Missouri Supreme Court sets hearing date for referendum, initiative case appeals

The court took a case over a referendum on the redistricting on direct appeal. And it issued an order Friday to the Western District Court of Appeals to transfer the appeal over a proposed constitutional amendment on initiative powers.

The court is taking the cases, orders issued Wednesday said, because of the “general interest or importance” of each.

A ruling must be issued by Sept. 8, the last day for courts to add questions to the Nov. 3 ballot.

Circuit Judge Daniel Green on Wednesday issued decisions denying the two measures spots on the ballot, ruling in favor of Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins and his findings that they violate both the state and federal constitutions.

The court on Sept. 2 will also hear arguments in a separate appeal involving the referendum. On Monday, Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh ruled that Hoskins was legally correct when he rejected more than 100,000 signatures submitted for the referendum by the political action committee People Not Politicians. Hoskins argued the signatures were collected before he had approved the petition for circulation and were therefore void.

The petition had sufficient signatures without the excluded pages. Hoskins denied it a spot on the ballot on the grounds that the Missouri Constitution does not specifically allow a referendum on redistricting and the federal constitution makes district maps a job of the Legislature.

Green’s ruling adopted every argument and most of the language proposed by the three Republican Party intervenors, striking a handful of paragraphs and making other minor edits before issuing it as his decision.

The referendum seeks a vote on the congressional map passed during a 2025 special session. Opponents of the map have lost every challenge to the authority of Gov. Mike Kehoe and the Legislature to enact it, including attempts to have the law put on hold while signatures were being checked.

The referendum is the opponents only chance to overturn the map and the appeal is the last chance to get it on the ballot.

The initiative proposal from Respect MO Voters, which would be Amendment 6 if it is on the ballot, would limit the power of lawmakers to change laws or constitutional amendments passed by the initiative process. In his ruling, Green found that it placed unconstitutional restrictions on the actions of future lawmakers and impermissibly combined multiple subjects.

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