Fed up with pesky voters having a direct say in how they’re governed with state constitutional and statutory ballot measures, Republicans in the Missouri state House and Senate have brought up a number of bills to make it harder for them by increasing the number of petition signatures required for measures to make it on the ballot, to require that the signatures be distributed evenly by the state’s congressional districts – giving hardcore MAGA rural regions an effective veto over blue and progressive-aimed petitions, and raising the threshold for whatever measures that do make it to the ballot to pass from 50 percent to 60 percent, Marc Elias’s Democracy Docket reports.
The catch is that all of these changes, should they pass the legislature, need to be approved by voters themselves on the next ballot. No shortage of irony there, of course, but the Republicans in Missouri are nervous after voters approved legalizing recreational marijuana by a solid-enough 53.1 to 46.9 percent margin last year and even more so as pro-choicers are eyeing a 2024 abortion referendum after the crushing victory for abortion rights in neighboring Kansas in August. They’re right to be worried about what happens when people directly decide such matters themselves.