Missouri’s Constitution is the backbone of our state’s governance, meant to echo the will of all its people—not just those in the biggest cities. Yet, the current process for amending this vital document is stacked against rural Missouri, amplifying urban voices while rural counties get trampled. A draft bill—An Act to Amend Article XII of the Constitution of Missouri to Require Ratification by Two-Thirds of Counties for the Approval of Constitutional Amendments—offers a fix. It’s been sent to state lawmakers, including Representative Tim Taylor of House District 48, among others. But the response? Dead silence. Nowhere is this more infuriating than among rural senators and representatives. Why don’t these lawmakers, elected to fight for rural Missouri, want their constituents to have a louder voice in shaping constitutional amendments—especially after urban-driven changes like last year’s radical abortion amendment?
The Urban Stranglehold on Missouri’s System
Missouri’s constitutional amendment process is a raw numbers game—a democracy, not a republic. Amendments, whether proposed by initiative petition or the General Assembly, go to a statewide vote, and the majority wins. Sounds fair until you see that over half of Missouri’s 5.9 million residents are packed into a few urban counties, per U.S. ...
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