Standing up to out-of-state special interest groups

Mail Bag

Posted

To the Editor:

There seems to be a lot of confusion about Amendment No. 3 which is on the November ballot. This amendment is a proposal written by Missourians to truly clean up Missouri politics. Two years ago the voters passed the “Clean Missouri” amendment which was written and funded by out of state special interests. The fact that out of stat money sought to change Missouri politics should worry all of us. The 2018 amendment gave the Missouri State Auditor – not the Secretary of State, who is the state’s election authority, or the Attorney General, who enforces laws of the state – the power of appointing a State Demographer to draw legislative districts.

Amendment No. 3 will actually do what “Clean Missouri” promised; it bans gifts from paid lobbyists to legislators and their employees and it puts real caps on legislative campaign contributions. But it will return Missouri to a redistricting process similar to the process that has served the state well for years. It will bring back House and Senate bipartisan citizen commissions charged with drawing respective legislative districts. This would be 20 members representing both major parties and all congressional districts rather than having one person having the power to do all the redistricting.

I urge you to support Amendment 3 to truly clean up Missouri politics and end political gerrymandering. Let’s stand up to the out of state interests and let them know that Missouri’s legislative districts can’t be sold to the highest bidder.