Author: Ryan Gavin

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Contact: liz@progressmo.org

Politicians scheme to trick voters into giving away rights, end 100 years of majority rule

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Missouri House Election Committee today moved forward with adding so-called ballot candy to SJR74, a shameful move meant to trick voters. The resolution would dismantle democracy as Missourians have known it for over 100 years. SJR74, as currently constructed, would end majority rule in Missouri, potentially requiring more than 70% of a statewide vote for any constitutional amendment to pass.

“Everyone knows why this resolution is loaded with ballot candy,” said Liz McCune, Executive Director of Progress Missouri. “Missourians hate these plans to end majority rule. Politicians are trying every trick they can to distract and confuse us from their real agenda. These changes will result in making politicians even more powerful while making it harder for Missourians to have a say and go around a legislature that often ignores them.”

Today, the House committee added items to the Senate passed version of SJR74, including a requirement that those who vote in Missouri elections be U.S. citizens and a clause that foreign governments cannot fund ballot initiative efforts. BOTH OF THESE ITEMS ARE ALREADY REQUIRED UNDER MISSOURI LAW.

“The ballot candy is designed to hide the true impact of the measure and gain support from voters who don’t know that several items in the ballot summary are already required by law,” said Marilyn McLeod, President of the League of Women Voters of Missouri. “The initiative process is an important part of democracy in Missouri and the suggested changes would squelch the voice of the people, overturning the sacred principle of ‘one person, one vote’.”

Since the beginning of the year, thousands of Missourians voiced their opposition to attacks on the initiative petition process, many pointing out that the process already in place gives Missourians the power to make direct decisions about policies that impact them and their families.

Missourians are urged to let their legislator know they oppose these efforts to trick Missourians into giving their rights away and making it harder for votes to count.

Welcome back to Under the Dome, your weekly update on the goings-on of the Missouri state legislature.

Legislative homestretch likely to focus on dismantling the initiative petition process and passing budget, education bill, health care

With eight weeks left in the 2024 Missouri legislative session, no legislation has passed through both chambers.

Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold, asked a House committee to add back ballot candy provisions that were stripped from the Senate resolution.

Before they went on spring break, senators passed an over 150-page omnibus education bill. However, it must now go through the House, where it will likely undergo changes as it faces opposition from both homeschool and local public school advocates.

This session, lawmakers also must pass a tax that funds that bulk of Missouri’s Medicaid program and the state’s $50 billion operating budget.

Poll shows Missourians overwhelmingly support access to contraceptives despite efforts to politicize it

New polling data released Thursday shows that birth control is not considered controversial by Missourians.

“During a time when many issues divide people in our state, birth control enjoys near universal support,” Michelle Trupiano, executive director of Missouri Family Health Council, said.

The survey polled 1,000 Missourians between 18-35, split almost evenly among Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Most of those polled – including 84% of Democrats, 61% of Independents and about half of Republicans – expressed concern that their legislature will push laws restricting birth control.

House votes to repeal corporate income taxes saying the big business billion-dollar giveaway will have a trickle-down effect

The Missouri House sent a bill repealing the corporate income tax to the Senate on a party-line vote Wednesday, with Democrats calling it a business giveaway.

The corporate income tax is paid by larger companies with many stockholders. A fiscal note for the bill estimates it would reduce state revenues by at least $884 million when fully implemented. The state collected $13.2 billion in general revenue in the fiscal year that ended June 30.

SOS race: Plocher files before going in front of the House Ethics Committee; Coleman fails to carry her MO-3 campaign to term to join the primary

Two state legislators who had been seeking different offices abandoned their bids on Tuesday and instead filed paperwork to run for secretary of state.

State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold, dropped her bid to represent the 3rd Congressional District and joined the Republican race for secretary of state.

Earlier Tuesday, House Speaker Dean Plocher ended his campaign for lieutenant governor. Instead he launched his bid for secretary of state before his 4 p.m. appearance in front of the House Ethics Committee.

Welcome back to Under the Dome, your weekly update on the goings-on of the Missouri state legislature.

Legislators promise ballot candy will be back in SJR 74 when session resumes

Even Spring Break couldn’t deter legislators from attacking majority rule in Missouri. House Speaker Dean Plocher took to Twitter on Tuesday to announce that the House would be adding back the ballot candy the Senate previously removed.

Specifically, Plocher said they would be addressing “noncitizen voting,” which he would know was already illegal if he took two seconds to read the requirements on the Missouri Secretary of State website. But while it’s fair to question his literacy based on how many scandals he’s been involved in this session, he and his fellow supermajority are more likely doing it to trick Missouri voters into passing incredibly unpopular legislation by sweetening it up (hence the term).

Specifically, Plocher said they would be addressing “noncitizen voting,” which he would know was already illegal if he took two seconds to read the requirements on the Missouri Secretary of State website. But while it’s fair to question his literacy based on how many scandals he’s been involved in this session, he and his fellow supermajority are more likely doing it to trick Missouri voters into passing incredibly unpopular legislation by sweetening it up (hence the term).

Protecting majority rule has broad bipartisan support. Conservative, pro-democracy organizations such as Show Me Integrity and Conservatives Against Corruption have spoken out against the legislation that would change Missouri’s century-old law.
KMOV News highlighted the voice of conservative Fred Steinbach, former mayor of Chesterfield and finance director for former Gov. John Ashcroft:

“I oppose SJR 74 and any efforts to make it harder for Missourians to exercise our Constitutional freedom of the citizen initiative process. In 1992, my former boss Governor Ashcroft vetoed similar attacks on the citizen initiative process. The then-Democratic majority was attacking the will of the people, and trying to make the initiative process more difficult, because the Democrats were bitter that conservatives had been using the citizen initiative, including to pass the Hancock Amendment with only 55% of the vote.”

Scandal-ridden Speaker Plocher feels the walls closing in

While Plocher went on a buzzword-riddled tirade attacking majority rule, he also spent his Spring Break trying to discredit the Missouri Independent, which has been a journalistic leader in its reporting on his near-constant stream of scandals. Not once in the rant did he refute a single fact from their extensive and well-sourced reporting.

From the latest Missouri Independent story, the bipartisan House Ethics Committee investigating Plocher will reconvene at 4 p.m. Tuesday, the fifth hearing on Plocher in 2024.

In case you’ve missed his laundry list of scandals, he’s been accused over the last few months of pushing for the House to enter into a contract with a private company outside the normal bidding process; threatening retaliation against legislative staff who pushed back on that contract; improperly firing a potential whistleblower; filing false expense reports for travel already paid for by his campaign; and arranging meetings between legislators and an out-of-state vendor.

Maybe he left his tinfoil hat in the new $60,000 liquor pantry he replaced a fellow legislator’s office with.

Welcome back to Under the Dome, your weekly update on the goings-on of the Missouri state legislature.

Governor’s clemency decision spotlights systemic injustice

The week in Missouri politics began with a shameful display of misplaced mercy as Gov. Mike Parson decided to shorten the prison sentence of former Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid while admitting he had not bothered to reach out to the family of Ariel Young.

Young was 5 when she suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of an accident caused by Reid – son of Chief coach Andy Reid – who was driving while intoxicated. As the Kansas City Star pointed out in Vahe Gregorian’s column, the governor is an avid Chiefs fan. 

The case highlights the systemic injustice inherent in the commutation process. Earlier, Parson declined to pardon Kevin Strickland, whom a Jackson County prosecutor said was “factually innocent” of a 1978 triple murder. Despite the extraordinary plea from a prosecutor to release Strickland, who is Black, Parson declined because he said he didn’t know if the man was “innocent or not.”

Reflecting on the decision, Justice Horn, chair of the LGBTQ Commission of Kansas City, said simply: “There are two systems of justice in this country.”

Brother speaks up on legislator’s attempt to bully LGBTQ+ kids and their teachers

This week the brother of Missouri Representative Jamie Gragg spoke out against his Ozark sibling’s “hateful and malicious” anti-trans bill that would label teachers as sex offenders if they support transgender students by using their chosen name and pronouns. 

In an interview with the Riverfront Times, Charles Gragg Jr. said the legislation “will cost lives and recklessly destroy others just for the sin of being compassionate.”

Meanwhile, for the second year in a row, a Missouri House committee debated GOP-backed legislation that would face the same limits on drag performances as govern “sexually oriented businesses.”

The bill, sponsored by Bethany Republican Rep. Mazzie Christensen, would also create penalties for engaging in an adult cabaret performance in a location where it could be “reasonably expected to be viewed by a person who is not an adult.” The first offense would be a misdemeanor and the second a felony.

Opponents to the legislation argued that not all drag is sexual in nature, and the legislation would further marginalize LGBTQ+ Missourians.

And while the legislature pretends this is all to “protect children,” actual victims of sexual assault, like the Kanakuk and Agape tragedies, are asking legislators to address Missouri’s restrictive statute of limitations on legal recourse.

House backs political stunt to send soldiers and state troopers to Texas border

Speaking of misplaced priorities, this week the Missouri House overwhelmingly supported Gov. Mike Parson’s $2.2 million plan to send soldiers and state troopers to the Mexican border by voting 122-12 for the money needed to finance it.

As reported in the Missouri Independent, Parson is sending 200 Missouri National Guard soldiers and 11 Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers to work with Texas law enforcement at the request of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. There are also about 250 National Guard soldiers from Missouri in Texas operating under federal orders and paid from the federal treasury.