Supporters of abortion rights, paid sick leave and minimum wage increases are already planning their next moves after Republican lawmakers took aim at initiatives that Missouri voters approved just last year.
And that may include trying to pass a constitutional amendment that locks in paid sick leave and aspects of the minimum wage that lawmakers just threw out.
Republican state senators on Wednesday repealed portions of Proposition A, including the parts that mandated paid sick leave and raised the minimum wage based on inflation.
They also placed a measure on the 2026 ballot that would repeal abortion rights protections voters approved last year and replace them with a ban on most abortions.
Several hundred backers of both initial ballot items staged a rally on the Missouri Capitol steps Thursday, condemning Republican lawmakers for what they said was thumbing their nose at voters.
"It's not a democratic process if we vote and the lawmakers overturn the voice of the people," said Springfield resident Kate Foster.
Republicans and some business groups contended that aspects of Proposition A were onerous to small businesses.
"Our position has been clear: Business owners know best how to run their own companies, and burdensome mandates only hinder economic growth," Missouri Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Kara Corches said in a statement.
GOP lawmakers said their constituents who feel abortion is morally wrong wanted them to undo portions of what's known as Amendment 3. The GOP-supported ballot measure would ban most abortions with exceptions for medical emergencies and rape and incest up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.
"This is not legislation by government fiat," said Rep. Brian Seitz, a Branson Republican who sponsored the ballot item. "This is allowing the Missouri citizens to make a qualified, quantitative decision about how they would like to change our Missouri Constitution. It's giving it back to the citizens, and that's what we deal with in a representative republic."
![Fran Marion, of Kansas City, during a rally in support of voter-backed initiatives legalizing abortion and guaranteeing paid sick leave at the Capitol on Thursday in Jefferson City. "[Politicians] don't care about us," she said.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/7960cae/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x2000+0+0/resize/840x560!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffe%2F1f%2Fc1a631dc4e34be40380aa1d971b1%2F051225-bm-protest-3.jpg)
Ballwin resident Mary Ann Perkins said she rejects the idea that voters were somehow fooled into supporting Amendment 3. She said she encountered lots of Republicans who supported the initiative while volunteering in support of the measure.
"We already know that Missouri values abortion rights, and I think that it's a little bit disingenuous for anyone to think that people didn't know that they were voting in favor of making sure women have access to the care that they need," Perkins said. "I think it's disingenuous to say that we would have changed our minds in this short time. The people in Missouri are not ambivalent about this question."
Next steps
Some rallygoers said Republicans may have misfired by going after Proposition A and Amendment 3.
When asked what would stop Proposition A supporters from placing a constitutional amendment on paid sick leave that lawmakers couldn't repeal, Richard von Glahn of Jobs with Justice replied: "Nothing."
"I think voters sent a very clear message when they overwhelmingly passed Proposition A," von Glahn said.
Abortion rights proponents have at least two possible courses of action since the issue won't be on the ballot until August or November of 2026.
They'll have more than a year to raise money and organize an opposition campaign.
"Every Missourian deserves to have agency and control over their own bodies," said St. Louis County resident Nancy O'Brien. "Abortion, no matter what the circumstances, is health care. No politician has the right to dictate what goes on in the doctor's office or in our private lives."
Abortion rights backers could file a lawsuit against, among other things, the ballot summary that voters see at the polls. That summary doesn't say that it would ban most abortions.
"I think the short answer is you don't ever know what the courts are going to do," said House Majority Leader Alex Riley, R-Springfield.
The proposed ballot item also contains a bullet point that the initiative "protects children from gender transition."
Rep. Elizabeth Fuchs, D-St. Louis, criticized Republicans for including the gender-affirming care ban for minors, which is already in state statute, as a means to turn out voters to ban abortion.
"The misconception and the misinformation and the lies about who trans people are and who trans kids are and what they need is only going to get worse with a statewide campaign," Fuchs said.
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