I believe in the in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Petitioning Government for the redress of grievances is a sacred right of the American people but supporters of Amendment 4 on Missouri’s August ballot say it is too easy to turn those grievances into amendment to the state constitution.  It should be harder, than it is, as it is harder to amend the U. S. Constitution than it is to pass a law.

Amendment 4, as is the case with term limits, aims at the wrong target.

Here’s what it does and doesn’t do.

First—by far— it either takes away your right to vote OR it gives you an excessive amount of voting power. If you live in one of the seven congressional districts favoring a proposition but the eighth district has one more vote against it than for it, you have wasted your time in the voting booth. The idea that one vote in one congressional district can outweigh the favorable votes in the other seven is preposterous and violates the Hell out of the concept that my vote is equal to yours—the one person, one vote standard.

Many of the changes in our state constitution are the result of the failure of the legislature to pass bills on a particular issue. Case in point: Sports wagering.  The legislature failed for eight years to pass a LAW allowing sports wagering but protecting the state’s interests.  Because of that failure, we have a sports wagering amendment written by and for the gambling interests with no concern for the public (except insofar as the public has money the gambling interests have a system to take). Gambling interests that spent huge amounts of time and money lobbying lawmakers on this issue wound up spending $43 million to put their plan in the constitution.

This map from USA Today shows sports wagering carried only 17 of our counties. If Amendment Four had been on the books in 2024, we would not have sports wagering now.

This map is not entirely untypical. Several petition amendments and laws are on the books because predominantly Democrat districts were heavily in favor of them. Republicans proposing this amendment are tired of such results—but they do represent a statewide majority vote. And preserving the majority vote for all of us and all of our races is more important than a revenge vote that can end the idea that all of our individual votes are equal.  Throwing away our voting rights because we disagree with the result would be tragically un-American.

Because the legislature sometimes fails to act, or opts to act for a private interest rather than in the public interest we elect it to protect, things that should become laws are instead carved into the constitution through citizen petitions, rendering the laws far harder to correct.

We agree it should be more difficult to petition for a constitutional amendment than it is.  The problem is that the misguided legislature is attacking the rights of their own voters instead of adjusting the petition process.

Federal law offers a proper template but in this era of trying to undermine the fundamental right to vote, our elected lawmakers have opted to go in that direction.

It takes 38 of the 50 states to ratify a federal constitutional amendment.  Amendment 4 is the equivalent of saying four of our fifty states could keep an amendment from being adopted to the U.S. Constitution.  Amendment 4 is excessive under our national standards.

If approval by all eight congressional districts for citizen grievances to be addressed, why should it not also take all eight districts to approve amendments offer by the legislature?

By the same token—-to really go to extremes—why not have a constitutional provision saying no one can be elected to the legislature if one of their precincts votes against them?  Or why not just require that all statewide offices be filled only with those who carry all eight of our congressional districts?

Amendment 4 is a Goose and Gander proposition.  What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.  Amendment Four is a goosing of the majority.

Voting for Amendment Four means that you are giving away the value of your vote and favor allowing people in another part of the state to decide whether your vote matters.  Missourians have cut their own voting throats two other times in recent memory—by restricting their own right to vote for their representative or their senator for additional terms if they think the terms are deserved—and by agreeing that no city in our state outside of St. Louis and Kansas City could ever consider imposing an earnings tax.

Passing Amendment 4 would see us once more throw away a prerogative we should reserve to ourselves.  (Term limits, by the way, might sound good.  But I have seen up close the disaster they have been in our General Assembly.)

Having torn into Amendment Four, it might be incumbent on this critic to offer a better idea or two. You might have better ones that you will put in the response box at the end of this piece.

—Increase the number of signatures necessary to put an issue on the ballot and require broad financial support for citizen petitions rather than a limited number of big-money backers.  A following question, however: should this standard apply only to constitutional change?  Proposed answer: Given that it is easier to correct a flawed law than it will be to correct a flawed amendment, should there not be a higher standard for number of signatures needed for a proposed amendment than for a proposed statute?

—Increasing the majority needed in the General Assembly to propose amendments to the  constitution, a policy mirroring what is required of lawmakers’ constituents. Why should the people, from whom political power in this country is supposed to flow, have to meet higher standards than the legislature does?

Limiting the number of versions of a petition issue submitted to the Secretary of State for approval.  Submit one.  This business submitting unlimited numbers with slight variations, forcing an enormous workload on Secretary of State and County Clerk staffs needs to end.

Forcing the general assembly to wait five years before trying to replace a voter-approved amendment although questions about the legality of a citizen-adopted amendment are allowed in the courts immediately upon the proposal going into effect.

Require a super majority of voters statewide to approve a proposed amendment.  A five-seventh majority is sometimes a standard in some elections. A simple majority should be enough for a statute, more for an amendment.

There is a clear need to make it harder to turn something that should be a law into an amendment. But it must be done in a way that does not interfere with the sacred right in our federal constitution to vote.  Amendment 4 is another example of a legislative failure that could be turned into a part of our state constitution—as happened with sports wagering..

When the government proposes voters limit their own rights, those voters should take it personally, find out how their elected lawmakers voted on the bill and let that be one of the reasons to support or to oppose that lawmaker’s re-election.

Your vote is important and it’s too important to risk losing your right to use it.

We’ll get to Amendment 5 next.