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Missouri Right to Work and Prohibit Prevailing Wages Initiative (2020)

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Missouri Right to Work and Prohibit Prevailing Wages Initiative
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Election date
November 3, 2020
Topic
Labor and unions
Status
Not on the ballot
Type
Constitutional amendment
Origin
Citizens


The Missouri Right to Work and Prohibit Prevailing Wages Initiative was not on the ballot in Missouri as an initiated constitutional amendment on November 3, 2020.

The ballot measure would have added provisions to the state constitution creating a right-to-work law and a law prohibiting prevailing wages.[1]

Patricia Thomas, treasurer of the Missouri Republican Party, filed the ballot initiative. Thomas said she filed the initiative on behalf of Todd Graves, who was the chairperson of the Missouri Republican Party through January 2019.[2]

Thomas also filed another initiative that would add right-to-work provisions to the state constitution but not prohibit prevailing wage policies.

Text of measure

Ballot title

The ballot title would have been as follows:[1]

Do you want to amend the Missouri Constitution to provide that:

  • employees shall have the freedom to get and keep their jobs without being forced to join or pay any fees to a union (labor organization);
  • laws and ordinances cannot require certain wage rates (a prevailing wage) for maintenance or construction of public facilities; and
  • it is a crime to purposely violate the provisions of this amendment?

State and local government entities estimate no additional revenues, and estimate cost savings of an unknown amount.[3]

Full text

The full text of the measure is available here.

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing the initiative process in Missouri

Process in Missouri

In Missouri, the number of signatures required to qualify an initiated constitutional amendment for the ballot is equal to 8 percent of the votes cast for governor in the previous gubernatorial election in six of the eight state congressional districts. Signatures must be filed with the secretary of state six months prior to the election.

The requirements to get an initiated constitutional amendment certified for the 2020 ballot:

  • Signatures: The smallest possible requirement was 160,199 valid signatures. The actual requirement depends on the congressional districts in which signatures were collected.
  • Deadline: The deadline to submit signatures was May 3, 2020.

Once the signatures have been filed with the secretary of state, the secretary copies the petition sheets and transmits them to county election authorities for verification. The secretary of state may choose whether the signatures are to be verified by a 5 percent random sample or full verification. If the random sampling projects between 90 percent and 110 percent of required signatures, a full check of all signatures is required. If more than 110 percent, the initiative is certified, and, if less than 90 percent, the initiative fails.

Stages of this initiative

Patricia Thomas, treasurer of the Missouri Republican Party, filed the ballot initiative on December 21, 2018. On February 8, 2019, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) approved the initiative for signature gathering. Petitioners did not submit signatures by the May 3 deadline.[1]

See also

Footnotes