Missouri lawmakers thwart the people's will all the time. Now they're targeting petitions

[In It to Win It]

The Kansas City Star

Missouri’s voters’ ability to enact laws on their own is under threat.

State Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin, a Republican from Shelbina, was recently picked as the party’s majority leader for 2023. In an interview with St. Louis Public Radio, she expressed frustration with ballot-based constitutional amendments such as the just-passed recreational marijuana proposal.

“The biggest downside of that is the legislature has no ability then to adjust anything,” she said. “Once it’s in the (state) constitution, it’s in there. And so I think that we’ll look at some reforms for the initiative petition process.”

Other Republicans have voter initiative rights in their sight. The marijuana proposal “is absolutely terrible language to insert into our state constitution and a clear example of why we need (to) raise the signature and approval thresholds for initiative petitions,” state Rep. Josh Hurlbert tweeted in October.

It’s true: Putting the marijuana language in the state’s governing blueprint was not the optimum approach. But let’s be clear. It ended up on the ballot because the legislature, as is so often the case, refused to do its job. The people were left with no real alternative except to do it for themselves.