(The Center Square) — Regardless how Amendment 3 fares on the Nov. 3 ballot, Missourians will have a legislative map-drafting system unlike any in the nation when post-Census redistricting begins next year.
If Amendment 3 secures the needed 60-percent majority for adoption, it would transfer responsibility for drawing state legislative districts from a nonpartisan state demographer back to a governor-appointed commission of state lawmakers and make Missouri the nation’s first state to exclude children and non-citizens from legislative district counts.
If Amendment 3 fails, voters will essentially reaffirm their 2018 adoption of the ’Clean Missouri’ ballot measure, which made Missouri the nation’s first state to create a state demographers office to draft legislative maps after the decennial Census headcount.
‘Clean Missouri’ got on the 2018 ballot via a 347,000-signature citizen initiative. It passed with 62 percent of the vote, approved by voters in every state Senate district, more than 90 percent of state House districts and across 70 percent of counties, according to Clean Missouri, the 350-member coalition that sponsored the namesake 2018 amendment and is opposing Fair Missouri’s proposed Amendment 3.
‘Clean Missouri’ eliminated lobbyists gifts worth more than $5, required lawmakers wait two years before becoming lobbyists, enhanced state Legislature records transparency and created a nonpartisan demographer position to draw district maps to do away with a partisan process that allowed elected officials to effectively select their voters rather than the other way around.
Amendment 3 was not placed on the ballot by citizen initiative but by a resolution adopted by the Republican-controlled Legislature. The proposal is partially drafted by the National Republican Redistricting Trust law firm Graves Garrett LLC, supported by the American Legislative Exchange Council and spearheaded in the state by the Fair Missouri committee.
Amendment 3 would lower the limit on contributions for state senate candidates by $100, lower the limit on gifts from lobbyists from $5 to $0, eliminate the demographer position and restore redistricting by two 20-member bipartisan commissions and base district counts on “voting population,” thus eliminating minors and non-citizens.
Proponents, including the Missouri Farm Bureau and Northwest Missouri Conservatives PAC, argue Amendment 3 would stop gerrymandering, preserve rural and minority voting power, and strengthen ‘Clean Missouri’ reforms.
Amendment 3 proponent Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer, R-Kansas City, said if voters don't approve the measure, "you’re going to have the partisan demographer drawing highly gerrymandered shoestring districts into urban areas and out to rural Missouri.”
Amendment 3 will restore “a bi-partisan commission of 20 citizens, equal number of Democrats and Republicans. That’s traditionally the way how we’ve drawn districts in Missouri,” Luetkemeyer said.
Fair Missouri has spent just under $250,000 in support of Amendment 3 while Clean Missouri has spent $5.5 million fighting the measure.
“Amendment 3 appears to be the vanguard of a broader conservative strategy to exclude children and noncitizens from being counted,” the Brennan Center wrote in September. “But should those behind Amendment 3 succeed in transforming who counts when districts are drawn, the effects on the state, and on Black, Latino, and Asian communities in particular, would be profound.”
A 16-member coalition, including the Brennan Center, Common Cause and the Center for Popular Democracy, in an open letter warned voters the Fair Missouri proposal is anything but.
“Amendment 3 is an attempt by self-interested politicians to gut popular voter-approved nonpartisan redistricting reforms,” it said, “and then replace them with an unprecedented, discriminatory redistricting system unlike anything Missouri — or America — has ever seen.”
“They’re trying to fool voters into passing this thing,” ‘No On 3’ Chair Sean Nicholson said. “When voters go to vote, the first two bullets they’ll see are intended to make it look like this is a reform package. That attempt at deception is actually one of the primary reasons people are so angry about this.”
