Green blocks statewide vote on 'Clean Missouri' petition

Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green on Friday blocked a statewide vote on the proposed Clean Missouri constitutional amendment.

And within hours of his ruling, Jefferson City attorney Chuck Hatfield had appealed Green's decision to the Missouri court of appeals' Western District in Kansas City.

In a 13-page ruling, Green wrote: "All matters included in the Proponents' Petition do not relate to - and are not properly connected with - any readily identifiable and reasonably narrow central purpose.

"Instead the twenty or so substantive changes outlined in the Petition relate to at least two different and extremely broad purposes: (1) the organization of the General Assembly; and (2) ethics or campaign finance regulation aimed at avoiding misconduct by public officials in multiple branches and levels of government."

Green ordered Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft "to rescind and withdraw his certification of sufficiency of the Petition and issue a certificate of insufficiency for the Petition," and prohibited "all other officers from printing the measure on the ballot."

Ashcroft on Aug. 2 certified the petition as meeting Missouri's requirements, and designated the proposal as Amendment 1 on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Hatfield, who represents the group Clean Missouri, which sponsored the proposed amendment, said in a statement: "The Secretary of State properly certified the measure so that voters may consider the measure, and voters will have their say on Nov. 6."

Clean Missouri's Sean Soendker Nicholson said, in a separate statement: "(The) judge sided with lobbyists and special interests who are desperate to keep Amendment 1 off the November ballot."

However, the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry issued a news release with the headline "Missouri Chamber wins lawsuit to remove Amendment 1 from ballot."

Dan Mehan - the Chamber's president and CEO, who last month filed one of the two lawsuits challenging the proposal's placement on the ballot - said in the news release: "Amendment 1 is touted by its supporters as an effort to improve state government.

"However, that message is disguising an out-of-state attempt to rewrite Missouri's Constitution and meddle with the rules that govern the balance of power in the state Capitol."

The Chamber news release said, if passed, the amendment would open "the door to higher taxes and more bureaucratic regulation. It could also reverse long-running efforts to make the state business-friendly and competitive for growth and investment opportunities."

The Clean Missouri amendment proposes to create:

A new process and criteria for redrawing state legislative districts during reapportionment.

Changed limits on campaign contributions candidates for the state Legislature can accept from individuals or entities.

A limit on gifts state lawmakers and their employees can accept from paid lobbyists.

A prohibition on state legislators, and their employees, from serving as paid lobbyists for a two-year period after leaving office.

A ban on political fundraising on state property by candidates for, or members of, the state Legislature.

A mandate that legislative records and proceedings be open to the public under Missouri's Sunshine Law.

Missouri's Constitution requires proposed amendments to "not contain more than one amended and revised article of this constitution " and, Green ruled, the proposed amendment violates that requirement.

He also ruled the amendment violates the state Constitution because it would amend and repeal "provisions in more than one article" of the Constitution.

The two lawsuits - Mehan's and one filed on behalf of Paul Ritter, of St. Elizabeth - raised five similar issues.

Green agreed with their first two arguments that the proposal violated constitutional requirements.

But he rejected two other arguments that:

The petition didn't clearly show the changes from the existing constitutional language - a requirement, Green said, only applies to bills in the Legislature.

The petition failed to show all sections of the Constitution the amendment might change. Green said the Missouri Supreme Court already has rejected the "amendment by implication argument."

Green set aside the two lawsuits' fifth complaint - that the amendment would affect people's First Amendment rights to free speech - saying that's an issue the courts can't consider until after voters approve a proposal.

In his statement, Hatfield said: "We have always thought that this legal matter would be decided at the Appeals Court level.

"(Green's ruling) is a speed bump, but the law is on our side, the people are on our side, and Amendment 1 will be passed in November to clean up Missouri politics."

Supporters note more than 300,000 Missourians signed the petitions to get the proposed amendment onto the ballot, while Mehan countered: "Missourians need to understand that this is essentially an out-of-state coup attempt. The writers of Amendment 1 drafted their amendment in a way that clearly violated the Missouri Constitution, and we applaud Judge Green's decision to uphold Missouri's single subject requirement."