Missouri has a democracy problem — evident from child care to abortion

An anti-democratic attack on the abortion initiative petition failed, but unnecessary suffering will continue under an unrepresentative state government

Please read my column for the Missouri Independent: “Missouri lawmakers chose anti-abortion antics over helping children and families.” It’s about the important bills with widespread bipartisan support that would have helped Missouri babies, children, women, and families that didn’t get to the governor’s desk thanks to the five Republican obstructionists who makeup the purportedly “pro-life” Freedom Caucus.

I have a bit more to say about why our legislative session ended with children and families being thrown under the bus in the name of “protecting life.”

At most basic, abortion opponents have failed completely to make the case to women that abortion is immoral and gave up trying to long ago. Unable to convince, they can only coerce women and girls to carry pregnancies to term unwillingly by using the force of law. Also, they have little appetite for the economic supports that might convince more people to willingly carry unplanned pregnancies to term.

They also know—and openly acknowledge—that they can’t convince voters to endorse this coercion. Missouri Republicans expect that a majority of voters oppose the criminal abortion ban they have imposed and will overturn it at the ballot box this year.

So Missouri Republicans have tried to prevent a fair vote at every turn.

The latest ploy was to get an amendment on the August ballot that would have changed the number of votes needed to amend the constitution via initiative petition from a simple majority to also requiring a majority of votes in five out of eight congressional districts. This would have given rural voters greater power than voters in more populated areas. The Missouri Independent found that as few as 23% of voters would be able to block a ballot initiative that a majority of voters supported.

Of course, voters are not inclined to take away their own voting power and the bill’s proponents knew this. So Republicans hoped to trick them into it with deceptive “ballot candy” aimed at making voters think the bill was about barring undocumented immigrants from voting (already illegal!) when it was really about making the initiative petition process impossible.

Two days from the end of session and fifty hours into a record-breaking filibuster by Democrats, the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, finally faced the fact that it would not survive with its deceptive ballot candy provisions intact.

My speculation is that, once it was clear that Democrats were prepared to filibuster til the end of session to stop the ballot candy, Coleman didn’t want to be responsible for the bipartisan pro-family bills never getting to the floor. The Freedom Caucus, having no such qualms, immediately turned on Coleman despite her being the architect of the abortion ban and having an unquestionable commitment to further anti-abortion tyranny. As Sen. Rick Bratten put it, she and other Republicans will “have the blood of the innocent on their heads.” (Even the most conservative of women should not expect allying with misogynists to work out.) Sen. Bill Eigel announced to Republican leadership that he would blowup any remaining attempts to get any bills across the finish line.

Success at deceiving voters into eliminating “one person, one vote” would have added another layer of authoritarianism to what is already not a representative government in Missouri. Missouri’s initiative petition is a time-honored tool that empowers voters. But voters wouldn’t have to resort to it with such frequency if the legislature was doing its job. We should be able to rely on our legislators to enact vital policies that are supported by a majority of the citizenry rather than having to undertake the arduous and expensive process of signature collection and lawsuits required to make law via ballot initiative.

But certain legislators don’t want to do their job and don’t want us to be able to do it for them. Proponents of the gut-the-initiative-petition bill were open about the fact that it was an attempt to stop voters from legalizing abortion. But the harm caused by further entrenching minority rule in Missouri would be much broader because things as basic and popular as accepting federal funds for medicaid expansion have to be accomplished by initiative petition (and then litigated when the legislature won’t accept the outcome of the vote!).

I suspect that the burn-it-all-down Freedom Caucus was largely using retaliation for the failure of the ballot candy as a pretext. The bill was a Hail Mary pass to stop voters from legalizing abortion that wasn’t likely to succeed. If it survived court review, it would have probably been defeated at the ballot box, like the similar scheme in Ohio.

I suspect the real objectives of the Freedom Caucusers, especially the ones who are currently campaigning to be Republican nominees for state-wide office, were to (a) grandstand about abortion to boost their cred with far-right primary voters, and (b) tank as many bills as possible because they fundamentally object to even the modest public support for Missouri children and families that the majority of their Republican colleagues supported.

Eigel came pretty close to saying that himself in comparing his crew to a hockey goalie in celebration of all the bills they blocked.

This is why, though I’m celebrating the Democrats defeating an anti-democratic obstacle to a fair vote on abortion, I am lamenting how little will change for Missouri kids and families if we continue under the minority rule of extremists.