Missouri’s Secretary of State candidates discuss initiative petition process, abortion question
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Democratic state Rep. Barbara Phifer and Republican Sen. Denny Hoskins will face off in the race for Missouri's Secretary of State on Nov. 5.
The Secretary of State serves as Missouri's chief elections official and is responsible for maintaining and preserving records, overseeing the State Library, regulating the securities industry and serving as the filing agency for business.
Phifer has represented St. Louis County, District 90, in the Missouri House since November 2020. Before that, the Columbia native was a United Methodist pastor for more than 40 years. According to Phifer's campaign website, some of the top issues for her campaign include maintaining free and fair elections for all eligible voters in Missouri, maintaining business in the state and supporting public libraries.
Hoskins has represented District 21 -- which includes Cooper, Howard, Lafayette, Ray, Saline and Clay counties -- in the Missouri Senate since 2016. Before that, Hoskins served in the Missouri House of Representatives starting in 2008 and became the of Speaker Pro Tem in 2013.
Hoskins' campaign website shows some of the focuses of his campaign which includes an anti-abortion stance, defending election integrity for Missourians, protecting Missouri farmland, keeping "critical race theory" and diversity equity and inclusion out of school curriculums, blocking taxpayer money from going to environmental, social and governance investment firms, barring transgender students from competing in sports that do not match their biological gender and supporting gun rights.
Phifer says the position of Secretary of State is the only state job she would run for.
"It's about democracy. (The) Secretary of State Office is really the engine of democracy here in Missouri, and I've been extremely concerned about how politicized this office has become in the last four years, especially, and concerned about the future of democracy for Missouri," Phifer said.
Hoskins chose to run for the position to make sure Missouri elections are safe and secure.
"If we don't have confidence in our elections, it doesn't matter who they say won president, who they say they won U.S. Senate, Secretary of State, State Representative or city council because we won't trust in that process. So, I want to make sure that our elections are safe and secure, and that's been my number one priority," Hoskins said.
Initiative petitions
Phifer believes the threshold for initiative petitions should not be changed in the state.
"It's been this for over half the history of Missouri, it has served us well, and I think we should just continue as it has been," Phifer said.
Hoskins believes thinks there should be a higher requirement to get an item put on the Missouri Constitution.
"Some states don't even have an initial petition process, like our neighbors over in Kansas. I'm not advocating for that at all, but I think that, yes, there should be a little bit higher requirement for putting something in the Missouri Constitution," Hoskins said. "I did file an initiative petition bill that would change the way something is put in the Missouri Constitution."
While Hoskins says he does not have any personal issues with initiative petitions, he claims out-of-state entities are influencing the process.
"What we've seen with the initial petition process, we've seen out of- out of state and even foreign entities come in and try and force their beliefs on Missourians, and that I have a problem with, currently in the state of Missouri, a foreign entity or foreign government can influence ballot initiatives," Hoskins said. "We have out-of-state interest, out-of-country interests that are funneling money into the state of Missouri, trying to push their extreme liberal woke agenda on Missourians, and that I can't stand for."
Back in September, the Missouri Supreme Court overturned a lower court's decision to remove a question on abortion legalization from the November ballot. Amendment 3 was certified by the Secretary of State's Office after thousands of petition signatures. The initiative petition that was used to get access to abortion on the ballot received over 380,000 signatures. If passed, the amendment would overturn Missouri's abortion ban.
Phifer says she would have handled the situation much differently than current Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft.
"We saw that the current Secretary of State did not give accurate information either in the proposed language for the petition itself, and then later on, what he proposed to put in each precinct for voting in November and also on the state website and both times people had to go to court and we actually had judges write the ballot language and that's just, to me, a corruption of what the process should be," Phifer said.
Phifer said the job of the Secretary of State is to be nonpartisan and impartial, and anytime someone in the position lets their personal views dictate what is being written, its an issue.
Hoskins argues that Amendment 3 is "too extreme." He claims the amendment includes surgeries related to transgender healthcare, a claim some legal experts have disputed.
"When they gathered those signatures, I think a lot of people didn't know that it would be so extreme and that it would, Amendment 3 would not require parental notification if your 16-year-old daughter is having an abortion, it would not require parental notification if your 16-year-old son is having transgender surgery, and also, if there was a botched abortion," said Hoskins. "If it passes, you could not sue the doctor for malpractice, so there's a lot of issues with Amendment 3 and I think it's just very extreme."
Voting in Missouri
A big issue that is a part of Hoskins' campaign is election integrity. He claims Missouri needs an audit of voter rolls to make sure ineligible voters votes are not accounted.
"I've always said that I believe the most secure elections are in person on election day with a photo ID and a paper ballot," Hoskins said. "And yes, I do have some concerns about the election machines."
Hoskins used Puerto Rico's 2024 primary and June election where they used election machines that had software issues, causing the machines to incorrectly calculate vote totals, according to the election commission's interim president in an Associated Press article.
"We need to make sure that we do a full forensic audit of any election machines to make sure that they're actually counting the votes correctly," Hoskins said.
Phifer says the voting system in Missouri is great.
"It's considered one of the best in the country. It's bipartisan, certification is by both Republicans and Democrats always, there's an audit after every election so that five percent of every precinct in a jurisdiction is randomly selected to do an audit comparing a hand count of the ballots to machine counted ballots," Phifer said. "My opponent wants to do hand counting of every vote, and I think it's a really bad idea, it would create chaos and delay elections and, so distrust, I think, in our system."
Phifer is in favor of absentee voting, which she says allows every eligible voter to have a safe and secure opportunity to vote if they want to.
Business
A pivotal role of the Secretary of State's office is overseeing documents related to businesses.
Both Hoskins and Phifer agree the state websites for people looking to start a business could need updating to make it more user-friendly.
Phifer says Missouri is not the best state to start a business in. She wants more information to be available to those looking to start up a business in the state, especially small businesses.
"One of the things that libraries are beginning to do, and that's part of the Secretary of State's job also, is that libraries are now giving information about how to start businesses, which is wonderful, but in the larger picture, Missouri is not really a very good state to start a business," Phifer said. "Our health insurance issues, our education issues, maternal health issues, there's a whole list of things that make us not very attractive for people to come from out of state to Missouri to start businesses."
Hoskins also said the Secretary of State's website could be more user-friendly.
"I think Missouri is a great place to start a small business. Most certainly, one of the things is, I've been traveling across the state, and visiting with small business owners and entrepreneurs that want to start a business is they say, hey, the website could probably be revamped to make it a little bit easier to navigate," he said.
View the whole interview with Phifer here.
View the whole interview with Hoskins here.
