakers want to require statewide ballot measures to receive both majority support statewide and a majority in each of the state’s eight congressional districts to pass. Currently, measures need a simple majority (50 percent of the vote plus one).
That threshold would make it nearly impossible for most citizen-led ballot measures to pass on the ballot, political experts say. It would give voters in just one congressional district the power to veto an amendment, no matter how popular the measure is statewide.
In theory, a ballot measure could win 93 percent of the vote statewide and still fail if it received less than 50 percent of the vote in one district, according to a review of voting patterns in 2024.
Missouri would be the only state in the country with such a requirement, called a concurrent majority, according to a review of state ballot measure rules compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
“It’s very extreme,” said Matt Harris, a political scientist at Park University. “It, really, greatly limits the power of the citizens if it’s eight out of eight (congressional districts) even if you’re talking about, you know, conservative measures as well.”
Harris and Peverill Squire, a political scientist at the University of Missouri, both emphasized in interviews with The Star that the proposal would make it difficult for both Democratic-leaning and Republican-leaning policies to pass on the ballot.
“I think it would be hard for anything that didn’t enjoy almost universal support to be able to make it through,” Squire said. “Of course, the problem that the Republicans will have to grapple with is it would also make it virtually impossible for some of the things that they want to get through.”
The special session, which began on Wednesday, comes as Republicans have sought to curtail the initiative petition process for years. Kehoe’s proposal, however, is the most expansive attempt to weaken it in recent memory.
Targeting the Petition Process
The Republican criticism comes as voters have used the process to pass policies seen as progressive. Republican lawmakers argue that it’s been too easy for voters to amend the Missouri Constitution and that the current process allows outside interest groups to influence elections.
“The proposal is geared to have more buy-in from across the state on any issue going into our constitution,” said Republican state Sen. Nick Schroer, who chairs the right-wing Freedom Caucus .
Kehoe’s proposal follows a familiar trend in Missouri, a state that passes progressive-leaning policies at the ballot box but also elects conservative politicians who often disagree with those ideas. The trend has frustrated Republican lawmakers, who overturned a voter-approved paid sick leave law this year and put a new abortion ban on the 2026 ballot.
“People say we’re taking away people’s rights,” said GOP state Sen. Mike Cierpiot. “Most of these left-wing things we’re passing — they passed because of Kansas City and St. Louis. This will have the entire state weigh in.”
However, the higher threshold touted by Kehoe and Republicans would only apply to citizen-led ballot measures. Constitutional amendments put on the ballot by state lawmakers, such as the proposed abortion ban, would only have to receive a simple majority statewide in order to pass.
Attacking Direct Democracy
Defenders of the process frame the move as a broader attack on democracy that would strengthen the power of the General Assembly. They argue the effort is reflective of the fact that the legislature’s priorities are not in line with the views of average voters.
“Politicians in MO are trying to take away voters’ power by ending majority rule and our freedom to have a direct voice in making laws,” M’Evie Mead, the director of strategic partnerships for Missouri Jobs with Justice, a social justice group, said in a statement.
“The initiative process,” Mead said, “has proven to be a tool of liberty in Missouri for more than a century, allowing citizens to effectively remind politicians that we remain the ultimate power of government.”
Kehoe and other Republicans argue that it’s been too easy for voters to amend the constitution. Some compare the state’s governing document to a thick book that can be constantly updated with little hurdles.
But supporters of the process say that’s not the case.
Between 1910 and 2022, 69 citizen-driven initiative petitions were placed in front of voters, according to previous reporting from The Star. Of those petitions, voters approved only 28 — 40.6 percent. Voters shot down the remaining 41, or 59.4 percent.
Those figures only examine the petitions that actually reached the ballot. Most measures fail to qualify for the process, which requires a time-consuming and expensive signature-gathering effort.
Will Voters Approve?
Democrats are poised to push back on the effort and have promised to filibuster the proposal when it reaches the Missouri Senate . Supporters of initiative petitions also have another backstop: voters in Missouri.
Any changes to the voter threshold would likely come as a proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution. Therefore, voters would have to approve changes to the threshold on an upcoming statewide ballot, potentially in 2026.
A bipartisan group called Respect MO Voters is also gearing up for a campaign that would ban lawmakers from weakening the initiative petition process. The group plans to launch a signature-gathering drive across the state next week.
As lawmakers return to the Missouri Capitol, the actions they take over the next two weeks on the initiative petition process and a gerrymandered congressional map could have a major effect on the future of Missouri, political experts said.
“It’s an attempt to sort of solidify and enshrine GOP power in the state completely — potentially for decades to come,” said Harris, the political scientist at Park University.
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