Supreme Court won’t hear Clean Missouri case, heads to Nov. ballot

The Missouri Supreme Court won’t hear the case hoping to invalidate a proposed constitutional amendment, sending it instead to voters in November.

The court denied the request from Miller County resident Paul Ritter and Missouri Chamber of Commerce president Daniel Mehan to consider their challenge to Amendment 1. The initiative petition seeks to bring several ethics-related changes to state government, including a ban on lobbyist gifts, campaign contribution limits and new rules for drawing legislative districts.

An appeals court overturned Cole County judge Daniel Green’s decision to strike Amendment 1 from the ballot. Green said the measure violated the state’s “single-subject” rule for initiative petitions, but the appeals court said Amendment 1 dealt with regulating the state government.

While the measure, backed by the group Clean Missouri, has received bipartisan endorsements, the state Republican Party opposes it. Chris Nuelle, spokesman for the party, said it was disappointed with the high court’s decision.

“Behind the sleek marketing and innocent name of Clean Missouri is an effort to slice up Missouri’s legislative districts from rural to urban areas to satisfy a ridiculous fairness rule, which would certainly benefit Democrats,” Nuelle said.

Clean Missouri campaign director Sean Nicholson praised the decision.

“More than 300,000 Missourians signed petitions to put Amendment 1 on the ballot, and they’re going to have their chance to clean up Missouri politics on November 6,” Nicholson said.

If approved, the amendment would also make legislators’ emails open records, ban campaign fundraisers from taking place on state property and impose a two-year “cooling off” period for lawmakers and their staff from becoming lobbyists.