Missouri voters in November will decide whether to approve an amendment that would limit state lawmakers' ability to overturn voter-approved measures and block state lawmakers from weakening citizen initiative powers.
Missouri Amendment 6 would make changes to the state constitution related to citizen initiative authority, which is the right people in Missouri have to gather signatures to place proposed laws on the ballot and get them passed.
Political campaign committee Respect Missouri Voters gathered signatures to get Amendment 6 on the ballot.
Amendment 6 has several distinct aspects: citizen initiative power protection, restrictions on overturning voter-approved measures, and fair ballot summaries.
Citizen initiative power protection
Amendment 6 would bar lawmakers from ever proposing legislation that would restrict or weaken citizen initiative powers.
If passed, that would prevent lawmakers from ever proposing legislation similar to Amendment 4 again. That amendment, which went before voters in August, sought to raise the threshold required to pass constitutional amendments proposed through citizen initiative petitions from a simple statewide majority vote to a majority vote in each of Missouri's eight congressional districts.
Voters soundly rejected that measure, with just over 80% in opposition.
Restrictions on overturning voter-approved measures
Amendment 6 would also make it significantly more difficult for lawmakers to overturn what voters have already decided on at the ballot box.
Currently, it takes a simple majority vote in the House and Senate, plus approval from the governor, for lawmakers to alter and repeal statutory law. It's the same threshold in the legislature to advance constitutional amendments that would repeal existing amendments, including those passed by voters, but that legislation bypasses the governor and must still be approved by a statewide vote of the people.
Amendment 6 would raise the bar required to directly repeal or advance legislation that would undo what people have voted on in both state statute and constitutional amendments to 80% approval in both the House and the Senate, and still require a statewide popular vote after that.
Fair ballot summaries
Finally, Amendment 6 would add a constitutional requirement for fair and accurate ballot summaries. It would also prohibit legislators from ever passing legislation that would block judges from being able to rewrite ballot summaries.
Here's how the measure will appear on the ballot:
Antithesis to Amendment 4
Voters just saw a measure related to citizen initiatives on their ballot in August — and they rejected that measure by a landslide.
That one, Amendment 4, sought to severely restrict Missouri citizens' ability to amend the state constitution. It failed resoundingly, with over 80% of voters marking "no" on their ballots. The upcoming measure in November, Amendment 6, would effectively do the opposite.
"If you hated Amendment 4, which 80% did, you're going to love Amendment 6," said Evan Prost, a volunteer for Respect Missouri Voters. "So, it's an easy sell when you go door to door."
Respect Missouri Voters volunteers like Prost are now canvassing to try and get Amendment 6 passed, advocating for safeguards on direct democracy.
Opponents warn of unintended consequences
Opponents of the measure say it could have negative unintended consequences.
State Rep. Ed Lewis, a Republican from Moberly, said that if Amendment 6 passes, it would be almost impossible for legislators to change potential problems with voter-approved measures.
Specifically, he took issue with funding allocations from marijuana and sports betting revenue, which were both constitutional amendments proposed through initiative petitions and passed by Missouri voters.
"How many times have we ever passed a law and not tweaked it?" Lewis said. "Probably never. I can't think of any law that we haven't revisited. So what you're trying to say is the people are always going to get it right with their first attempt?"
Lewis sponsored the legislation that became Amendment 4 on the August ballot. He also sponsored the legislation that is Amendment 3 on this year's November ballot, which would overturn most voter-approved abortion access granted through an amendment passed in 2024.
"It's easy to say, 'I don't like the government.' No one likes the government," Lewis said. "But, it is us. I mean, we are elected by our people to change and modify laws and propose laws. And in this case, we would have that — a large portion of that — curtailed."
Effects on the legislative process
Republicans currently hold a supermajority in the state House and Senate, which is more than two-thirds of the members of each chamber.
While Amendment 6 wouldn't directly change who's elected, Scott LaCombe, a political science professor at the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy at the University of Missouri, said it would significantly change how elected lawmakers have to operate.
"It's not often we see 80% of legislators agreeing on anything," LaCombe said. "I think that it has raised a lot of questions on how do we tweak policy passed by the voters if this initiative passes and we find out, 'Oh no, this wasn't a great idea.' How do we get both parties to come together to try to produce an amendment to send back to the voters?"
Prost said lawmakers could still alter what voters have decided on, but it would take a much higher bar.
"So that's why many, many, many lawmakers who are satisfied with the status quo don't want this," Prost said. "Because it threatens the status quo. So, we have the right to petition the government. It's part of the Constitution, and this would protect that."
LaCombe said one of the consequences of Amendment 6 might actually be something people campaigning against it have supported.
Freedom Principle Missouri, a conservative political activist group, is campaigning against Amendment 6. Its president and founder, Byron Keelin, told KOMU 8 News that one of the reasons he supported Amendment 4 in August was that Missouri's Constitution had been changed too much.
The Missouri Constitution has been amended 126 times since the current version was ratified in 1945.
LaCombe anticipates that because Amendment 6 would make it equally difficult for lawmakers to repeal state statute as it would constitutional amendments, groups seeking to pass initiative petitions might change statutory law instead of trying to ingrain new language in the Constitution.
"(Statute) will have much more stability and much more certainty," LaCombe said.
Voters' decisions overturned
In May 2025, the Republican-led General Assembly passed legislation that Gov. Mike Kehoe then signed into law repealing voter-approved mandatory paid sick leave. Missouri voters had just approved this at the ballot box the previous November.
That same day, state senators sent Lewis' bill to ban most abortions again to the ballot. This seeks to overturn most of what voters had also passed just seven months prior.
Lewis said he understands citizens' frustrations with lawmakers. But when it comes to how they express this at the ballot box, he said voters should change the lawmaker, not the law.
"I understand that they didn't like if their legislator voted against paid sick leave. And if they don't like that, they should vote against that legislator and change that person," Lewis said. "Isn't that the way it's supposed to be done? You don't change your constitution to prohibit your legislature from doing their job."
Previous legal challenges
In August, Republican Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins refused to certify the signatures to put Amendment 6 on the ballot, arguing that it violated the state's single-subject rule for ballot measures, and that the amendment is unconstitutional.
In September, the Missouri Supreme Court found the measure did not violate the single-subject rule and could remain on the ballot. Judges there did not determine whether Amendment 6 violates the U.S. Constitution's Guarantee Clause, which affords every citizen the right to a representative-republic form of government. The state supreme court determined the constitutionality of the amendment can only be argued if it passes.
If that happens, LaCombe expressed skepticism that courts would strike Amendment 6 down.
"I don't think that the courts are going to accept that as a proposal because this is a process of amending the Constitution," LaCombe said. "You can say something is in legislative power. But again, when we're developing constitutional amendments, this is setting up the limits to how policymaking can be made."
Amendment 6 has a built-in provision requiring that if any portion of it is deemed invalid, the rest of the amendment will still stand.
Amendment 6 ballot language
Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:
- expand the initiative and referendum petition process by making it a fundamental right;
- allow courts to revise ballot summaries through lawsuits;
- prohibit the legislature from weakening initiative or referendum powers;
- prohibit the legislature from changing or repealing laws enacted through the initiative process, or passing laws similar to those rejected by referendum, without approval from at least 80% of both chambers; and
- preserve existing majority vote and signature requirements for initiative and referendum petitions?
State and local governmental entities estimate no costs or savings.
