Early voting begins this weekend and we are shifting into election mode around here.

While the headlines are dominated by coverage of the big races for Congress and the battle to be Kansas's next governor looks further down your ballot and you'll find some seismic issues awaiting your verdict.

Politicians are trying to overturn the will of the people and ban abortion again.

It starts with drag queen Story Hour and ends with children under the knife.

Irreversible sex change surgeries on minors.

Politicians shouldn't be allowed to overturn results they don't like.

It's why we're supporting amendment six.

Unfortunately, there's some out of state sugar daddies from the East Coast that want to change Missouri law.

They want a New York City, the Show Me state.

On the special hour long edition of Weekend Review, we debate the Kansas non-citizen voting amendment with its supporters and opponents.

Every time a non-citizen votes, they're canceling out the vote of a valid Kansas vote.

Proponents for it will say that, well, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

It's not the tip of the iceberg.

It's not even a floating bag of ice.

It's there's not an issue.

And we unpack Missouri's contentious ballot questions on abortion, gender transition surgeries, initiative petition and the seemingly never ending congressional map fight.

This is unprecedented.

Can you imagine how confused voters are going to be confused, befuddled reading through the entire ballot for that?

It's not clear what's going on whatsoever.

We have your back, and now we can review on the ballot.

Special next week in review is made possible through the generous support of Bob and Marlese Gourley.

The Francis family Foundation, through the discretionary fund of David and Janice Francis, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello and welcome.

I'm Nick Haines.

It used to be we do a special program like this right before Election Day.

But when nearly half of all voters in places like Johnson County are now voting in advance, what we need to deliver earlier to.

While most people have already decided who they're voting for in the big political races on both sides of state line, lost in the shuffle is the extraordinarily high number of ballot questions you're being asked to weigh in on six statewide questions, two states and enough legal fine print to make your eyes glaze over.

And remember, while candidates come and go, constitutional amendments have a habit of sticking around a whole lot longer.

While most of the action is happening on the Missouri side, Kansas has a rare constitutional amendment on the ballot to make it clear non-citizens cannot vote in Kansas elections.

No one in Kansas has come forward to say that this is a problem.

Nowhere in our Kansas Constitution and nowhere in our state statute does it actually say you must be a citizen to vote.

But is it a problem that really needs fixing?

The mayor of a small town in rural Kansas is facing criminal charges for allegedly voting as a non-citizen.

State elections officials are trying to figure out how a man who they say is not qualified to vote in U.S.

elections, was elected mayor of a small southwest Kansas town twice.

Every time a noncitizen votes, it effectively cancels out the vote of a U.S.

citizen.

I want to get you to some breaking news now out of new Jersey, where the governor there says the state's DMV apparently accidentally registered thousands of non-citizens to vote after a software glitch.

About 400 of them went on to cast a ballot.

Now, some see those examples from here and in other parts of the country is reason why this Kansas amendment is necessary.

Leavenworth Area State Representative Pat Proctor certainly does.

He's the legislator who led the charge to place this measure on the November ballot.

He is also the Republican candidate to be the state's next top elections leader.

The Kansas secretary of state opposed to the noncitizen voting amendment is University of Kansas professor Mark Johnson.

He has taught election law and campaign finance of case ACU Laws Law School since 2010.

Thanks for both being with us.

Pat Proctor.

With all the issues we have in Kansas right now, why do we need this amendment?

Well, what I've tried to do as the chair of the elections committee is restore confidence in elections and bring people back.

And a couple years ago, I started hearing a lot of concerns about noncitizen voting.

And so I did a little digging.

And the first thing I found out was, I'll be darned.

Nowhere in our Constitution does that actually say, you must be a citizen to vote the way our Constitution is written, it says every citizen can vote.

And you might be thinking, Nick, for what's the difference?

New York, California.

Maryland, Vermont have the exact same language in their constitution, and they've all passed laws to allow non-citizens to vote in New York.

They've overturned that law, but not because of the every citizen clause, because they didn't do the process right to edit the ordinances.

So I want to make it 100% clear in our Constitution that only U.S.

citizens are allowed to vote, so we can protect all the laws we have on the books to find and make sure that these folks don't vote.

Mike Johnson.

Then what's the harm of making it crystal clear in the Constitution that it is only citizens who are eligible to vote in the state, at least in my opinion right now, the Constitution is clear about that.

And in my experience, every time you change something, you create confusion.

And I think I think that is a particular issue here because the changes in the language are so small, are so minor.

And I think a lot of people will look at it and say, why are we doing this?

Why do we need to do this?

It seems pretty clear right now.

And this is what the Constitution says.

It says that each citizen may vote.

Are we trying to are we trying to try and, remove what could be potentially a loophole?

And haven't we done that with other issues?

I was looking back in 2016, for instance, Kansans voted for an amendment, for the right to hunt and fish.

That was already you could say it was already allowed in the state, but more than 80% of Kansans voted for it.

Well, that's not surprising because there's so many Kansans who love to hunt and fish.

But I think the the problem here is that it is going to create confusion.

People will ask, why are we doing this?

Are we taking the vote away from some people and giving it to others, or are we doing the doing?

The opposite is I think this is a solution in search of a problem.

Is it a solution in search of a problem?

I love when people say that, you know, a couple years ago or last year, I passed a law that requires the DMV to report to the Secretary of State's office.

Noncitizens receiving driver's licenses.

And, House Democrats came to the floor, including my ranking minority member who you showed in the clip, saying it's a solution in search of a problem.

This never happens.

This is a conspiracy theory.

We passed it anyway.

So for the governor's veto.

And I'll be darned if we didn't find out that the mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, had been voting for 29 years as a non-citizen.

And, the, the attorney general's currently prosecuting three other folks that we found.

And the secretary of state's office believes they've got 20 other folks that have also voted as non-citizens.

Well, it's evidence that the system is not perfect, and it has never been perfect.

When I tried the documentary Proof of Citizenship case in Kansas federal court, it was found that because the state wanted everybody to produce a piece of, you know, to produce a document showing that there were a citizen, more than 12% of the people who attempted to register were not allowed to register to vote.

Do you want to deprive 12% of the people of of their right to vote, just so one person who shouldn't be allowed to vote doesn't vote in the evidence in that case, was that in the last 25 or 30 years in Kansas, only about 29 or 30 non-citizens have voted.

Some more have been allowed to register, but they haven't voted.

But the thing is, the problem, by and large, has been with the DMV people coming in to register their cars to pay the sales taxes on their cars, are asked, do you want to register to vote?

And a lot of people would react by saying, if I say no, am I committing a crime not to want to register to vote?

So they would go ahead and say yes, and a mistake would be made by the DMV clerk to register that person.

That was the cause of most of the, improper registrations was mistakes by the DMV.

Some people would also point out to the fact then in the cold water Kansas Mayor case we referenced, I mean, if this amendment was in place without ever stopped him from voting, does it do anything to change that?

The fact that we found this guy really kind of demonstrates why it's so important that we have this in statute, but how would it how would it how would it stop somebody who was just going to vote anyway?

So today, Judge Fratto was just overturned again.

She has twice said that, a law that we had that banned, pre-filled out ballot applications was unconstitutional because it impinged on free speech.

Judge Folsom and Lawrence has, decided that our law that makes Election day election day is unconstitutional for some reason or probably is going to be unconstitutional.

So he's enjoined it.

I prefer not to leave a question as important as whether non-citizens can vote in our elections to the tender mercies of the Kansas courts.

So let's make it 1,000% clear in our Constitution that only U.S.

citizens can vote.

Representative Proctor already referenced it a little bit earlier, but I want to dig into it a little bit more.

We've been curious about where those other places are in the United States.

Can they non-citizens legally vote now?

Well, there are San Francisco, Oakland both allow non-citizens to vote in school board elections, and there are a growing number of places greenlighting noncitizen voting voters.

Rather, in other races, a new proposal would pave the way for taxpaying non-citizens to vote in local elections.

For me, this is a simple issue of fairness.

L.A.

city Council member Hugo Soto Martinez, speaking out Thursday about his new proposal to allow noncitizen voting in local elections while only U.S.

citizens can vote in federal elections, a growing number of state and local elections allow non-citizens to vote.

Last year, D.C.

joining the ranks of San Francisco and Oakland, California, along with a handful of cities in Maryland and Vermont.

Indeed, there's a long history in the United States of non-citizens being allowed to vote.

So without this amendment, then, Professor Johnson, couldn't that happen here?

Well, anything, of course, is possible, but I have certainly never heard of any Kansas politician, any Kansas City Council even proposing it.

And I don't think that the, that the state's home rule laws would allow it.

So walk us through that loophole.

How could a city in Kansas allow non-citizens to vote under the rules?

We have today?

Representative, three of the locations that you just stated Kansas, Vermont, Maryland, have the exact same language in their Constitution.

Every citizen can vote, and they allow non-citizens to vote in their local elections.

I'd also say, you know, you say no, politicians are talking about non-citizens voting.

My Democrat opponent for secretary of state was a meeting of Douglas County Democrats in October, and said she thinks it's unfortunate that non-citizens can't vote in our elections.

So there are definitely Kansas politicians that want non-citizens voting in our elections on a practical basis.

So what actually changes for our local election offices if this amendment passes on November 3rd, will they be required to undertake eligibility checks, demand proof of citizenship before someone can cast a ballot?

I'm so glad you asked that question, Nick.

And, the steam professor here raised that issue.

A federal judge has already ruled that the Safe act, which Kris Kobach passed as our secretary of state, that requires documentary proof of citizenship, is unconstitutional under the US Constitution.

There is absolutely nothing we can do, including this amendment, that will change that verdict by changing our Kansas Constitution.

This will have no impact on that decision, and it will not usher in documentary proof of citizenship.

That's just a falsehood.

So on November 4th, what will really ultimately change for people in the state of Kansas?

Will they notice any difference?

They will be assured that all of these laws that I've worked so hard to put in place to find noncitizens on the voter rolls and get them off, and all the laws that are on the books to stop non-citizens from voting are going to remain on the books.

Talking about what I think is a pie in the sky possibility that some city in Kansas might decide to, to have non-citizens vote is not a reason to change the Constitution.

That's the foundational document that all of Kansas law is based on.

This isn't a law that can be repealed by the legislature.

This is a this is a provision of the Constitution that can only be changed in very limited circumstances under a highly prescribed procedure.

Now, how much checking is really going on now when it comes to non-citizen voting?

In the case of that cold water Kansas mayor case, who voted in three separate elections even though he was a Mexican citizen, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and knowledge the system by and large, operates on the honor system in large part.

Our system right now is based on trust.

Trust that when the person signed the registration or signs the poll books saying that he's a qualified elector or that he is a United States citizen, that the person is telling the truth.

And in this case, we allege that Mister Sebelius violated that trust.

It is only based on trust.

Yeah.

When when Joe Ceballos, registered.

Yes, it was, but, last year I passed.

I, Karen passed the law that requires the DMV to share that list.

This year, we passed the Save Kansas Act, which also requires the Medicaid office, the food stamp office, and the welfare office that are required by federal law to ask if you are registered to vote, to also provide that list.

And, of course, the ACLU and the League of Women Voters has told us that they're planning on suing on that, which is even more reason to get into our Constitution.

The fundamental principle, principle that only U.S.

citizens can vote in our elections so that some activist judge doesn't legislate from the bench and strike down all those laws.

We've also had questions from our viewers, including Alice and Alexa, who asks, should a parent who lives here legally pay taxes and has children in public schools have a say in this?

Choosing the school board or is citizenship the dividing line, whatever the election?

Well, I could tell you that the US Supreme Court has actually had a case exactly with those facts.

And the court said that it was not appropriate to allow somebody like that to vote.

I don't think that we're looking at a situation where we have lots and lots of people who shouldn't be allowed to vote are actually voting, but how do we know when we've heard that is on a trust system, though?

How do we know what those numbers are when we really don't actually go do a huge amount to check?

We do a lot more checking than you might think.

I mean, Representative Proctor, mentioned a number of provisions, a number of laws that have been passed to, tighten up the system.

It isn't perfect.

It's never been perfect.

But this is a situation where I think seeking perfection would throw out a system that is actually functioning.

Functioning extremely well.

You have a chance to make your final word, your final case to voters.

Why should they vote yes on this amendment on non-voting in Kansas?

I want to answer that by answering the constituent that asked that question.

There's never been a nation in the history of the planet Earth, like the United States, where you're not a part of the nation because, you look, talk or pray, but because you swear to certain principles.

And the reason that's never worked before is because we're all so darn different.

But our founders understood that, that by allowing citizens to select their own leaders to come together and pick who's in charge, they could kind of diffuse all of those things that usually made it fall apart.

People used to pick leaders by shooting each other until somebody ran out of guns.

And that's not part of, you know, but they understood that that was wielding political power.

And we need to preserve the, ability to wield that power to people that have sworn to those principles, to people that are part of this nation.

And if we just throw open the door and let anybody vote, whether they've sworn to those principles, we're all created equal, that we're all equal under the law, it's all going to fall apart.

We're not going to have another 250 years.

We're not going to have another 50 years.

And so that's why it's so important to get this enshrined in our Constitution.

And I'm just heading into the polling station.

I think I'm just voting for senator and governor.

And then I see this question on my ballot on that.

But third, and how should I decide and why?

I don't think it's necessary.

It seems to me that any change in the Constitution has to be necessary.

This won't change things.

As I said, it won't add people to the rolls.

It won't take people off the rolls.

I think that the Constitution should or should only be changed when we can see a positive good.

And here I see this as a draw.

It's a dog fall.

They're just there's no change in who gets to vote.

Representative Pat Proctor, Republican candidate for Secretary of State and CU law.

Professor Mark Johnson.

Thank you for being with us.

I have to say, at the very end here, one of our top social media people here at the television station was one of your students, professor Johnson.

And he told me the line that he remembered from all those years back was, quote, my goodness, never hire an attorney.

You see, in an advertising, you still do.

You still do it that way.

Absolutely.

Okay.

When I was coming here today, I saw a billboard said, voted number one law firm in Missouri, and I said, who voted for that?

Okay, now I've seen your campaign ads to this.

And it wasn't it wasn't it was your billboard.

Yeah.

No noncitizens.

I've seen your campaign ads.

Can I assume you think the opposite?

You want people to hire you based on those ads that.

Yes, I'm hoping that I'm hoping that they'll make their choice based on what they're seeing on TV.

All right, well, thank you both.

Next week.

Next up, rather, we shift to Missouri, where you may be spending more time than you thought.

Trying to figure out a long laundry list of statewide questions.

Some of you may have seen ads for others may come as a total surprise.

We dig through the fine print to check the ads and expose what's really at stake.

Stay with us on this hour long on the ballot special.

Now, just when you thought Missouri's never ending map fight was finally over, there's one last twist.

If you thought three trips to the U.S.

Supreme Court had finally settled Missouri's political map, think again.

Now you get to vote on it.

Proposition eight on the November 3rd ballot is a public referendum on whether you approve of a Republican drawn map passed by lawmakers that would slice and dice Missouri's fifth congressional district.

That is represented by long time Kansas City Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver.

Well, you guys all call it the gerrymandered map.

I would say it was a map that represents Missouri's values much better than what we had.

It is more compact than the current congressional map we have.

It splits fewer counties.

I've spoken with judges.

I've spoken with, college professors in law schools, and nobody can remember anything like this happening in history.

Makes us look like hillbillies and hicks.

All right.

Joining us to dissect what's at stake on this referendum and the rest of the statewide ballot questions in Missouri, a political scientist, Abigail Vegter from William Jewell College, Polk University political scientist Matthew Harris from the Missouri Independent News site in Jefferson City, political reporter Jason Hancock and Umkc political scientist Deborah Leiter.

Deborah, first of all, if the courts have already settled, which congressional map will use this November, what exactly are voters deciding with proposition eight?

What they're deciding is what map we're going to use after this election.

And beyond that, how voters feel about the state legislature redrawing maps at any point that they want.

So if we vote yes on this, that doesn't null and void the entire map we're doing in November for these congressional races.

Absolutely not.

We are talking about 30 days after the election that it goes into effect.

And really, this won't matter until those 2028 races.

They reject this map.

Matt, is it possible that Missouri lawmakers can just come back to Jefferson City in January and do a brand new one?

So it is possible, I don't know if they have the political will to do that.

Given the fight that we've seen, given some of the court battles that they've lost.

And of course, we have amendment six that we're going to talk about a little later that would potentially make it next to impossible for them to try this again.

We the the current map that we saw basically for the last six months on this program, every single week that there's been a whole topic on maps and court fights, you know, even result, regardless of what the results of this election will be in November.

Is this going to end up in court or will it be finally settled on November 3rd?

I mean, I don't think anything is going to be settled.

Do you have?

I we've spent basically a year and a half of our lives wondering about this map and fighting about this map.

I think even if the voters reject it, it's going to be I think there will be a push in the legislature to at least look at another gerrymandered map.

You had one state senator tweet out eight zero 2027 the moment that the map was, put on the ballot by the state Supreme Court.

So I don't think we're done with this.

But the voters, again, as Matt said, could weigh in and make this an impossible decision for Republicans.

Democrats have made a big deal of say, oh, you know, this is disenfranchizing voters and it's hurting Emanuel Cleaver.

But could you take a different spin on this, Deborah?

And that is to say, boy, you might have three Kansas City area congressmen now representing us in Washington.

That's three times the power that Kansas City would get if this map were passed.

So that would be the case if a lot more Kansas City were in each of these maps.

But the truth of the matter is, is that our districts are winner take all.

So whichever group has the largest share of the votes or the seats, they're the votes.

They're the ones that win.

And what these maps have done is they've combined Kansas City with other parts of the state that may or may not share the kind of political preferences, economic preferences, or industrial preferences that Kansas City has.

So it's hard to see this as strengthening Kansas City's vote.

It's spreading it out.

And those who are against the map would say it is diluting that Kansas.

Because in this new map, if it were to be approved, Emanuel Cleaver's current district would go all the way to the city boundaries of Jefferson City and Columbia.

Correct.

Yeah, absolutely.

So it's combining, urban, suburban and rural interests all together in one map.

And that can be a very challenging thing for any particular individual to represent.

But if the on election night, this a proposition A is resoundingly rejected, is there any possibility that lawmakers will now say, let's raise the white flag, we're done with the map, drawing business.

Let's do what other states do and have an independent commission, for instance, to do this.

You know, certainly it has sort of been a series of of stinging losses over the summer for the proponents of the, of the new map.

But I can't see them sort of saying, we're just going to get out of the map drawing business, even with the referendum procedures in place, even with the courts, I think the legislature would still like to have a hand in drawing those maps.

You don't see any evidence that they would just raise the white flag.

Jason.

No, not on the procedure of drawing.

Laughs.

I think this is something they'll want to definitely have in their hands, even if they have to wait till 2030 to do it.

If the new map is approved on November 3rd.

Abigail, you know, can we expect then to have basically a brand new map every single election cycle in the state of Missouri?

You know, that's a good question.

And one that I think kind of remains to be answered.

I think prop eight will give us a little bit of a hint of what Missourians are willing to tolerate.

Are we willing to tolerate the kind of chaos that's ensued, over the last year?

We shall see.

There are some people who argue that the chaos is kind of the point.

So we're going to we're going to have to see how Missourians actually feel about all this.

Now, you might remember, Missouri voters made national headlines two years ago by voting to protect abortion rights in the state constitution.

Now they're being asked to undo that decision.

In America.

And here in Missouri, we believe our vote is sacred, that the people are the ones who decide.

And in 2024, the people of Missouri decided to stop Missouri's abortion ban.

Voters legalized abortions in Missouri, overwhelmingly striking down the state's near-total abortion ban.

But now politicians are trying to overturn the will of the people and ban abortion again.

Well, amendment three imposes new restrictions on abortion.

But wait, it also constitutionally prohibits gender transition medical procedures for minors.

I am a lifelong Democrat and a proud progressive.

I worked in a gender transition clinic and saw how children are manipulated into taking puberty blockers and undergoing irreversible surgeries.

These are permanent changes to their bodies and children are just too young to understand the consequences.

That's why I'm asking you to vote yes on amendment three.

It will permanently stop gender transition interventions on our kids.

Please vote yes on amendment three.

Protect Missouri's kids.

All right.

Two of the country's most divisive issues one yes or no question.

If there is so much public concern about them, why not let voters decide them separately?

Deborah.

Well, there's two arguments here.

One is that these are both issues related to reproduction and gender protection.

The other argument that opponents of the amendment saying is that this is what we would call ballot candy, that, and public opinion, we know that, gender transition for minors is deeply unpopular with the public, whereas abortion is a much more divisive issue.

It really cleaves close to 50% here in Missouri.

And so what there's two questions here.

One is are these two subjects actually related, or is this an issue, a distraction that makes the abortion part of the amendment more palatable to more voters?

It's definitely confused many of our viewers who we in fact, Matt, we had a letter from Pam who seems puzzled.

She said the Secretary of State has refused to add issues to the ballot because they violate the Missouri Constitution's single subject rule.

So by bundling two of these, is this in violation of the single issue rule?

You might think so, but an appeals court said that because, gender transition, can affect fertility, that therefore it's related to reproductive care.

And therefore these two issues are close enough that they can be considered a single subject.

I did look through.

And you saw in the beginning that the ad from the opponents of this saying this is going to be a total ban, but is it really a total ban?

Isn't this different than what happened right after the end of Roe v Wade in Missouri, for instance, on this, isn't there, exceptions, for instance, for medical emergency fetal anomalies and in cases of rape and incest during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy?

Sure.

Those exceptions exist.

Right now we have, abortion rights until viability.

So this is vastly limiting abortion rights in the state of Missouri.

Really, what kind of happens here is the default becomes a ban with these four kind of narrow exceptions in which an abortion may be permissible.

If you were doing tooth checks of these ads, though, would you say that would be false?

To say this would be a total ban, given these exceptions?

No, because I think here there's still a lot of details to be worked out about what these exemptions, how they would work.

You know, there's been a lot of sort of dancing around that issue on the pro amendment three side of, you know, a rape exemption.

Exactly.

What sort of proof would a victim of rape have to have in order to qualify for an abortion?

And only up until 12 weeks, a lot of women won't even know they're pregnant until long after that.

So I think it is a we refer to as a near-total ban, and I think that's probably as accurate as you can be on something like this.

What happens in the 13th week then?

Deborah, at the 13th week, there are no obvious legal, options here in Missouri.

Women may have the opportunity to try to go to other states, but we know from research on this that for many women, that's just not economically or personally feasible.

You know, many women today want to terminate the pregnancy, actually never go into an abortion clinic.

They are using abortion drugs.

So what does this amendment say about that?

It doesn't actually get into that at all.

It's one of the reasons you do have this abortion, an abolitionist movement that opposes amendment three because they fear it just doesn't go far enough to either punish someone who obtains an abortion or stop them from going out of state or getting out of state, medical, drugs in order to terminate a pregnancy.

In one of the ads we see a woman with handcuffs on as if they're going to be prosecuted as a result of this amendment.

But doesn't this only apply penalties for doctors and medical clinics?

Not on the women who was seeking an abortion?

Yeah, the amendment itself doesn't actually say anything about criminal penalties.

Because amendment three, if it passes, would repeal what happened just a couple of years ago in 2024.

The protections that were present in the previous amendment would go away.

So it would end up being the legislature's decision on what those penalties would look like.

Current statu is there is prosecution potentially for doctors who are involved in an illegal abortion, but not for the woman.

But again, it would be up to the legislature if this amendment were to pass.

This makes it difficult, though, for voters who may have concerns about gender transition surgery.

Said it's tied to the abortion issue.

There is no option for people to vote on one component or the other.

No.

And I think the the ballot candy suggestion would come from the fact that abortion passed in November of 2024.

And so you need a little something to to try to change the math from, from losing on that question.

The other piece of that is gender transition surgeries for minors already illegal in Missouri.

And so, yes, constitutionally it strengthens that.

But it's already illegal.

Is it illegal or is it that the law isn't firm on it currently, and that those laws could expire in 2027?

Isn't that part of the conversation with gender transition surgery that's going to be a permanent ban.

But there are, you know, cross-sex hormones and things like that.

That ban will expire next year.

And that's part of the argument for amendment three, is when those expire, these constitutional provisions would continue.

That ban moving forward.

Amendment three raises a question that goes well beyond abortion.

When voters approve a law or constitutional amendment, how much freedom should the legislature have to change it?

That's almost the entire point of our next ballot question.

Amendment six would block lawmakers from tinkering with the state's more than century old citizen initiative process.

For more than 118 years, Missourians have had the right to put issues directly on the ballot.

Citizen led initiatives give voters the power to pass laws and hold politicians accountable.

But lately, after initiatives passed by a majority of voters, politicians in Jefferson City have overturned the will of the people.

Amendment six protects citizen led initiatives from being overturned by politicians.

Well, that's what the proponents ad say.

But there's a whole lot more this amendment does than these 32nd commercials let on.

If passed, it would also make it tough for lawmakers to change a law passed by voters in the future.

How tough?

How about requiring 80% support in both legislative chambers?

That's a massive hurdle.

If it passes, does it make it virtually impossible for lawmakers to undo a voter approved law?

Deborah.

Pretty much impossible.

Most of these voter approved laws are going to be things that were pretty controversial.

That's why they were introduced through a citizen initiative and getting 80% of the legislature, which means definitely a majority of two parties to agree is going to be a really challenging issue.

Can you think of anything that would get that type of support in the legislature today, other than perhaps making the Poca the state dance of Missouri?

You know, I think the argument would be if something in, in, in a, in something that went, that was passed by the voters is so egregious or there's some mistake in terms of calculation that maybe the legislature could agree to something like that, but on anything that's sort of Partizan or where the the two parties are divided, 80% is going to be near impossible to clear.

But so if there was a problem with an amendment, it costs more than we'd expect.

There are other problems with it.

We find out later, how would it actually be fixed if it requires 80% of lawmakers, you know, would it just end up being the law of the land forever?

Well, I think proponents of the amendment would argue that a technical fix is something that hopefully 80% of the legislature would be able to agree on.

But it is a difficult process and it is potentially an expensive one.

And so that is a valid concern.

We elect, state legislators to do the nitty gritty work of passing laws.

If we're going to just let the public just decide everything, why do we need the legislature at all?

Isn't not a legitimate argument in this?

Yeah.

And it's important to note the 80% is just to put it back on the ballot.

So even if it's, a technical fix that's really small, you need 80% and then it goes back before voters in the next election.

So the legislature loses all of its power to adjust, change, repeal anything that voters put on, put into law by the AP process.

Is there any state math that is actually putting such massive handcuffs on a state like this one, where there's 80% required?

So out of the 21 states that have some form of voter initiated measures, it's about half and half in terms of these, protection measures.

And those are usually some form of either supermajority to overturn going back to the voters or some kind of time limit where the legislature couldn't touch it for like two years.

What's interesting about Missouri is that 80% number is higher than you see in any other state, and there's no sort of time limit.

It's just once something goes through the voters, the legislature can't touch it ever, unless they get that 80%.

And it goes back to voters.

So this even among states that have those protections is fairly extreme.

And there's something not exactly like this.

But similar passed in Arizona a couple of decades ago.

The legislature came back and made it harder to put initiative petitions on the ballot as a response.

Amendment six sort of short circuits that it has protections in there.

The legislature also would no longer be able to tinker with initiative petitions or referendum signature levels, raising the threshold for passing it.

So they sort of I think they've learned from the response in other states, and they've kind of safeguarded the IP process.

They couldn't have put a smaller threshold in place.

I was actually looking at even Nevada.

I think I a it's three years and they put a time frame.

So you can't change that law in three years.

That's right.

There's a lot of different suggestions or solutions.

But many other states use time frames.

Majority requirements of 55%, 6,080% is a pretty unique and pretty high number, and one that it's seemingly chosen because it's such a high number to reach.

And it really asks an interesting question, which is should citizen initiative pass laws be thought of as different than laws passed by the legislature?

Is there something more pure or democratic about these laws, or are the laws created by elected representatives laws that, are of equal impact now?

Opponents are now running ads to say if this law passes, this amendment passes.

Every current Missouri law is in jeopardy, including gun rights.

Think our gun rights are safe here in Missouri?

Think again.

Amendment six is being pushed by George Soros and Michael Bloomberg and would allow Democrats to bypass our legislature and stick gun control straight into the Missouri Constitution.

And if amendment six passes, it would be impossible for Republicans and Jeff City to undo the damage.

Red flags AR 15 bans a repeal of Stand Your Ground.

It could all become a reality here in Missouri.

We can't let this happen.

So when you vote, make sure you vote no on amendment six.

Alrighty, if this passes, can't citizens or activist groups just collect signatures to undo gun rights?

And lawmakers couldn't do anything to reverse it?

Well, I think it's important to note that the process is not changing.

There still signatures that need to be obtained.

There still needs to be a statewide majority vote to see these sort of statues go into place.

In theory, those petitions could start now, right?

We could still see laws about gun rights be initiated at this moment.

It's just changing the durability of those laws.

Do we create a false impression, though, by saying, oh, this is just citizens who collect these signatures.

I mean, these cost millions of dollars to put these on the ballot.

This is not an easy thing.

And doesn't it require a lot more money and more activism from a broader range of groups?

Yeah, there is a concern about sort of the amount of money that's required and who's behind those those efforts to collect those signatures.

I think really what that speaks to is the fact that, what this would require is for citizens to really do their homework and understand what they are voting on, because once it is voted on, it's going to be really difficult to undo.

So it really asks a lot of citizens, when they're when they're voting on these initiatives.

We just saw the ad.

They're saying that these really these measures are sort of, funded by George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Jason, who organized it, this amendment, who organized it, who financed it, and why now?

So it's sort of two different things.

The actual petition campaign was financed by a lot of those people that we're talking about, a lot of out of state groups, a lot of liberal groups that don't, disclose their donors.

But the last couple of months, the yes on six campaign is organized labor almost exclusively millions of dollars.

And this isn't too surprising.

If you remember, organized labor was able to use the referendum to repeal Right to Work a few years back.

I think they see that as a huge victory that they don't want to have to refight.

And so they're putting some money into this.

And I have to say, for Republicans, they really did bring this on themselves in a lot of ways.

I mean, this all the fuel of amendment six was last spring when they repeal the paid sick leave law.

It had just gone into effect.

Some businesses, it implemented it and it was repealed.

And you heard from people at the time thinking, did we overstep a little?

Is this going to backfire?

This is the backlash.

Amendment six is the backlash to that?

Well, this also, as you mentioned, Matt, at the very beginning of this program on proposition eight about the map.

This could have implications, of course, on the map proposition amendment six, could it prevent lawmakers from putting forward another map without overwhelming legislative support?

Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what this is designed for, is stuff like this where voters say, we don't want this.

The legislature couldn't come back and say, oh, no, but we think you do.

One thing that's interesting, though, to keep in mind is the the Missouri Supreme Court, when they said that this could go on the ballot, basically said there were some questions about it that are unripe that could be determined later if it passes.

And so I would imagine there will be some court wrangling and maneuvering about the constitutionality of the provisions in this amendment, should it pass.

I was wondering what the implications would be even on this, amendment three on the abortion question.

I mean, couldn't it, you know, if this were to be, passed, then wouldn't it be almost impossible then, for voters to ever overturn what would then be an abortion law?

Yeah.

I mean, we're we're talking about a much more difficult process.

And I think what you'll end up seeing is a lot happening in the court system.

As Matthew mentioned, a lot of those challenges happening in that arena.

Rather in a legislative one.

I'm assuming, though, that lawmakers don't have the votes to say, okay, this is so painful.

Let's just get rid of citizen initiative completely.

Is that why that hasn't happened?

You can't get enough members of the legislature to approve that.

I mean, they sort of tried with amendment four in August, the the changes that were presented there would have essentially made it impossible for an initiative petition to rewrite the Constitution.

And voters did not take kindly to that.

It lost.

I mean, I think 80% of the people voted against it, so they probably have the numbers to get it and put it on the ballot.

But as we've seen, voters haven't really been very receptive to those changes.

To me, this is actually the most interesting issue on the entire ballot because its implications are really kind of hard to figure out.

Is there anything else voters need to know before they step into a voting booth on November 3rd, or starting this next week in early voting?

You know, I think when you're thinking about the history of Missouri, Missouri for so long was a swing state.

It moved back and forth, and no one really wanted to touch the initiative process because groups on the left and groups on the right would both have the opportunity to use it.

As the state has swung to a more Republican direction, we've seen initiative petitions swing to the left.

And so understanding that while this is currently something that's supported by parties and groups on the left, this finds initiatives of all ideological flavors going forward in the future.

So understand that the current state of initiatives isn't what the future state would be, especially if something like this passes well.

You may remember, back in the August election, Missouri voters overwhelmingly rejected an amendment to eliminate state income taxes.

Now, lawmakers have an even bolder, tax free dream for you to vote on.

It's called amendment seven.

Imagine for a moment a Missouri without any income or sales taxes.

That's the ambitious promise behind this question.

It would create a permanent investment endowment called the Show Me Prosperity Fund, with the goal of eventually using investment earnings to replace all state taxes.

It's something that we would be doing for our grandkids and great grandkids and so on.

Republican State Senator Adam Schnell crafted amendment seven.

He says it will help future generations of Missourians.

This is not a get rich quick scheme, so to speak.

This is not something where you should think to yourself, I'm going to vote for this because in 15 years we're not going to have taxes.

But it leaves a lot of unanswered questions about how it would work down the line.

The nonpartisan think tank Missouri Budget Project calculated it would take $600 billion to replace all the state's tax revenue with a one time investment of 250 million.

It would take 125 years.

To compound Tracie Gleeson says she doesn't know where the state would get the extra money.

At a time when Missouri is short on money.

In order to fund that investment fund, we would have to then start taking money away from services like education, health care, senior services.

Now, am I understanding this correctly?

Missouri voters are being asked to approve a plan to eventually eliminate all state taxes.

But as this is the Show-Me state, Jason, have lawmakers show us where the money is going to come from.

That's probably the big question, right?

There's nothing in this that says we have to put money into it.

It creates a fund that can then be used to as it matures over time, replace these taxes.

And that's sort of the thing here is I think some of the best estimates that we've seen, it could take more than a century, even by proponents standards, for this to get large enough to where we start to see elimination of our taxes, on sales or income.

So many of the voters who are going to the polls will be long dead by the time they benefit from this.

Abigail.

Yes.

Unfortunately, to say that that is what the estimates appear to be.

It's been talked about as sort of an investment in Missouri's future, something that future generations will benefit from.

But most of us will not be seeing that, are there you know, it sounds a little odd for us, you know, in our ears, you know, to see this happening.

But there are other states who do exactly this.

Yeah, absolutely.

I probably the most famous is in Alaska, where they use a bunch of their natural resources to help fund major, issues within the state.

Texas uses something similar.

What's somewhat unique here is the fact that this is based on revenues to the state and investment in the markets, rather than, investment relying on natural resources.

So it's both something that we do see in other states, but also it's a somewhat unique take on both how it would be funded and how they are used.

If you're putting money into this fund now, though, that will help certainly grandchildren, great grandchildren down the road, potentially, as the advocates would say.

But doesn't that mean less money available right now for things like schools and roads?

Yeah, and I think that's the rub.

When you compare it to a state like Alaska is they have a separate source of revenue.

This is coming out of sort of the general fund, and it's kind of unclear how much they would take.

And so at a time when it's kind of odd to have this at a time when, you know, budgets are tightening, we're talking about, budget shortfalls and then say, well, we're going to take money now away from, funding things in the state of Missouri and put it in a fund.

And then maybe in 125 years, we might be able to, to realize some gains from it.

Yeah.

And some of us would be asking, you know, who controls the cash in this?

And how do we know it actually is going to go to that purpose?

Yeah.

The state Treasurer's office would actually be managing the fund.

They manage, you know, the retirement investments for the state.

It would be audited.

At least I think it's once every three years by the state auditor's office.

So there is oversight of this.

But yeah, right now when voters, if you vote yes, you're creating a fund that lawmakers would have the option of putting money into.

But as we're heading into what looks like it's going to be a pretty ugly few years of budget holes and budget deficits, you know, it remains to be seen whether the lawmakers actually utilize this fund anytime soon.

Now, there are some statewide issues on the ballot that you will see no ads about or postcards to the mail.

You may even wonder why are you being asked to vote on it in the first place?

Case in point Amendment eight, which enshrines into the Constitution the guarantee that county sheriffs will be elected every four years with the stroke of a pen.

Pretty much the legislators at the Capitol could do away with the office of sheriff and appoint, a state police if they wanted to.

This is a local control issue.

This is, a back to blue, piece, in my opinion.

I worked in law enforcement for over 20 years, and I just, I see the importance of our sheriff's office, and I never want to see our sheriff's office.

Leave our communities, leave our counties.

If amendment eight passes, the only way a sheriff can be removed is if the state attorney general goes to court and gets an order, a process that can take months or even years to do.

Even if that sheriff has been convicted of a felony while they're in office, there's no power grab there.

That's just a big misunderstanding.

Wow.

What's the big fear here, Matt?

Are our elected sheriffs in jeopardy?

I wouldn't say they're immediately in any jeopardy.

I mean, this is state law.

Obviously, when you put something in the Constitution that strengthens it, it makes it harder to undo it.

But the big piece for me in this piece, in this proposed amendment, is the piece on how sheriffs will be removed and consolidating that power under the state attorney general.

That, to me is a big change.

This other piece is to sort of solidifying existing law.

So what happens then?

So the attorney general will be the only person, based on this ballot, who has the ability to remove a county sheriff.

Jason, what happens if the attorney general refuses to act?

Well, that's the question.

You know, under current, statute, the county prosecutor could do that as well.

But yeah, it invests a lot of authority in the attorney general's office, which is, you know, give some people heartburn because this is a Partizan office.

Yeah.

And what if the sheriff and the, the, attorney general are from the same party?

There may be a reluctance to also make that removal.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think that's a major concern here when we see that sort of consolidation of power in one person.

That's a risk.

And right now you have some local actors who are able to initiate that process, and that would be taken away if amendment passes.

So if you have a sheriff who is facing credible allegations of corruption, serious misconduct or abuse of power, there are multiple people now who can try to remove that sheriff from office.

This is limited.

If this if you're voting for this on November 3rd, that's correct.

It would require, the state attorney general to act, or you'd have to wait until their electoral term ended.

And it really becomes this interesting question, which we are really familiar here.

We have in Kansas City about local versus state control, law enforcement, in this case, the ability to remove a law enforcement professional.

Now, in addition to these statewide measures, in both Kansas and Missouri, dozens of judges are on your local ballot, including justices of the Supreme Court.

Now, given how tortuous and politically divisive this Missouri map fight has been, is there concern that voters will enact retribution against the judges who are responsible for these Map rulings?

I haven't seen any sort of appetite for that.

I mean, you never know, but it doesn't seem that there are these mounting campaigns against these judges.

We know retention elections don't move a ton historically.

So I don't expect anything wild to happen in November.

I was looking through, the history in Missouri since they started this process.

I think it was in 2018 was the last time a judge was removed.

That was Judy Draper, who was in the Saint Louis area Circuit court judge.

But that's only the fourth ever to be removed.

So it's really hard actually to recall a judge.

Most people either skip those ballot items or vote yes.

That's generally how voters are, oriented towards recall elections.

So it's always an interesting idea, as the Missouri Plan rests on the idea that voters get to choose to retain judges, and yet they do so at incredibly high rates.

So you may be studying all these other ballot questions when it comes to judges.

It's a crapshoot as to what you decide.

Matt.

Yeah, I mean, when it comes to retention elections, what we see across the country is about 98% of judges are retained.

And so it's a lot of just, sort of hey, I don't know much about judges.

They seem to be unless I've heard something specific about them and some horrible corruption.

Hey, you know, they're a judge.

Seemed like they're doing a good job.

And so retention elections are sort of rubber stamps.

And the vast, vast majority of cases in August in Kansas, there was a constitutional amendment to try and directly elect Supreme Court justices that given everything that's happened on the state of Missouri with regards to judges and the Missouri, map, the political map, is there going to be an effort in Jefferson City in January to change the method by which we elect judges or select judges in Missouri?

Jason, I think we'll definitely have that debate.

I mean, last year, we weren't able to have a state of the judiciary because there was so much animosity between the legislature and the court that they thought there would be walkouts.

And so after this last ruling, I do think there'll be an effort, but that also has to go back on the ballot.

And I think Republicans, depending on how November turns out, might be smarting a little bit and not ready to to run back into the warm embrace of a statewide electorate with another controversial issue.

Debra.

Yeah.

And, you know, my colleague and I have actually done some research on the Kansas election.

And one of the things that we pretty consistently found is people are pretty uncomfortable with any perception that there's a political interference with the judiciary, given how strongly the Kansas, constitutional amendment went down, I think they would be strategically concerned about both being perceived as politically interfering with judges, especially given the very strong comments out of the state legislature after the most recent decision, and worried that this would be another high profile political defeat of a legislative action against the judges.

When the governor mentions this in the state of the state address in the beginning of January and says this is their priority, we'll come back to you on this one, Debra.

Okay.

Now it's very rare, of course, that, we get such a top political team on the program like this.

We want to get a final word from them on what they see in this extraordinary election year on both sides of state line.

Let's talk about election night.

You've got one television, one screen, and hundreds of election results coming in.

What's the first race you're checking on election night and why?

Abigail.

Well, I'm crying that I only have one TV.

I am going to be lame and boring.

And just like so many people in the Kansas City metro, I'm going to be watching the Kansas Senate race.

For me.

I grew up on the Kansas side, and I am just really eager to see what happens in this Senate race in Kansas.

Matt has his TV on.

And what's the race that he's most focused on?

You know, if I had to pick another one, it'd be, Fred Wellman and Wagner in Missouri.

Second, just because I mean, I think this is the congressional race.

Congressional race.

Yeah.

And, Wagner's favored, but it would just be a very interesting and sort of, poetic, result if the Republicans in, in Jeff City tried for a 7 to 1 map, we're told they had A62 map, ended up with A53 map.

And so Missouri second is the one I would have my eye on.

Jason, I'm going to cheat and I'm going to go with the two state Senate races, one in Springfield, one in Lee's Summit.

Democrats are three seats away from the House and breaking the Republican supermajority.

They're very confident they're going to do that.

They're very confident in these two state Senate races.

It doesn't sound like a lot for them to go to 12 instead of ten, but the the change in the dynamic in the legislature would be just astronomical.

And Democrats, for average voters who don't pay a huge amount of attention to Jefferson City, what would be the biggest difference they would see?

Well, given how much of a disunity there is amongst Republicans, if you start to break their supermajority, you start to run into the inability to pass emergency clauses to make things go into effect quickly.

You really start to need a lot more Democratic votes to pass things like the budget.

So I just think it's a completely different legislature.

If that supermajority breaks and that certainly be harder for them to get to that 80% of the legislature.

Okay, Deborah, you know what?

I actually I'm going to follow up with that state Senate race here in Lee's Summit because it is the former speaker of the House, it's John Patterson in a hyper knife edge district, right.

That district went, Trump about 50.1%.

And I think that that's the indicator election will Missouri politics and a popular mainstream moderate Republican person who voted against the map be able to maintain or be elected, given what we see is a Democratic wave?

And I think that, to me is the most interesting question is how much do local political currents push back against a pretty strong national level wave?

And I think we're going to see that at local level elections to a much greater degree than we've seen in the past.

After so many surprises in recent elections and you political scientists on this program, you teaching your students about this, how much faith are you putting in the polls?

We are now seeing now, you know, I always say with polls don't believe any single poll.

But look for trends, look for the patterns and changes over time.

And at the national level, what we're seeing is a pretty strong Democratic wave.

But those Senate level elections really show that it's a candidate to candidate fight in a huge number of states, a number of which we weren't expecting, including Kansas.

So when you're teaching at William Jewell, what are you telling your students about the those polls, particularly in the U.S.

Senate race in Kansas between Roger Marshall and Adam Hamilton, that you said?

Yes.

Well, we're talking first about how hard it is to get reliable polls.

No one's answering their phones from unknown numbers.

No one's texting back.

So we just want to be clear about how hard and expensive it is to get reliable polls.

But like Deborah said, we're looking at these massive trends.

I think it's still pointing to something that's going on when we see all of these formerly solidly Republican states moved to either lean Republican or perhaps toss up states, that's telling us that there's something going on here.

I did see in a New York Times poll that has been widely quoted about the US Senate race in Kansas.

Some of the toss up.

But, you know, 99% of all of the respondents were on their cell phones.

It was completely a cell phone poll.

So these are people who are self-selected.

Who are the people who actually pick up their phone?

Matt, what was what is what are you teaching your students about those polls and how reliable do you think they are?

I think the other thing I would say about polls is when they're bad, they tend to get a lot of attention.

We don't tend to notice as much when they're good.

And the last time that, President Trump was involved in a midterm election, 2018, the polls were actually really, really good.

And so, you know, they're a snapshot, look at a lot of them try to get an idea of some trends.

And if the margin is wide enough, you can probably have a pretty good idea of how things are likely to go.

I would say, like when the polls start to match the vibe.

You talk to a lot of Republicans and they're kind of sweating some of these polls, and they're seeing what they fear is a blue wave.

And when Republicans in Missouri are starting to to fret, you know, that this blue wave is it's gotten pretty big all around the country.

And you have been watching political scientist Matthew Harris from Park University and Deborah Leiter from Umkc, from the political science department at William Jewell, Abigail Vegter, and from the Missouri Independent, Jason Hancock.

Now, next week, our full panel of reporters returned with the latest political events, including President Trump's visit to Kansas on Monday and the latest to wind up county's lawsuit over the new Chief Stadium.

Until then, I'm Nick Haines, from all of us here at Kansas City PBS.

Be well, keep calm and carry on.