Respect Missouri Voters gathers signatures to protect initiative petition process

By Tony Madden

The Show-Me State has enjoyed direct democracy as a result of the initiative petition process since 1908. This means for 114 years, Missourians have been able to collect enough signatures to put issues on the ballot for a simple majority of voters to decide. 

The initiative petition process was the force behind drafting of a new state constitution in 1920. In 1992, voters used it to impose term limits on state legislators. In the past few years, ballot initiatives allowed Missouri voters to approve abortion rights and recreational marijuana, increase minimum wage and mandate paid sick leave.

By November, this form of direct democracy could end in Missouri. If passed, an amendment on the 2026 general election ballot would make it nearly impossible to make constitutional amendments or statutory changes via petition process. 

Bipartisan group Respect Missouri Voters is currently utilizing the initiative petition process in an effort to save it. According to communications co-chair Kate Catanio, the group is collecting signatures for a ballot measure that would preserve the existing majority and signature requirements for initiative petitions. 

The Respect Missouri Voters ballot measure would also restrict the legislature from weakening the petition process or repealing laws enacted through the petition process. Furthermore, the amendment would require ballot summaries to be “clear, unbiased, fair, accurate, and easy to understand.”

“It’s politicians vs. the people,” the organization says in a press release. “If Respect Missouri Voters doesn’t get on the ballot, politicians can keep putting tricky language on the ballot, overturning the will of the people, and taking away our century-old freedom to have a check-and-balance on the legislature.”

Missouri is one of 24 states that allow the initiative petition process. As it stands in Missouri, a simple statewide majority of voters is required to approve citizen-led initiatives. Under the proposed change, the state would require a majority of voters in each of Missouri’s eight congressional districts to pass a state law or constitutional amendment.

Respect Missouri Voters has a goal of 300,000 signatures to be collected by their April 19 deadline. The amendment could reach the ballot with as few as 170,215 signatures, but it’s not that simple. The group needs signatures from a minimum of 8% of voters in six of Missouri’s eight congressional districts for the amendment to appear before voters. The exact number needed from each district is based on that district’s number of votes in the most recent gubernatorial election.

For example, Missouri’s 5th Congressional District saw 333,988 people vote in the 2024 governor’s race. That means Respect Missouri Voters must collect 27,720 signatures from the 5th district to hit 8%.

As of March 20, the group had collected 190,000 signatures with signers from every county in the state, according to Catanio. 

“We’ve been showing up at everything from the Martin City and Belton St. Patrick’s Day parades to libraries and outside of grocery stores and DMV’s,” south Kansas City volunteer John McCrae said in the press release. “They appreciate that the initiative petition is probably the best example of direct democracy we have.”

The ballot question comes about a year after Gov. Mike Kehoe’s push for changes to the process, which included a proclamation that Missouri’s Constitution was victim to “out-of-state special interests” and “out-of-touch policies.”

Michael Masur, former communications director for the Jackson County prosecutor’s office, says he is a concerned citizen. He said initiative petitions are often the first step in making constitutional or statutory changes, and their importance in Missouri is understated. Masur added the petition process is often overlooked by the time an issue appears before voters.

“It has to go on to the ballot, and then that kind of takes precedence, and the good work of the initiative petition gets lost,” Masur said.

Masur also said Missouri’s initiative petition process is important because it allows an escape for whoever is in the political minority. He said the General Assembly will continue to be dominated by one party or another, and the initiative petition process allows minority voters to put issues on the ballot that the state legislature wouldn’t.