“An In-Depth Look at Missouri’s Statewide Voting Proposals
PROPOSITION A
MINIMUM WAGE AND PAID SICK LEAVE
Proposition A asks voters to approve a statutory change raising Missouri’s standard minimum wage for private sector workers, which currently stands an $12.30 an hour, in two steps to $15 an hour as of 2026. The measure, which will appear on the Nov. 5 general election ballot, also would for the first time require private sector employers to provide paid sick leave to their workers, in an amount of one hour of leave for every 30 hours worked.
The ballot language prepared by the Secretary of State’s Office, followed by the official fiscal estimate prepared by the State Auditor’s Office, says:
Do you want to amend the Missouri law to:
increase minimum wage January 1, 2025 to $13.75 per hour, increasing $1.25 per hour each year until 2026, when the minimum wage would be $15 per hour;
adjust minimum wage based on changes in the Consumer Price Index each January beginning in 2027;
require all employers to provide one hour of paid sick leave for every thirty hours worked;
allow the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations to provide oversight and enforcement; and
exempt governmental entities, political subdivisions, school districts and education institutions?
If a majority of voters approve Proposition A, the standard minimum wage would increase by $1.45 to $13.75 an hour as of Jan. 1, 2025. A second increase, this time of $1.25, would follow on Jan. 1, 2026, to set the base wage at $15 an hour. Every subsequent Jan. 1, the state minimum wage would increase or decrease based on inflation as determined by the federal Consumer Price Index as it stood on Sept. 30 of the previous year. Adjusting the wage floor based on inflation has been required by state law since 2006.
The mandatory sick leave provisions of Proposition A would require private sector employers to grant their workers one hour of paid sick leave for every 30-hour worked, starting on May 1, 2025. Workers at companies with 15 or more employees would be legally entitled to use up to 56 hours – seven standard workdays – of accrued leave per year, while workers at companies with fewer than 15 employees could use up to 40 hours annually – the equivalent of five workdays. Employers could voluntarily set higher annual limits on leave use.
Proposition A also prohibits employers from retaliating against workers for exercising their right to sick leave and grants the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations the authority to investigate related complaints. Employers found guilty of violating the sick leave law could be criminally charged with a class C misdemeanor, which is punishable by a maximum of 15 days in jail and a $300 fine.
AMENDMENT 2
SPORTS GAMBLING
Amendment 2, which will appear on the Nov. 5 statewide ballot, seeks to legalize, regulate and tax sports betting in Missouri. The bulk of the revenue generated from sports betting – if any – would be constitutionally earmarked for K-12 and higher education, with a minimum of $5 million a year set aside for programs to treat compulsive gambling.
However, because of the tax deductions and exemptions Amendment 2’s drafters wrote into the measure, there is no guarantee Missouri will see any tax revenue at all from sports betting, let alone the millions of dollars a year its supporters promise. The official fiscal estimate for Amendment 2 prepared by the State Auditor’s Office anticipates annual revenue from sports betting would range from absolutely nothing on the low end to $28.9 million on the high end.
The ballot language prepared by the Secretary of State’s Office, followed by the official fiscal estimate prepared by the State Auditor’s Office, says:
Do you want to amend the Missouri Constitution to:allow the Missouri Gaming Commission to regulate licensed sports wagering including online sports betting, gambling boats, professional sports betting districts and mobile licenses to sports betting operators;restrict sports betting to individuals physically located in the state and over the age of 21;allow license fees prescribed by the Commission and a 10% wagering tax on revenues received to be appropriated for education after expenses incurred by the Commission and required funding of the Compulsive Gambling Prevention Fund; andallow for the general assembly to enact laws consistent with this amendment?Arguments against amendment 2 say it is the latest in a long line of Missouri gambling measures that promises millions of dollars for public education but delivers little. In fact, the sports betting industry wrote so many tax deductions into Amendment 2 that there is no guarantee Missouri will collect any revenue at all from wagering.
AMENDMENT 3
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
Amendment 3 asks voters to establish protections for reproductive rights in the Missouri Constitution. Its basic goal is to restore abortion rights – and prevent future legislative attacks against access to birth control and other forms of reproductive health care – in the state in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which eliminated the federal right to an abortion that had existed for nearly a half-century under the court’s landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade.
Amendment 3, also known as the Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative, declares: “The Government shall not deny or infringe on a person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which is the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care and respectful birthing conditions.”
The amendment also states “reproductive freedom shall not be denied, interfered with, delayed, or otherwise restricted” unless a state or local government demonstrates a compelling state interest for the restriction and achieves that interest by the least restrictive means. Known as “strict scrutiny,” this is the highest standard courts’ apply when determining whether a law violates a constitutional right. The measure further says any restriction must be limited to improving the health of the person seeking reproductive care, be consistent with accepted medical standards and “does not infringe on that person’s autonomous decision-making.”
Amendment 3 would allow the General Assembly to enact restrictions on abortion after the point of fetal viability – usually around 24 weeks of pregnancy – but creates an exception if a medical professional deems an abortion necessary to “protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.” It prohibits any person from being “penalized, prosecuted, or otherwise subjected to adverse action” for exercising their reproductive rights or helping others do so.
Do you want to amend the Missouri Constitution to:establish a right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptives, with any governmental interference of that right presumed invalid;remove Missouri’s ban on abortion; allow regulation of reproductive health care to improve or maintain the health of the patient;require the government not to discriminate, in governments programs, funding, and other activities, against persons providing or obtaining reproductive health care; andallow abortion to be restricted or banned after Fetal Viability except to protect the life or health of the woman?Amendment 3 essentially will restore the reasonable compromise that existed under Roe v. Wade, protecting the basic right to an abortion prior to fetal viability but allowing it to be prohibited after that point except when necessary to protect the life or health of the mother.
With the ultra-conservative U.S. Supreme Court striking down constitutional protections for abortion, the right to contraception and other reproductive health care services could be next. Amendment 3 will preemptively protect those rights in Missouri.
AMENDMENT 5
LAKE OF THE OZARKS CASINOAmendment 5 asks voters to expand so-called riverboat gambling in Missouri from its current constitutional confines along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers to authorize a casino on the Osage River near the Lake of the Ozarks. It was placed on the Nov. 5 statewide ballot via an initiative petition sponsored by Osage River Gaming and Convention, a group largely funded by Bally’s, a national casino chain.
The language of Amendment 5 would allow the Missouri Gaming Commission, which oversees and regulates the state’s casinos, to license one casino anywhere on the Osage River from its confluence with the Missouri River, not far to southeast of Jefferson City, to Bagnell Dam, which forms the Lake of the Ozarks. Bally’s, which currently operates a casino in Kansas City, announced its intention to locate its facility nearby the dam in the city of Lake Ozark. However, other prospective casino operators also could vie for the license.The ballot language for Amendment 5 prepared by the Secretary of State’s Office, followed by the official fiscal estimate prepared by the State Auditor’s Office, says:
Do you want to amend the Missouri Constitution to:allow the Missouri Gaming Commission to issue one additional gambling boat license to operate on the portion of the Osage River from the Missouri River to the Bagnell Dam;require the prescribed location shall include artificial spaces that contain water and are within 500 feet of the 100-year base flood elevation as established by the Federal Emergency Management Agency; andrequire all state revenues derived from the issuance of the gambling boat license shall be appropriated to early-childhood literacy programs in public institutions of elementary education?Despite Amendment 5’s promises, public schools likely won’t see a dime in additional revenue for early childhood literacy programs since the legislature will just use the new gaming money to replace general revenue it currently spends on those programs.
AMENDMENT 6
COURT FEES
Amendment 6 asks voters to amend the Missouri Constitution to override longstanding state Supreme Court precedent and authorize revenue from court fees to be used to fund salaries and benefits for current and retired county sheriffs and local prosecutors. It will appear on the Nov. 5 statewide ballot.
A constitutional change is necessary to achieve this purpose because the Supreme Court has ruled since at least 1986 that laws imposing mandatory fees on court cases to generate revenue for purposes other than judicial operations violates the “open courts” provision of the state constitution. Amendment 6 would add a new subsection to the open courts provision to specifically allow earmarking court fee revenue to supplement salaries and benefits for sheriffs and prosecutors.
Ballot Language for Amendment 6, followed by the official fiscal estimate prepared by the State Auditor’s Office, says:
“Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to provide that the administration of justice shall include levying of costs and fees to support salaries and benefits for certain law enforcement personnel”?
Amendment 6 would go far beyond restoring the unconstitutional fee that supported sheriffs’ pensions and protecting a similar (and likely unconstitutional) fee for prosecutors to empower the legislature to add an unlimited amount of new court fees to benefit sheriffs and prosecutors.
AMENDMENT 7
RANKED CHOICE VOTING
Amendment 7, which will appear on the Nov. 5 statewide ballot, is an attempt to prohibit Missouri from adopting a “ranked-choice” voting system in the future. In order to improve its chances of being ratified, the measure’s Republican sponsor added a piece of so-called “ballot candy” designed to sell the measure to voters that purports to prohibit non-citizens from voting, which already is illegal under both state and federal law. However, that provision instead could have the unintended consequence of weakening the voting rights of citizens.
While the details of ranked-choice voting systems vary among the jurisdictions that have them, in general they allow voters to rank their preference among candidates when more than two are seeking a particular office. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote in the first round of counting, then the candidate with the fewest votes drops off and their votes are redistributed to the remaining candidates based on how voters ranked them. The process repeats until one candidate achieves a simple majority.
The ranked-choice method is intended to ensure winning candidates are elected with majority support, unlike the current winner-take-all system that makes it possible for the top vote-getter in a multi-candidate race to be elected by just a plurality of the vote.
The legislature’s ballot language, followed by the official fiscal estimate prepared by the State Auditor’s Office, says:
Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:Make the Constitution consistent with state law by only allowing citizens of the United States to vote;Prohibit the ranking of candidates by limiting voters to a single vote per candidate or issue; andRequire the plurality winner of a political party primary to be the single candidate at a general election?However, Amendment 7 contains a grandfather clause allowing St. Louis city to retain the “approval voting” system it adopted through a local ballot measure city voters approved in 2020. Under approval voting, all candidates for an office run in a nonpartisan primary election, with each voter able to cast a ballot for as many candidates as they like. The two candidates with the most total votes then advance to a traditional winner-take-all runoff election.
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