u/rowboat_mayor

Amendment 4, which will be on the ballot for the August 4th election, is bad news. It will permanently kill our ability to amend the constitution through citizen's initiatives. It will put control over amending the constitution almost entirely in the hands of the legislature.

But Amendment 4 does have a few other provisions which, in a vacuum, almost seem good. I see a lot of pro-A4 accounts highlighting those parts while ignoring the main point of A4. I wanted to go over those "good parts" and explain why they are pointless ballot candy only included to trick voters.

1. Ban foreign donations to initiative petition campaigns:
   • Amendment 4 would ban adversary nations and foreign nationals from contributing to initiative petition campaigns.
   • Problem 1: This isn't an actual issue. No foreign nation is going to care one bit about amendments to the Missouri constitution, and I have seen no cases of any foreign country dumping money into a petition campaign. If there were any such cases, we'd never hear the end of it from the pro-A4 camp.
   • Problem 2: This is ALREADY ILLEGAL. RSMo 130.176 already bans large donations from foreign nationals. That large donation cap could easily be reduced to $0 by the legislature. This does not need a constitutional amendment to do.
     • In fact, a judge already ruled that it was misleading to say Amendment 4 would stop foreign adversaries from funding ballot measures.
2. Make petition signature fraud illegal:
   • Amendment 4 would establish the crime of petition signature fraud in the constitution, with a penalty of 1 year in prison and/or a fine of $1,000.
   • Problem 1: Again, I am aware of ZERO instances of petition signature fraud in MO. Again, if there were any issues with fraud, the yes on 4 side would never shut up about it.
   • Problem 2: This is ALREADY ILLEGAL. RSMo 116.090 already establishes signature fraud as a crime. In fact, the wording in Amendment 4 is IDENTICAL to what is already in law. There is NOTHING that Amendment 4 would make illegal that is not already illegal. Hilariously, Amendment 4 actually *lowers* the penalty for committing fraud. In current law, the max fine is $10,000, Amendment 4 would lower that to $1,000. So it's an outright lie to say this is cracking down on signature fraud, as it actually punishes fraudsters less severely.
     • In the above article, that judge also ruled it was misleading to say Amendment 4 would punish signature fraud as a crime, because it just restates current law.
3. Requires public hearings for comment about proposed initiative petitions:
   • Amendment 4 would make it so when a petition and its signatures are submitted to the state, some public hearings are held about the proposed amendment.
   • Problem: This is ALREADY IN LAW. RSMo 116.153 requires the legislature to take public comment on ballot measures after they are certified to appear on the ballot. The only change Amendment 4 makes is moving those hearings to after petition submission, not after certification (so the hearings would be a couple months earlier). This is a completely pointless change, because the petitions must be certified purely based on the validity of the signatures, not the outcome of any hearings. But if we *did* for some reason want to have the hearings earlier, the legislature could easily pass a law to change that. Doesn't need to be an amendment.
     • This was the third bullet that was struck from the ballot language by that judge because it simply restated current law.
4. Requires the full text of ballot measures to be made available to voters:
   1. Problem: Say it with me now, this is ALREADY IN LAW. RSMo 116.050 requires that every single petition sheet have a copy of the full amendment text attached. RSMo 116.260 requires the secretary of state to publish the text of ballot measures in newspapers across the state. Amendment 4 does appear to expand this to require the full text to be available at the ballot box, but there is absolutely no reason the legislature couldn't just pass a law requiring that.

Long story short, every single "good part" of Amendment 4 is either something that is already a law or something the legislature could easily make a law right now if they wanted to. The reason the legislature threw these parts into Amendment 4 is not because they belong in the constitution, but because they know their obvious power grab would be unpopular with voters so they are attaching more palatable bits onto it to try and get more support. Check your voter registration RIGHT NOW (deadline to register is TOMORROW), and on August 4th vote No on Amendment 4. And make sure your like-minded friends & family members know about Amendment 4 and get out to vote as well.