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Excerpt from labortribune.com
A Republican-backed bill to make it harder to amend the constitution through the initiative petition process – thus ending majority rule voting in Missouri – has died after a record-breaking 50-hour Democratic Senate filibuster that made national news.
Currently, ballot referendums generated by citizen-led initiative petitions need only a simple majority to pass. SJR74 would have required the approval of a majority of voters statewide and a majority of voters in five of the state’s eight congressional districts to pass.
The disagreement that triggered the filibuster was about “ballot candy,” items added to the bill meant to trick voters into supporting the measure. Those items included a requirement that those who vote in Missouri elections be U.S. citizens and a clause that foreign governments cannot fund ballot initiative efforts. Both items are already required under Missouri law.
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