Benjamin Singer of Respect Missouri Voters protesting with others in Jefferson City, Missouri: NAJ screen shot from FB
By Glynn Wilson –
ST. LOUIS, Mo. – When pulling up the canopy stakes in the Washington, D.C. metro area on Monday worried about the militarized occupation in the nation’s capital and heading across the Midwest as fast as possible to a political meeting here Wednesday night, nothing really prepared me for the scene where hundreds and even thousands of citizens are working together town hall style to save democracy in Missouri and potentially inspire a movement that could sweep across the country.
As the New York Times and others have been reporting on a move by Missouri Republicans in the Legislature to join those in Texas trying to build a security wall to protect President Donald Trump from a takeover of the U.S. House by Democrats in 2026, what is most likely an illegal and clearly a corrupt mid-decade effort to re-gerrymander the electoral maps to favor Republicans, what I found was another citizen movement with potentially as serious consequences, with long-term implications.
At the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City this week, as outnumbered Democrats blasted the Republicans for their “brazen, shameless cheating to protect Trump,” citizens were coming together in town hall meetings across the state to build a movement to stop the Republicans from taking away their rights to propose and pass changes to the state constitution through “citizen initiatives.”
More than 2,000 people protested at the Capitol on Wednesday, literally drowning out the voices of Senators who were about to take up the measure passed by the state House, according to a woman I met in St. Louis who attended the protest. The noise in the Capitol was so loud the Senate quickly went into recess because they could’t hear themselves speak, she said.
My arrival could not have been timed better, just in time for friends in the suburbs of St. Louis to whisk me off to a political town hall meeting where more than 500 citizens – Republicans, Democrats and independents – packed a synagogue to begin building a new grassroots movement called “Respect Missouri Voters,” beginning with a petition drive for a proposed constitutional amendment that would make it harder for state legislators to reverse or revise citizen-led initiatives already approved by voters.
A packed town hall meeting in St. Louis County, Missouri as voters fight back as the Republican Legislature tries to roll back citizen initiative rights: Glynn Wilson
The movement is being built to counter Republicans who, in a special session called by Republican Governor Mike Kehoe about redistricting, proposed a constitutional amendment of their own that would make it harder for constitutional amendments to reach the ballot and be voted on through these citizen initiatives.
“I want our legislators to stop overturning the will of the people,” said Lauren Bakker, a suburban St. Louis resident who was among the first to sign the initiative petition backed by the Respect Missouri Voters Coalition, which is asking people to join them to “ban Missouri Politicians from Attacking the Will of the People.”
The initiative pushes back against Missouri Republicans who control the Legislature and recently took steps to repeal voter-approved initiatives on abortion rights and paid sick leave and imposed more restrictive requirements on ballot initiative campaigns.
“Extremist Missouri politicians are attacking the will of the people,” the group says on its new website. “Overturning. Tricking. Delaying. Blocking. Taking away your power. Now YOU can help us pass a ballot initiative to stop them.”
Their coalition includes the National Organization for Women, Veterans for All Voters, the Missouri NAACP, and other groups.
“Together,” they say, “we can BAN politicians” from:
* Overturning initiatives that voters have already passed.
* Attacking citizens’ ability to use the initiative process.
* Deceiving voters with confusing ballot language.
A proposal passed Tuesday by the Missouri House, and now pending in the Senate, would require citizen-initiated amendments to receive a majority vote in each of the state’s eight congressional districts to pass. Amendments placed on the ballot by the Legislature would need only a statewide majority, as is currently the case. No other state has a dual standard of this nature, according to reporting from AP, and it is inspiring a backlash by people of all political persuasions.
“In effect, it’s saying we’re going to kill the initiative process,” said Liz Kester, of Columbia, who is helping with the voters initiative.
In St. Louis, even an ally of former Republican Missouri Governor and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Freddie Steinbach, spoke in support of the voter initiative and against the Legislature’s plan and assured those in attendance – and anyone else listening and paying attention: “This is a non-partisan meeting and movement.”
Democratic legislators, in the minority in Missouri, raised concerns as well.
“I can’t even get eight out of eight of my family members to decide what we want to cook at our family reunion, let alone get eight congressional districts to all be in line,” said state House member Marty Joe Murray of St. Louis.
Republicans, who lied and claimed the initiatives were being pushed by “out of state” interests – while taking out of state campaign contributions from big corporate interests themselves – contend that their proposal would force initiatives to win support from both rural and urban areas and from congressional districts represented by both Republicans and Democrats.
“If you’re going to change the constitution of Missouri, you will have to have broad consensus,” said Republican state House member Ed Lewis, sponsor of the measure backed by Governor Kehoe.
The voters coalition erected a tent outside the Capitol on Wednesday and began gathering petition signatures for a proposed constitutional amendment that would bar anything other than a simple statewide majority vote from being required to pass initiatives. The measure also would bar the Legislature from increasing how many signatures are needed for initiatives to qualify for the ballot, or taking actions that would weaken citizens’ initiative and referendum rights.
The voter proposal also would prohibit the Legislature from changing or repealing citizen-initiated laws or constitutional amendments unless 80% of House and Senate members vote to refer the revisions to a statewide ballot.
The Legislature this year repealed a voter-approved law requiring employers to provide paid sick leave and referred to the ballot a new amendment seeking to undo an abortion-rights amendment passed by voters last November.
John Billman of Columbia said he signed initiative petitions for both of those measures because he said he was tired of the Legislature “weaseling around it, passing laws in some way that undo what the people want.”
Supporters are organizing to collect about 300,000 signatures, which would be about three-quarters more than it would need to qualify for the ballot, said Benjamin Singer, co-founder of the Respect Missouri Voters Coalition.
“The Legislature is proving our point,” Singer said. “The politicians in Jefferson City are shameless in their attempts to trick voters into taking away our freedoms.”
At the meeting that night in St. Louis County, he was greeted with a resounding round of applause when he assured those in attendance: “We will be successful,” he said.
If the group succeeds, the measure could appear on the ballot alongside the Legislature’s proposal, which is misleadingly called the “Protect Missouri Voters” amendment.
That could create some confusion and tough choices for voters, some critics say.
Nearly 150 bills have been introduced across 15 states this year seeking to make it harder for initiatives to qualify for the ballot or win approval by voters, according to the Fairness Project, a progressive group that has backed dozens of ballot initiatives in states that allow them, including California.
This year’s new laws include one in Republican-led Florida that allows felony charges against individuals if they collect more than 25 signed ballot petitions other than their own or those of immediate family members, and don’t register with the state as a petition circulator. Meanwhile, the Republican-led legislatures in North and South Dakota referred measures to a future ballot proposing a 60% public vote threshold to approve constitutional amendments.
“Lawmakers have consistently around the country enacted restrictions on the citizens’ ability to use direct democracy as a check and balance on their power,” said Dane Waters, founder of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California.
The people of Missouri are fired up and say they are not going to take this anymore.
“We are not going to stand by and watch this partisan Republican Legislature take away our democratic rights,” said Rob Stout, who signed up to collect signatures for the voters initiative. “The people of Missouri of all political persuasions have had enough. Our democracy is already under attack in Washington. We must stand up and fight this here at home.”
___
If you support truth in reporting with no paywall, and fearless writing with no popup ads or sponsored content, consider making a contribution today with GoFundMe or Patreon or PayPal.
