1. United States
2. Mo.
3. Letter

I urge you to vote “NO” on HB3146 (Simmons), HB3209 (Reuter), and SB1615 (Brattin). While these bills are presented as a technical adjustment to the ballot summary process, they represent a fundamental threat to direct democracy and the rights of Missouri voters. This legislation does not fix a broken system; it breaks a system that works to ensure fairness. The core of these bills is deeply problematic. Current law allows a court to directly re-write ballot language it finds to be insufficient or unfair. These bills would strip courts of that authority, forcing judges to send defective language back to the Secretary of State for up to three additional revisions. Only after this prolonged back-and-forth could a court finally step in. This creates a dangerous dynamic. It invites political actors to intentionally draft biased or confusing language, knowing they will have multiple opportunities to refine it while the clock is ticking. By allowing the Secretary of State three extra tries to draft a fair statement, while simultaneously shortening the deadline for finalizing these challenges to just 70 days before an election, the bills weaponize the timeline. It creates a perverse incentive to stall. The goal would be to run out the clock, pushing a final, fair summary so close to the election that signature gathering and voter education are irreparably harmed. This has a near-total chilling effect on citizen-led initiatives. Voters have a fundamental right to know what they are voting on. That is the very reason Missouri law mandates that ballot language be a “true and impartial statement” that is not “likely to create prejudice.” These bills subvert that core principle. They shield unfair language from swift judicial remedy and force good-faith challengers into a time-consuming loop, allowing biased summaries to persist longer in the process. From a legal standpoint, these bills violate the separation of powers. It is the proper role of the judiciary to interpret the law and provide a remedy when the law is broken. If the Secretary of State drafts language that violates the legal standard of fairness, a court should have the immediate authority to correct that error. Sending the problem back to the very office that created the infirm language is an abdication of judicial responsibility that leaves voters unprotected. Finally, the increase in the word count for summaries from 50 to 100 words is a smokescreen. A longer summary is not necessarily a fairer one. It simply provides more room for political maneuvering and persuasive language designed to sway voters, rather than inform them. These bills are an attack on the initiative petition process. They make it harder for citizens to place an issue on the ballot and harder for voters to understand that issue once it gets there. I respectfully ask you to oppose these bills and others like them and defend the right of Missourians to a fair and transparent ballot process.