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How red state Missouri continues to ignore and counteract the will of the people. [1]

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Date: 2024-01-02  

In Missouri the AG spends his time figuring out how to torpedo initiative petitions instead of enforcing state laws. (My emphasis in bold)

Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick are at odds about the amount of power each has over a fiscal note that estimates how much a proposed amendment adding abortion rights to Missouri’s constitution would cost the state. Bailey has not given his approval to Fitzpatrick’s fiscal summary of the proposed amendment, which estimated minimal cost to the state. Instead, the attorney general insisted that the auditor change the fiscal note and increase the projected amount the amendment would cost the state by billions of dollars. Fitzpatrick refused, with attorneys for his office arguing Bailey’s role is a formality. “There is no authority permitting the attorney general to substitute his judgment for the auditors and all law points to the auditor, being the official, having sole discretion regarding the fiscal note summary’s fiscal estimate,” Tillman said.

The other problem is the ballot language dispute.

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft wrote in the official ballot language for a proposed abortion rights amendment that it would “allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions." The ACLU sued, saying that the description was "misleading" and unfairly biased against the initiative. And after the above noted dispute between State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick and Attorney General Andrew Bailey delayed other action on the petitions for more than 100 days, time is short for the collection of roughly 170,000 signatures needed to make the 2024 ballot. Ashcroft wrote that the proposals 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” and that they would “nullify longstanding Missouri law protecting the right to life, including but not limited to partial-birth abortion.” When Ashcroft certified the language, it opened a 10-day window for challenges to his description. The ACLU of Missouri filed challenges over six versions and asked Beetem to consolidate the cases. The ACLU argues that Ashcroft “disregarded his duty to craft a sufficient and fair summary statement and instead certified one that is argumentative against adoption of the initiative, is misleading as to the initiative’s probable effects, and prejudicial to initiative.”

It seems that every time that one red state legislature or appointee figures out a new way to obstruct the will of the citizens, all the other states copy it. Missouri has a record of passing laws to counteract changes to the constitution passed by initiative petitions.

Medicare Expansion, for example.

The least surprising lawsuit of the year, to force Missouri to provide Medicaid coverage to 275,000 people eligible under a 2020 initiative petition, was filed Thursday in Cole County. Filed on behalf of three people who would be eligible for Medicaid coverage on July 1, the lawsuit seeks an order for the Department of Social Services to allow them to enroll and receive the same coverage as current program clients. “The agencies claim that they lack the authority to implement Medicaid expansion because the General Assembly did not include a specific appropriations line item funding services for the newly eligible population,” the lawsuit states. “This position has no merit.” The lawsuit is the expected response to Gov. Mike Parson’s May 13 announcement that he had withdrawn Missouri’s Medicaid plan because lawmakers did not include the $1.9 billion estimated cost in the state budget. The lawsuit argues there is no legal reason to treat people who become eligible July 1 differently from those who are currently eligible.

The Missouri legislature is trying to make it harder to pass initiative petitions.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/2/2215010/-How-red-state-Missouri-continues-to-ignore-and-counteract-the-will-of-the-people?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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