Lawsuit seeks Missouri ballot spot for amendment limiting changes to voter-approved initiatives

A campaign seeking to make it harder for lawmakers to alter voter-approved initiatives sued Secretary of State Denny Hoskins on Thursday, asking a judge to overturn his decision blocking the proposed constitutional amendment from the November ballot.

The lawsuit, filed in Cole County Circuit Court by three Missourians who signed the Respect Missouri Voters petition, also challenges Hoskins’ attempt to withdraw and replace a ballot title his office certified nearly a year ago — before supporters collected hundreds of thousands of signatures.

It is the second lawsuit filed this week challenging Hoskins’ refusal to certify a citizen petition for the Nov. 3 ballot.

On Tuesday, Hoskins declared both the Respect Missouri Voters initiative and a referendum seeking to overturn Missouri’s new congressional map insufficient. People Not Politicians, the campaign behind the redistricting referendum, sued later that day.

Respect Missouri Voters filed its lawsuit Thursday morning.

“Hundreds of thousands of citizens, far more than required, signed to demand that the Respect Missouri Voters Amendment appear on the ballot,” Toni Easter, a volunteer and co-founder of the group, said after Hoskins announced his decision.

Hoskins could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

Referendum campaign asks court to block new Missouri map from November election

Respect Missouri Voters submitted its petition to Hoskins’ office May 3 after a yearlong campaign aimed at limiting lawmakers’ ability to change measures approved through the initiative process.

The campaign says it collected more than 367,000 signatures. Its lawsuit says more than 330,000 were submitted to the secretary of state.

A constitutional amendment requires signatures equal to 8% of the votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election in six of Missouri’s eight congressional districts. The lawsuit says the petition needed 177,713 valid signatures across six districts.

Hoskins did not cite an insufficient number of valid signatures when he rejected the petition Tuesday.

Instead, he concluded the proposal violated constitutional requirements limiting initiative petitions to a single subject and changes to a single article of the Missouri Constitution.

His decision relied on a legal opinion from Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, who also argued parts of the proposal impermissibly restricted future legislatures and raised questions under the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of a republican form of government.

The proposed amendment would declare initiative and referendum powers a fundamental right, preserve existing signature and statewide majority requirements and prevent lawmakers from weakening the initiative process.

It would also prohibit lawmakers 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 the Missouri House and Senate or a public vote.

The protections would apply to citizen-initiated laws and constitutional amendments approved after Jan. 1, 2010, as well as laws rejected by voters through referendum after that date. The restrictions would apply to legislative action taken after the amendment takes effect, meaning they would not automatically undo changes lawmakers made before then.

The lawsuit argues all of those provisions share one “reasonably narrow and identifiable central and controlling purpose” and amend only Article III of the Missouri Constitution.

But the dispute also centers on decisions Hoskins and the attorney general made before supporters ever began gathering signatures.

Former Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who held the office at the time, approved the petition as to form on July 31, 2025. Hoskins approved the petition’s form the same day and certified its official ballot title on Sept. 9.

No one challenged that ballot title during the 10-day period allowed under state law.

Supporters then circulated petitions bearing the title Hoskins had certified.

When Hoskins rejected the petition Tuesday, however, his certificate of insufficiency also purported to withdraw the September ballot title and certify a new one.

The lawsuit argues state law gives the secretary of state no authority to do that at the end of the petition process.

It points to a 2024 Missouri Supreme Court ruling arising from the abortion-rights amendment voters approved that year.

In that case, then-Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft attempted to reverse earlier decisions approving the form of the petition after a Cole County judge ordered the amendment removed from the ballot.

The Supreme Court said Ashcroft’s attempt was “a nullity and of no effect” and held that the secretary was not entitled to reassess matters he had previously approved.

The Respect Missouri Voters lawsuit argues Hoskins is bound by the same principle.

“The secretary is not entitled to re-assess matters of form that he [has] already approved,” the lawsuit states, quoting the 2024 decision.

The lawsuit asks a judge to reverse Hoskins’ certificate of insufficiency, order him to declare the petition sufficient and place it on the November ballot using the title certified last September.

The case comes days after Missouri voters overwhelmingly rejected Amendment 4, a measure placed on Tuesday’s ballot by lawmakers that would have required citizen-led constitutional amendments to win a majority statewide and in each of Missouri’s eight congressional districts.

Respect Missouri Voters was among the groups campaigning against Amendment 4.

Tuesday was also the statutory deadline for Hoskins to decide whether citizen petitions had enough support and otherwise complied with state law to qualify for November.

Under state law, lawsuits challenging those decisions must be moved to the front of the court docket and decided “as quickly as possible.”

There is another deadline looming.

No court may order a measure added to the Nov. 3 ballot after Sept. 8, eight weeks before Election Day.

That leaves Respect Missouri Voters and People Not Politicians less than five weeks to win their cases if their proposals are to appear before voters this fall.