Trial over initiative petition limiting lawmakers’ power starts Tuesday
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
A Cole County judge will hear arguments Tuesday afternoon on another initiative petition that Secretary of State Denny Hoskins determined was insufficient.
The group Respect Missouri Voters submitted signatures for an initiative petition that, if approved, would make it harder for lawmakers to overturn citizen-led initiative petitions. It would require 80% of each chamber to change or pass laws to undo what citizens approved.
This stems from Amendment 4, which Missourians saw on the August ballot. Amendment 4 would have made it harder for initiative petitions to pass. That measure failed.
The Aug. 4 election was also the last day for Hoskins to approve or turn down initiative petitions, and he issued a certificate of insufficiency for the Respect Missouri Voters' ballot measure and the initiative petition the group People Not Politicians turned in.
Both groups are now asking Cole County Judge Daniel Green to overturn the secretary's decision before Sept. 8 -- the last day to add ballot measures to the November ballot. Respect Missouri Voters has its first trial on at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Along with a certificate of insufficiency from Hoskins, a legal opinion from Attorney General Catherine Hanaway was also attached. Hanaway argued that Respect Missouri Voters' ballot language touches on too many topics. She said it deals with ballot title reform, initiative reform and alters powers that lawmakers have to pass laws and amend the constitution.
Respect Missouri Voters claims the initiative petition addresses only one subject: how citizens can pass laws through the initiative petition and referendum processes.
Hoskins made changes to the ballot title first approved in May, on the chance that a judge required the measure to be put on the ballot.
The state argues, in pretrial briefings, that the original version of this initiative petition violates the republican form of government, as set forth in the U.S. Constitution, which requires citizens to rely on representatives to pass laws for them.
"It [the initiative petition] binds the hands of future voters and revokes the General Assembly’s power to legislate on — and the right of future voters to vote on — an untold number of subjects," the court document argues.
However, in court documents filed by Respect Missouri Voters, the group argues the secretary's sole job is to decide if the intiative petition falls within Missouri law.
"The Secretary is not empowered to reach beyond Section 116.120.1 and ask the Attorney General to present novel legal theories on which to base an insufficiency determination," court documents read.
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