This brings us to the recent Missouri Supreme Court ruling on whether or not counties can collect the sales tax on marijuana in incorporated parts of a county. The court ruled that counties can only collect the tax in the unincorporated parts of a county. This is what the state constitutional amendment said, so in that respect the court’s decision makes sense. However, the way the constitutional amendment was written had a different definition of “local government” than was previously used and generally understood in Missouri. Do you think most (or any) voters read to page 19 of a 38-page ballot description to see that, in this case, the definition of a county only applied to unincorporated areas?

Longtime former Missouri State Senator Clifford Jones used to say (I’m paraphrasing here), “You can pass any bill you want. Just let me write the definitions.” That is what the ruling by the Supreme Court is rewarding, and perhaps it had no other choice in the matter. We let initiative petition writers create a major change regarding how local governments operate, which very few people will see or understand, and then that change becomes law.

To be clear, county taxes are almost always collected countywide, not just within unincorporated areas. Yes, there are a few other exceptions, such as utility taxes, but that doesn’t justify initiative petition writers using obscurity as their ally, as in this case. (I am not disputing that a majority of Missourians wanted legalized marijuana. My concern is with the use of legal minutiae in initiative petitions to get other changes made at the same time.)

Missouri needs to reform initiative petition rules to make amending the Constitution more difficult. (In a future post, I will go into more detail about the specific reforms we need.) Otherwise, we will be subject to more well-funded, out-of-state efforts to change Missouri laws using seemingly popular ideas as cover for making major legal changes via obscure and unread ballot language. Did you read the 38-page document that accompanied the marijuana vote and described all of the legal changes? I doubt it.

Robert Moses would be proud of efforts to get what you want by secrecy. We are a republic, not a direct democracy, and we should act like it. Missouri needs initiative petition reforms.

The post “Just Let Me Write the Definitions” appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In this essay, John Dinan of Wake Forest University examines the amendment process in detail, looks at the types of amendments that have been passed over the past three-quarters of a century, and identifies measures that could be taken to reduce the frequency of amendments in the future.

Click on the link below to read the entire essay.

The post Report: Amending Missouri’s Constitution appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

What’s really fascinating, though, is that while the vote that created the district is rarely, if ever, criticized by streetcar supporters for the weakness of its mandate, many of those same supporters had already dismissed the larger and more recent vote just hours after the counts were completed. Local blogger Kevin Collison gave some voice to the frustrations of streetcar backers, tweeting that “#KC should do whatever it takes to challenge this anti-streetcar petition, pivotal moment for future of urban core.” He may be referring to the Council’s option to override the public vote’s results. Other supporters, like Jon Stephens of T-Bones handout fame, bemoaned turnout as a symptom of a broken petition system, even though the streetcar owes its existence to the calculatedly miniscule turnout in an election brought about . . . by a petition!

Streetcar supporters say they want Kansas City “left alone” by the state and others so that locals can control the city’s fate. But if that’s the case, I have a few questions for them:

1. Why were 460 votes enough to launch the streetcar project?
2. Why weren’t 30,000 votes enough to circumscribe it?
3. Why should the 13 votes of the Kansas City Council be enough to override those 30,000?

Streetcar supporters would do well for themselves to stop playing games with the public as they pursue this project.

The post Running the Numbers on the KC Streetcar appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In 2011, we published:

One of the greatest strengths of American government is that there are a number of checks and balances at the federal, state, and local levels that limit the ability of any one branch of government to abuse its power. The initiative petition process is one of those checks on power, and restricting it further will serve only to erode Missourians’ ability to limit legislators by initiating good—but politically difficult—policy change.

This remains as true today as ever. And while we may not always agree with the goals of the petitions—as is the case with efforts to increase the minimum wage in Kansas City—we respect citizens exercising their rights. And we are thankful that people still care enough about public policy to roll up their sleeves and get involved in ways that go beyond simply casting the occasional ballot.

The post We Are Thankful for Citizen Petitioners appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In a quest to build a new riverfront stadium to keep the Rams in Saint Louis, some state and local leaders are trying their very hardest to make sure that virtually no one has a vote on the matter. At the state level, the governor plans to issue new debt without any legislative approval. At the local level, the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority (RSA), which owns the dome, wants to extend city bonds without a public vote. They have sued to overturn an ordinance requiring such a vote.

We’ve already discussed the RSA’s unconvincing arguments against the ordinance requiring a public vote in the city. Summing up the matter:

The lawsuit’s proponents argue that the city’s ordinance is broad and vague, prevents the city from participating in planning and site preparation, and contradicts state statutes. In fact, the ordinance is doing precisely what it is designed to do: prevent the city from using every trick in the book to fund a new stadium without a vote.

At the state level, a group of legislators have sued to prevent the governor from unilaterally extending bonds. They essentially argue that the bonds in question were passed with the express purpose of funding the Edward Jones Dome, not a riverfront stadium. Whatever the courts decide on the issue, a reading of the original statutes certainly makes it seem like they have a case.

Stadium proponents argue that the failure of the state legislature to pass a clarifying law in the last session means this suit is without merit. That argument makes little sense; existing laws do not lose effect when more specific guidelines fail to pass. But stadium proponents go further, impugning the motives of the legislators who filed the suit, essentially claiming they did not care about Saint Louis. Gov. Nixon publicly joked that they hatched the plan at a Chiefs game. And of course, the stadium backers continue to argue what a boon a new stadium will be to Saint Louis. In doing so, they contradict nearly every economist who has ever studied stadium subsidies.

Whatever position one takes on the plan, spending $400 million of public money on an NFL stadium is certainly controversial. It seems only right that Saint Louisans should get to vote on the spending of  the money, as they were promised. It seems only right that the legislature should have to approve more state spending. As to those who are willing to circumvent any democratic roadblock to keep the Rams, perhaps one senator put it best when he said:

What I’m amazed at is that people’s passion for football exceeds their passion for our constitutional form of government and the rule of law. And how they would place their desire to root for their football team above their desire to have government function properly.

The post Missouri Stadium Funding Plan Is Bad Policy, Possibly Illegal appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But over the past decade, the ?cool? cities have not seen any faster job or population growth than cities dominated by non-creative industries. The fastest employment growth has been in areas such as Houston, Dallas, Oklahoma City, and Omaha. The main employment in those cities is not in the cool, creative sector, but in industries such as oil and manufacturing. And, even the rapidly growing ?cool? cities, such as Raleigh and Austin, are not transit-centered places.

It is the same in Kansas City. Rail proponents are so frustrated about nearly a dozen defeats at the ballot box that they contrived a special taxing district, permitted only the residents of that district to vote, and used the result of that vote to commit the city to at least a $100 million rail line project.

A lawsuit against the city’s scheme was dismissed because of its timing, and the city has started collecting the tax. Now the blog Tony’s Kansas City is claiming that some are preparing for a ballot petition to stop the project. If the Kansas City City Council is unable or unwilling to defer to the clearly and repeatedly stated will of the people, then voters are completely within their rights to act on their own with a petition.

The post Get Off The Train: Kansas City Cannot Ride To Economic Growth appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The process is already extremely difficult. To change state law, groups must get tens of thousands of the legal voters in two thirds of the state’s congressional districts to sign a petition. Missouri has more than 4 million registered voters, so any group trying to get an initiative on the ballot must collect more than 100,000 signatures.

And it’s expensive. Paul Jacob, president of Citizens in Charge, a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving and advancing the ability of U.S. citizens to petition state government directly, estimates that the minimum cost for signature collection in Missouri is more than $2 per signature, and can be significantly higher. This means that a group of people trying to change government for the better would likely need at least $300,000 even to attempt to bring a state law change before Missouri voters for their consideration.

In fact, most groups that have attempted to change state law with the current initiative petition process have failed. In recent years, Missouri Citizens for Property Rights, a group attempting to strengthen safeguards against the abuse of eminent domain, managed to gather more than 160,000 signatures from registered Missouri voters but still fell short of the already hefty requirements imposed.

Justus’ proposal will make it at least 50 percent harder (and that much more expensive) for Missourians to bring an issue to statewide voters. She proposes requiring that groups collect signatures from registered voters in all congressional districts. That would mean groups would have to collect, at minimum, signatures from an additional 45,000 registered Missouri voters. That’s at least another $100,000 in expenses. Why would Justus want to restrict this process further, so that only the most wealthy individuals and groups can participate?

According to the St. Louis Business Journal, Justus hopes that the proposed law will make it more difficult and costly for people and organizations to “buy laws and constitutional amendments.” She is certainly right — her proposal will make it more difficult. But her logic is flawed. Justus’ proposal will make it more difficult for any group to impact state government directly, not only those she suspects of trying to “buy” laws.

One of the greatest strengths of American government is that there are a number of checks and balances at the federal, state, and local levels that limit the ability of any one branch of government to abuse its power. The initiative petition process is one of those checks on power, and restricting it further will serve only to erode Missourians’ ability to limit legislators by initiating good — but politically difficult — policy change.

Audrey Spalding is a policy analyst for the Show-Me Institute, an independent think tank promoting free-market solutions for Missouri public policy.

The post Citizen Initiative Process a Crucial Check on Political Power appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Justus’ proposal will make it at least 50 percent harder (and that much more expensive) for Missourians to bring an issue to statewide voters. She proposes requiring that groups collect signatures from registered voters in all congressional districts. That would mean groups would have to collect, at minimum, signatures from an additional 45,000 registered Missouri voters. That’s at least another $100,000 in expenses. Why would Justus want to restrict this process further, so that only the most wealthy individuals and groups can participate?

Be sure to read the whole thing! And thanks to Brandon Holmes at Citizens in Charge for alerting us to this story.

The post Protecting the Initiative Process appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But I’ve been thinking about this issue a great deal lately. It does seem quite strange that our system would permit a relatively tiny fraction of the population to pass laws that will be binding on everyone. I also find it strange that elected officials can claim their positions without having earned the explicit approval of a significant percentage of the people who will be bound by their authority. After all, most legislative bodies have a quorum requirement that ensures that there must be a critical mass of support before they can take action. Wouldn’t it make sense for this principle to be applied to all votes?

Perhaps we should consider amending the Missouri Constitution to provide that no proposition may be considered passed and no politician may be considered duly elected unless a certain percentage of registered voters actually casts ballots on that issue or candidate. If any given issue or candidate cannot motivate enough people to come to the polls to vote in their favor, perhaps the people would be better off without them. For propositions, this simply means the status quo would continue. For offices, I submit that they should remain unfilled until the people of the relevant jurisdiction have called a special election that successfully attracts the requisite number of voters. If the people themselves have not come up with a person that a truly representative percentage wants to hold that office, wouldn’t it be better to let them wait until they have settled on a well-supported candidate?

The post Voter Turnout appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The irony, of course, is that nothing demonstrates “the will of the citizens” more than, say, letting them vote for themselves!

This is yet another example of a problem I have noted several times before: Powerful interests can (and do) game the system to prevent Missouri citizens from voting on issues of great importance. The most prominent example is the way that the Missouri Municipal League has for years been engaging in litigation strategically calculated to keep eminent domain reform off of the ballot. The most damning element, in my mind, is that at least in the case of the Missouri Municipal League, the opponents acknowledge the virtual certainty that eminent domain reform would be approved if the citizens were allowed to vote on it.

If an organization or some other group of citizens is concerned about the wisdom of any given ballot initiative, they are well within their rights to communicate their concerns to voters and to try to persuade Missourians not to approve the proposition. But to manipulate the system in such a way that citizens are denied the opportunity to adopt what they believe to be valuable changes to their laws is reprehensible.

The post The Will of the People, Revisited appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

And, yes, I am aware that the entitlement crisis is just as much to blame on the elected officials who put the programs in as on the people who support them with their votes.

The post Here Is an Example From Oregon Illustrating Why I Prefer a Representative Republic to Direct Democracy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.