A Cole County judge will decide Wednesday on whether a proposed constitutional amendment goes too far or if state law directs him to allow it to go to a November vote.
At the end of an hour of arguments Tuesday, Circuit Judge Daniel Green promised he would deliver his ruling in one day. Then the case will go to the Western District Court of Appeals before possibly finishing with a final decision from the Missouri Supreme Court.
All litigation must be completed Sept. 8, the deadline for court-ordered additions to the ballot.
If it is on the ballot, it will be Amendment 6. Proposed by a political action committee called Respect MO Voters, it would severely limit the ability of lawmakers to alter the provisions of laws and constitutional amendments placed on the ballot by initiative.
If passed, lawmakers would have to muster an 80% majority in both chambers to change anything in a measure passed by initiative. And if they achieve that majority, it would be subject to a statewide vote to ratify the changes.
Respect MO Voters turned in 335,000 signatures and local election authorities found there were enough to qualify for the ballot. But Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins issued a decision that it improperly addresses more than one subject and more than one article of the Missouri Constitution and refused to put it on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Relying on an analysis from Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, Hoskins also said the measure improperly infringes on the ability of the legislature to enact laws and that the summary he wrote in 2025 is flawed and should not be used.
In court Tuesday, attorney Chuck Hatfield said Hanaway’s analysis is wrong, and the secretary of state did not have the power to block the initiative from the ballot.
“I cannot find a single case or a time when the secretary of state has issued a certificate of insufficiency for something other than the lack of signatures,” Hatfield said.
Arguing to uphold Hoskins, Kathleen Hunker of the attorney general’s office said the limits on future actions are too strict and undermine the state’s legislative representatives. It improperly binds future legislatures, she said.
“It elevates the will of today and yesterday’s voters over those of tomorrow,” she said.
The Missouri Constitution limits initiative proposals to a single subject and requires all provisions to fall within a single article of the constitution. All the provisions in the initiative are in the legislative article, with exceptions that point to other articles and provisions the new language would supersede.
“It actually has the effect of changing provisions that were previously in different articles,” Hunker said. “It’s using clever law crafting in order to hide its wide scope.”
The courts dealt with a similar issue on Amendment 5, the income tax measure defeated on Aug. 4. While the provisions of Amendment 5 were all in the taxation article, it included language that addressed provisions of other articles.
The Western District Court of Appeals decided that Amendment 5 did not violate the single subject rule and allowed the statewide vote. Hatfield was the losing attorney, and he said arguing that a proposal alters other articles by implication is an almost impossible task.
“I’ve argued many of them and lost them all,” Hatfield said.
Many of the questions about constitutionality of the initiative are legal questions that should wait until after voters have decided whether to enact Amendment 6, Hatfield said.
He urged Green to allow Amendment 6 to be on the ballot and let the courts determine if every provision should be allowed to stand if it passes.
“This is about the power of the people to decide what they want to do,” Hatfield said. “The legislature just asked to curtail the power of the people to do initiatives in Amendment 4 and that got voted down. Now a group of people are asking to expand and protect the power of the people."
This was first published by the Missouri Independent, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization covering state government, politics and policy, and is reprinted with permission.