A growing number of states are considering ways to make it more difficult to amend their constitutions, but a proposed bill in the state house would make Missouri unique among them.
House Joint Resolution 3, if passed in the current special session and approved by voters in next year’s midterm election, would require any new constitutional amendments to win each congressional district to be ratified. Currently, only a majority of votes in the state overall is needed to approve an amendment.
John Dinan, a political science professor at Wake Forest University who studies state constitutions, said it’s common for states to have these kinds of distribution requirements across counties or districts during the initiative process, when citizens are seeking enough signatures to put an amendment question to voters.
In Missouri, prospective amendments need signatures — equaling 8% of the votes in the last gubernatorial election — from two thirds of districts to get on the ballot. But for the later stages of the amendment process, Dinan said those kinds of requirements are novel.
“All states requiring voter ratification just simply say that overall the number of votes has to be either a majority or a supermajority,” Dinan said, “So I’m not familiar with any state that in specifying voter ratification requirements would require ratification to be done in some parts of the state.”
Dinan’s research says that states often attempt to increase barriers to constitutional amendments in response to the conflicting wants of voters and lawmakers.
Sometimes, a certain proposed amendment can spark debates over the ratification process, but he said there’s a theme from those politicians who don't support the amendment: “A belief that voters are too willing to approve amendments that after later thought and deliberation, they might have possibly had second thoughts.”
In his view, there are reasons to support such restrictions on the amendment process. Constitutions provide the framework for every other action in state politics, and changing them is a meaningful decision.
“Changing the state constitution is an important matter — it’s more significant than changing a statute law, it’s changing the state’s foundational document,” Dinan said. “There can be a case to be made for ensuring adequate consensus in deliberation.”
Looking at national trends in amendment limitations, Dinan said there’s no clear pattern in the groups proposing and supporting them. Restrictions have been proposed by progressives, conservatives and a mix of both.
“Across the board, there’s no clear pattern to that,” he said. “What we have to do is look at the particular state, and look at the politics of the state.”
In Missouri, where the Republican party currently controls most public offices, citizen-initiated constitutional amendments have been a way for progressives to bring their causes to voters in times when they’ve been kept out of the lawmaking process.
“The voter initiative process gives some power and a resource to groups that are locked out of the statewide offices,” Dinan said. “So there’s no doubt that in Missouri at this particular point in time, that progressive groups believe that using voter-initiated amendment processes is one way to do an end-run around a Republican trifecta Missouri government.”
In the last general election, progressive initiatives such as one ensuring abortion access narrowly won, carried primarily by voters in Democratic cities. Had the state required amendments to win in each district at the time, Amendment 3 would not have passed.
Across the country, states with similarly contentious elections have shown interest in greater restrictions on citizen-initiated amendments.
“For Missouri to be considering adding additional obstacles and hurdles to amending its state constitution is very much in keeping with debates that are going on in other states around the country,” Dinan said.
The resolution was approved by the House Education and Rules committees — both Republican-led — last week. If it’s passed in both houses in the state legislature, it would go on the ballot at next year’s midterm election.
At that point, the decision is left to the public, which Dinan said can be the biggest obstacle in getting amendment restrictions passed.
“These changes all have to be approved by voters,” he said, “And when voters have been asked ‘Do you want to make it more difficult to amend the constitution?’ voters have generally resisted.”
