• MO Ballot: After putting up every possible roadblock, Republican officials finally certified an amendment for the November ballot that would allow voters to restore abortion rights in the state of Missouri.
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who last week took a disappointing third place in the Republican primary for the state's open governorship, issued a press release Tuesday confirming that the amendment, which will be identified as Amendment 3 on the ballot, had turned in the requisite number of signatures. He also gave the green light to a separate amendment concerning gambling, as well as a statutory measure that would increase the minimum wage.
In Missouri, citizen-initiated amendments need to collect signatures equal to at least 8% of the vote in the last race for governor in six of the state's eight congressional districts, a task that's difficult for progressives in a state where Joe Biden carried just two of constituencies in 2020.
Amendment 3 satisfied this requirement in the requisite six districts, though it was close. Ashcroft verified that the coalition promoting the plan, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, collected 32,882 valid signatures from the dark red 7th District in the southwestern part of the state, which was just over the 30,013 minimum they needed here.
But Amendment 3 made the cut, and it will require only a simple majority of voters to approve it this fall. If passed, it would end the state's near-total ban on abortion and allow the procedure to take place about 24 weeks into a pregnancy.
Republican state legislators, Attorney General Andrew Bailey, and Ashcroft, however, made multiple attempts to sabotage this plan's chances for success. Last year, the state House advanced a proposed constitutional amendment that would have made future amendments harder to enact by raising the required level of voter support from the current simple majority to a 57% supermajority.
But while the Senate appeared poised to follow suit, the effort came screeching to a halt during the final hours of the session when a handful of far-right renegades held up legislative business in order to promote their own pet issues. (One of these rebels was state Sen. Bill Eigel, who unexpectedly took more votes than Ashcroft in last week's primary for governor; both men lost to Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe.)
The Show Me State GOP, though, wasn't ready to give up, and Republicans remained determined even after their counterparts in Ohio failed badly in their attempt to convince their state's voters to pass a similar amendment. This year, the legislature tried to advance a different amendment that would require constitutional amendments to earn both a majority of the vote statewide and win in a majority of the state's eight congressional districts. This plan also fell apart, though, thanks to two filibusters by Senate Democrats—including an epic, 50-hour talk-a-thon in May—as well as more GOP infighting.
Bailey and Ashcroft, meanwhile, last year each tried to use the powers of their respective offices to undermine what would become Amendment 3. The attorney general demanded that another Republican, Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick, estimate that the passage of an abortion-rights amendment could cost the state "as much as $51 billion dollars."
While Fitzpatrick, who had determined the cost would be just $51,000, made it clear he opposed abortion rights, he sued Bailey for trying to force him to provide "inaccurate information." The state Supreme Court sided with Fitzpatrick in July 2023 and told Bailey to do his "ministerial duty" and certify the amendment. (Bailey, unlike Ashcroft, won his primary last week by decisively turning back a well-funded challenger.)
But Missourians for Constitutional Freedom was unable to begin the difficult task of collecting signatures for several more months because it was engaged in its own lawsuit against Ashcroft. The secretary of state issued ballot-summary text that said the plan would "allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions, from conception to live birth, without requiring a medical license or potentially being subject to medical malpractice."
A state judge later ruled that Ashcroft's version was "replete with politically partisan language," and he substituted a different summary. This matter was finally settled in November when Missouri's highest court refused to hear the secretary of state's appeal, but MCF's leaders weren't sure they'd have enough time to meet the state's challenging signature requirements in time for the deadline the following May.
It didn't help that former Republican political operative Jamie Corley was trying to place an alternative amendment on the ballot that would not go nearly as far as what MCF was pursuing. (Ashcroft also issued misleading ballot-summary language for her proposals.)
But while Corley argued that "I think we have a much different view and assessment about what is ultimately passable in Missouri," she instead ended up backing what became Amendment 3. Corley also campaigned to succeed Ashcroft as secretary of state, only to take seventh place in the primary that was won by far-right state Sen. Denny Hoskins.
After all of this, though, MCF has an amendment on the fall ballot that needs just a simple majority to pass. And progressives have reason to be optimistic that it can: A tracking poll from Civiqs, which shows that voters nationwide believe abortion should be legal most or all of the time by a 61-34 margin, also finds that a small 50-46 plurality of Missourians feel the same way.
