A Cole County judge is keeping a proposal aimed at restricting the legislature from overturning or changing voter-approved initiatives off the November ballot.
The plaintiff's attorney, Chuck Hatfield, said he will appeal Judge Daniel Green's decision to the Western District Court of Appeals.
Secretary of State Denny Hoskins blocked an initiative known as Respect Missouri Voters. Under the proposed constitutional amendment, 80 percent of the legislature would need to vote to alter any statutory or constitutional change passed through the initiative petition process. And those alterations would still then need to be ratified through a statewide vote.
Hoskins contended that the proposal violated the constitution's prohibition of having constitutional amendments on multiple subjects.
Backers of the initiative sued and Green held a hearing on Tuesday. In a five-page decision Wednesday, Green ruled the Respect Missouri Voters initiative violated aspects of the state and federal constitution and, therefore, should not appear on the November 2026 ballot. That included violating constitutional prohibitions on single subject and single article guarantees.
"The Secretary … determined that [the initiative] violates the single-subject and single-article guarantees. This Court concurs in that determination," Green wrote. "Instead of addressing a single subject, tied to a single article in the Missouri Constitution, [the initiative] makes sweeping reforms affecting multiple provisions of the Missouri Constitution."
Green went on to say that the proposal "curtails the most straightforward mechanism for getting a question before the people … a legislative referral."
"[Respect Missouri Voters] impermissibly constricts the people's ability to reconsider laws and amendments passed by initiative or vetoed by referendum," Green wrote. "Today's voters have the right to consider amendments proposed by the General Assembly; today's voters cannot strip that right from future voters to insulate the current majority's policy preferences from future reconsideration. Holding otherwise would sanction a radical alteration of Missouri's government that undermines the republican guarantee."
Hoskins said in a statement he was pleased with Green's decision.
"I remain committed to honoring my oath to protect the Missouri Constitution, and I will continue fighting special interest groups funded by out-of-state sugar-daddies who want to turn Missouri into New York City or Los Angeles," Hoskins said.
Based on preliminary numbers from the Missouri Secretary of State's office, the Respect Missouri Voters initiative had enough signatures in six of eight congressional districts to make the November 2026 ballot.
Additionally, the initiative would also bar legislators from proposing anything to constrain the initiative petition process. For instance: If the Respect Missouri Voters initiative was in place, lawmakers wouldn't have been able to propose the recently rejected Amendment 4 – which would have required initiative petition-directed constitutional amendments to pass in all eight congressional districts.
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