State voters to mull 4 ballot measures in August election

When Missouri voters go to the polls Aug. 4, they will face four proposed amendments to the state constitution.

Two of the amendments would bring conspicuous changes to the Show-Me State if passed. Amendment 4 would set a higher bar for voters to pass future constitutional amendments, and Amendment 5 would phase out the state income tax while setting the stage for lawmakers to expanded sales and use taxes.

With those ballot measures are Amendment 1, a 10-year renewal of a 0.1% sales and use tax for soil and water conservation and to fund state parks and historic sites, and Amendment 2, which would require charter counties to provide for the election of a county assessor, the official responsible for determining the market value of all taxable real estate and personal property within a county.

With four amendments, numbered 1, 2, 4 and 5, on the Aug. 4 ballot, the missing number in the series, Amendment 3, is slated to appear on the Nov. 3 ballot. That initiative aims to repeal a 2024 voter-approved amendment guaranteeing reproductive health rights including abortion care and to prohibit gender transition surgeries for minors.

All but one of the ballot measures were proposed by the 103rd General Assembly. Amendment 1, a tax first passed in 2005, is an automatic ballot referral, according to the Missouri secretary of state.

Amendment 4
Amendment 4 would change the process for initiatives to amend the state constitution. The fair ballot language approved for the ballot measure explains that under current law a simple statewide majority of voters may approve initiative petitions to amend the constitution, but Amendment 4’s passage would require a majority of voters in every one of the state’s eight Congressional districts.

Critics of the measure warn that if Amendment 4 is passed, it would be nearly impossible for voters to undo.

At a June 27 teach-in, Know Your Ballot, Jeanette Rouse of Missouri Jobs with Justice Voter Action said that one Congressional district could cancel the vote of the majority of state voters. Additionally, the amendment would apply only to citizen-led petitions and not to initiatives proposed by the legislature.

“When we Missourians haven’t been able to be heard, we’ve been able to pass some pretty powerful policies,” Rouse said.

She listed three minimum wage increases started in 2006, expansion of Medicaid, creation of ethics and campaign finance reform and an overturn of a statewide abortion ban.

“When we organize to get these issues on the ballot, we know that we as voters overwhelmingly vote in favor,” she said, noting all of the issues mentioned passed by a majority of voters, some by more than 60%.

A news conference on July 17 hosted by the Greater Springfield Board of Realtors also expressed opposition to the measure, with Brent Sager of Branson, president-elect of Missouri Realtors, saying that Amendment 4 wipes out the initiative petition process, which he called a cornerstone of democracy.

“When was the last time that you know of that urban areas and rural areas voted the same? It almost never happens,” he said.

Missouri Rep. Bill Owen, representing the 131st district of the House of Representatives, is an enthusiastic proponent of Amendment 4.

“That’s about the fact that we have a lot of outside special interests that have got a formula on how they can get their agenda into the constitution,” Owen said. “Then the legislature can’t do anything to tweak it or anything to change it in any way.”

The formula, Owen said, is to spend outside money to hire people to gather signatures in larger cities and to promote ballot measures along Interstate 70.

“Those of us in outstate Missouri are on the sidelines,” he said. “We don’t have much of a say in it.”

Owen said if voters truly believe something needs to be added to the state constitution, then there needs to be more of a consensus: Something that passes in both urban and rural districts is probably good to include in the state’s governing document.

Owen noted the state has a Republican majority, and opponents of its decisions use the initiative petition process to circumvent the legislative process.

“When the other side starts doing well in elections, I guarantee they’re not going to do referendums. They’re going to use the legislative process,” he said.

Amendment 5
The fair ballot language for Amendment 5 explains that a yes vote would require a legislative phase-out and elimination of the individual state income tax based on revenue growth, while authorizing the expansion of sales and use taxes by legislators.

The amendment’s passage would curtail constitutional limits on taxing goods and services and require local tax rate cuts without reducing school funding if local sales tax revenue increases, the fair ballot language states.

At the June Know Your Ballot teach-in, Alice Barber of Springfield Tenants Unite called Amendment 5 “the everything tax.”

“We call it that because it’s going to raise taxes on everything that Missouri families can’t go without,” Barber said. “It’s going to raise taxes on rent, groceries, gas, medicine, doctor visits, child care, home repairs and all of the other bills that already feel too high.”

She said under the plan, most Missouri taxpayers would pay $535 more in taxes.

“The people already stretched the thinnest pay the most,” she said.

She added that the measure would also put a $5 billion hole in the state budget, which already has a $2 billion deficit.

In an interview, Sager said the legislature could phase out the income tax without a vote of the people, but Amendment 5 allows the state to suspend the 1980 Hancock Amendment, which restricts the legislature from imposing a tax on the people without a vote of the people, for a period of five years.

“They no longer have to ask you, for five years, if they want to raise your taxes,” he said.

He noted roughly 50% of Missourians live near the state border, with the population centers of St. Louis and Kansas City just minutes away.

“Do you think these people aren’t going to go get their hair cut and get their groceries and get their oil changes and all of those things across the border?” he said.

He said people in the center of the state are roughly two and a half hours from the border, meaning they won’t travel for haircuts, but they are likely to cross the border to purchase a vehicle, meaning Missouri won’t benefit from the sales taxes.

Sager said the legislature has a strategic reason for placing Amendments 4 and 5 on the ballot together.

“They know 5 is nuts,” he said. “They know that if Amendment 5 goes through, Missourians will quickly, in probably a year or two, realize, ‘Wow, that was a bad idea. How do we fix it?’”

Amendment 4’s requirement that an initiative petition be passed by a majority of voters in each of the eight Congressional districts means fixing it, or bringing about any voter-initiated change, will be nearly impossible, he said.

“It certainly looks like they have a strategic reason to place them on the ballot together,” he said.

Owen said he’s all for eliminating the income tax in the state. He said he has heard concerns about Amendment 5 from constituents including retirees who are on a fixed income and fear the addition of more taxes.

“Four came out so nice and easy,” he said, referring to the clear case he sees for passing Amendment 4.

Owen said he wants the electorate to weigh in on the issue of major tax reform.

“I liked the idea of allowing people to have a say in something this critical,” he said. “It’s not unanimous by any stretch. This one really, truly has two sides to it.”

He said if the measure doesn’t pass, nothing changes. The state’s income tax has been reduced incrementally over an eight-year period by roughly 1.5 percentage points to its current rate of 4.7%.

“My intent would be that we continue to do that if 5 doesn’t pass,” he said. “We would be doing it over a longer period of time, just the way we’re doing it right now. If this doesn’t pass, I don’t think that means we don’t eliminate the income tax.”

Owen said he wants to proceed with care in phasing out Missouri’s income tax.

“I want to make sure we do it in a prudent way and make sure we don’t shift the burden to any particular group,” he said.

House Majority Leader Alex Riley of District 134 outlined the vision for Amendment 5 in an SBJ column, which he referred to when asked for a comment on the measure.

“Our goal should be to build a Missouri where our kids choose to stay, where businesses choose to invest and where families put down roots for generations,” he wrote. “The American dream should not require a moving truck.”

Riley wrote that Amendment 5 includes guardrails that would require the tax code to remain revenue neutral, preventing lawmakers from using tax reform to increase Missourians’ overall tax burden or to use it as an excuse to grow government.

“That ensures the long-term goal remains exactly where it belongs: lowering the overall tax burden on Missouri families as the income tax is phased out,” he said. “As our state prospers, Missourians share in that success by keeping more of what they earn.”

Amendment 1
Amendment 1 proposes a 10-year renewal to a 0.1% sales and use tax to fund soil and water conservation as well as state parks and historic sites.

The tax raises approximately $140 million annually, according to the Missouri secretary of state.

The tax originated with a 1984 constitutional amendment that passed with 50.1% of the vote, according to Ballotpedia, and voters renewed it in 1988, 1996, 2006 and 2016. In 2016, 80% of voters approved the tax’s extension.

Owen said the tax funds parks and conservation centers.

“Lord knows, that’s pretty important to southwest Missouri,” the lawmaker said.

He said the ballot initiative asks state residents if they feel they are getting their money’s worth.

“I hope they think about it so that we get a good answer one way or the other from citizens,” he said.

Amendment 2
The text of Amendment 2 requires all charter counties – including the Kansas City region’s Jackson County – to provide for the election of a county assessor.

The amendment would also require assessors in all charter counties to comply with any training requirements established by general law.

No cost or savings is estimated from the measure.

The fair ballot language approved by the Missouri secretary of state notes that a no vote will not change current constitutional provisions, which exempt Jackson County from the requirement to elect its assessor and which do not require charter county assessors to follow training requirements.

Jackson County is the only county without an elected assessor, according to reporting by the Missouri Independent.