Missouri to decide on abortion, petitions, districts and more

No-excuse-needed early voting for the Nov. 3 midterm elections already has started in Missouri, and voters in Jackson County and throughout Missouri all have important decisions to make on numerous important ballot questions, as well as how to vote on candidates and whether to retain judges in office.

In Jackson County, on Question 1, voters must decide on whether to extend for 10 years the county’s small quarter-cent sales tax that funds COMBAT’s anti-crime and anti-drug programs that annually provides millions of dollars for law enforcement, drug abuse prevention and treatment and taking illegal drugs off our streets.

Since its founding, the COMBAT program has seized over 21 million potentially lethal doses of street drugs laced with deadly fentanyl throughout Jackson County saving countless lives, a situation I was barely aware of until my appointment to the COMBAT Commission.

COMBAT has provided $119.5 million for local law enforcement and $63 million for drug abuse prevention and treatment serving over 93,000 people since its inception. It currently provides financial assistance for 66 drug abuse prevention programs and 23 drug treatment programs as well as for 33 law enforcement staff positions. It also helps educate students about the dangers of drug abuse in numerous Jackson County schools in several school districts.

An added bonus for Jackson County taxpayers is that nearly 50% of COMBAT’s sales tax revenue comes from nonresidents of Jackson County who shop and spend in the county.

Amendment 3 would repeal abortion protections

There are four proposed amendments to the Missouri constitution on the ballot and one other statewide proposition, and all but one of them raise serious concerns about their potential impact and the accuracy and impartiality of their ballot language, or lack thereof.

Constitutional Amendment 3 would repeal the voter-approved 2024 constitutional amendment protecting women’s reproductive healthcare rights including abortion and allow the Missouri General Assembly to prohibit all abortions except in cases of rape or incest when the fetus is under 12 weeks of gestation, fetal abnormalities or medical emergencies.

The ballot language for this amendment includes “ballot candy” designed to entice voters to support it, which says it would prohibit gender transition procedures for minors, but such procedures already have been banned by Missouri law.

Amendment 6 would strengthen petition rights

Constitutional Amendment 6 would protect and strengthen the current right of Missouri residents to propose enacting new laws by gathering enough valid signatures of Missouri voters on initiative petitions or to propose repealing existing laws by gathering enough valid signatures on referendum petitions if such measures are approved by statewide majority votes.

This proposal would prohibit the Missouri General Assembly from changing or repealing laws enacted through the initiative process or passing laws similar to those repealed through the referendum process without approval of at least 80% of the members of both the Missouri House of Representatives and the Missouri Senate.

Amendment 7 would create state government endowment

Constitutional Amendment 7 would establish a permanent public endowment fund to finance the state government with its investment earnings. Its ballot language which appears to be a blatant example of “ballot candy” says its goal is to eventually “eliminate state-imposed taxes”, but its supporters have not been able to explain how the fund could ever acquire the massive amounts of money necessary to fund state government solely from the interest on the fund’s investments without state taxes or to even make much of a dent in state tax rates.

Amendment 8 would require county sheriff elections

Constitutional Amendment 8 would add the requirement that counties elect sheriffs every four years and their major duties that are both now only in state law to the constitution and would restrict the right to file legal actions to remove county sheriffs from office if approved in court to the Missouri Attorney General, a right now shared with county prosecutors, thus eliminating one important element of local control. This amendment would not apply to St. Louis City, St. Louis County and St. Charles County.

Proposition A would approve new Missouri congressional districts

Missouri Proposition A would approve for future elections the proposed new gerrymandered Congressional District boundaries approved on a partisan vote by the Missouri General Assembly in 2025 that were clearly designed to make it extremely difficult for current 5th District Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II to be reelected. They slice up Kansas City into three Congressional Districts so KCMO voters would not constitute a majority in any of the districts, diminishing our community’s influence in Congress.

The ballot language for Proposition A is extremely misleading because it doesn’t even mention its proposed new Congressional District boundaries chop KCMO up into three Congressional districts, but it does state that they “keep more counties intact.”

Since the U.S. Supreme Court already has rejected these boundaries three times, it’s difficult to imagine the court would approve the 2025 map for future elections, even if they are approved by Missouri voters this November.