MOScout Daily Update: IP to Prohibit Vouchers - Legal MJ IP - Fears of An Early PQ - Voting Reform Compromise? and more...

New IP Petitions

New initiative petitions continue to be filed with the Secretary of State’s office.  Of course, filing the new proposals is the easiest part of the process.  Getting signatures, surviving legal challenges, winning voter approval… it’s a long road ahead.  Still, these are ones to watch…

·         2022-057 - Sherri Talbott, Taxpayers for Accountability, would prohibit “vouchers” or tax credits subsidizing tuition at non-public schools elementary and secondary schools.

·         2022-059 - Marc Ellinger, Legal Missouri 2022, would legalize marijuana and increase the number of licenses available to get into the business.

Meanwhile, GOP Eying IP Reform…

House Republican, frustrated by progressive groups use of the initiative petition process, have reportedly decided that changing the IP process should be a top agenda for the next session.

However last week’s Remington Research/MOScout poll shoes that some of the ideas that have been floated don’t excite Missourians – or even MO Republicans.

·         Increasing the number of signatures required was favored by only 27% of Missourians.  Republicans disapproved 35% to 50%.

·         And increasing the vote for passage from a simple majority to a two-thirds majority was similarly not well-supported. 31% of Missourians in favor; 35% against; with 34% undecided.  Among Republicans, there was lukewarm support: 41% in favor, 23% against, and 36% “not sure.”

One intriguing proposal has been to link no-excuse absentee voting with a photo ID requirement.  It would essentially give Democrats an early voting option in which they could employ their ground game and organizing efforts.  And it would give Republicans assurances that voter fraud isn’t occurring.

·         The poll showed that Missourians are in favor of Voter ID, and even Democrats are marginally in favor of the idea (50% in favor versus 41% against).

Driving the Day: ESA Law Takes Effect

Over the weekend, laws from last session took effect.  Among them the Educational Savings Accounts.

Pro-school choice groups are starting to organize to take advantage of the new legislation.

Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri put up a new website (see it here) helping folks figure if their child would qualify and giving potential donor information.

We’ll see how quickly these take off…

Fears of An Early PQ

Nothing makes the Missouri Senate a slog like the aftermath of a PQ.  That’s why leadership usually withholds the procedural motion until the final days of session, after all negotiations have been exhausted and all other priorities have been passed.  It doesn’t always work that way, but that’s the idea.

So there’s some wariness with congressional redistricting apparently headed toward regular session in January.  It’s the sort of partisan issue that could create a showdown atmosphere and end in a debate-ending PQ.

The mighty Jason Rosenbaum, on Twitter, thinks that a 7-1 map (that is, 7 Republican congressmen and only one Democrat versus the current 6-2 split) is unlikely because the Dems will have “input.”  And it could be that the fear of an early PQ laying waste to session is enough incentive to keep Republicans from forcing the dissolution of Cleaver’s district.

·         My informal survey of lobbyists (The Hallway Index) showed that an early PQ is not their chief concern.  Only 4.5% cited it.  More worrisome is the intra-party Republican conflicts the map may elevate (59%).

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