By a slim margin, Missouri voters yesterday passed Amendment 1, the so-called right-to-farm ballot issue. Amendment 7, which would have introduced a transportation tax designed to provide funding for the Missouri Department of Transportation, was denied.
Right to farmAmendment 1 passed with 498,751 votes, or 50.1 percent. The right-to-farm initiative ultimately won by 2,528 votes, according to the preliminary elections results posted on the
Missouri secretary of state's website.
According to media reports, a recount may be possible once the election results are finalized because of the narrow margin.
The initiative amends the Missouri Constitution to "ensure that the right of Missouri citizens to engage in agricultural production and ranching practices shall not be infringed," according to the ballot language.
Supporters, which included the Missouri Farm Bureau and the Missouri Pork Association, said the amendment puts a stop measure in place for animal rights activists across the country looking to utilize the Show-Me State's initiative petition process to strip away the rights of Missouri farmers. Opponents such as the Humane Society of the United States and the Missouri Farmers Union said corporate farmers were the only ones who would benefit from the constitutional change, according to
Springfield Business Journal archives.
Speaking to the passage of Amendment 1, Missouri Farm Bureau President Blake Hurst said voters in favor of the issue made a common-sense decision.
"Our opponents failed to convince people that the thousands of Missouri family farms supporting this amendment were tools of foreign or corporate interests," Hurst said in a statement. "Missourians also understand that the only huge, outside contributor to this election was the Humane Society of the United States. In the final analysis, the biggest foreign corporation involved was against the amendment."
In Greene County, roughly 63 percent of voters rejected Amendment 1, according to
GreeneCountyMo.org.
Transportation taxAt the polls yesterday, 590,963 voters, or 59.2 percent, dismissed a proposed 3/4-cent transportation sales tax, according to the SOS election results.
The tax was designed to generate $480 million annually for the state’s Transportation Safety and Job Creation Fund, $54 million for local governments and aid the ailing MoDOT budget, which is estimated to drop to $325 million a year by 2017. Between 2005 and 2010, the transportation department’s annual construction budget averaged $1.3 billion, falling to $685 million this year, according to
SBJ archives.
However, opponents such as Gov. Jay Nixon took issue with the amendment, saying Missourians less of a stake would largely foot the bill, rather than heavy road users.
In a statement released after elections results came in, MoDOT noted its disappointment with the decision, stating while Missourians know changes are needed, they can't decide how to go about it.
"As we have seen for the past several years, I think Missourians have a clear understanding that more resources need to be invested in our transportation infrastructure, but there just isn't any consensus on how to pay for it. We need to continue working toward that end," said Stephen Miller, chairman of the MoDOT governing board Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission, in the statement.[[In-content Ad]]
