Foreign Money Has Already Reached Missouri Ballot Campaigns
Foreign nationals cannot legally contribute to campaigns for president, congress, governor, or other public offices.
Federal law treats ballot measures differently.
Under the Federal Election Commission’s interpretation, foreign nationals and foreign-owned companies may spend money to influence a standalone ballot initiative so long as the campaign is not tied to a candidate.
That loophole has already allowed foreign money into campaigns seeking to change state constitutions. Missouri has seen millions of dollars flow into constitutional campaigns through nonprofit networks funded in part by a foreign billionaire.
Amendment 4 would place a ban on foreign funding of Missouri ballot measures directly into the state Constitution.
How ballot measures fell through the federal gap
Federal law prohibits foreign nationals from making contributions, donations, expenditures, or other disbursements in connection with federal, state, or local elections.
For more than three decades, however, the Federal Election Commission generally treated standalone ballot initiatives differently from elections for public office. The commission’s precedents distinguished candidate elections, which are regulated under federal campaign-finance law, from issue advocacy and ballot measures, which generally are not.
That interpretation was tested after foreign-owned companies spent money opposing Montana Initiative 186, a 2018 proposal involving mining permits and environmental standards.
In July 2021, the FEC voted 4-2 to dismiss the complaints in two related enforcement matters, MUR 7512 and MUR 7523. Four commissioners concluded that the federal foreign-national prohibition did not cover a standalone ballot initiative that was not connected to a candidate seeking public office.
The decision confirmed an interpretation reflected in decades of FEC advisory opinions and guidance.
The commission reasoned that Congress had amended federal law to clarify its application to state and local candidate elections, but had not expressly added initiatives or referenda. Until Congress did so, the FEC concluded that it lacked authority to enforce the prohibition against foreign funding of ballot measure campaigns.
Foreign companies have already used the opening
Foreign corporate money had already been used to influence American ballot campaigns.
The Montana complaints arose from spending by foreign-owned mining interests opposing Initiative 186.
Hydro-Québec, an electric utility owned by the government of Quebec, spent approximately $22 million seeking to influence 2021 referendums involving a proposed transmission project through Maine.
The spending helped prompt Maine voters to approve a ban on foreign-government involvement in state referendum campaigns in 2023.
A foreign government-owned utility could not legally make the same contributions to candidates for public office. Under the FEC’s interpretation, they were allowed to contribute to ballot measure campaigns.
The FEC asked Congress to close the gap
In its 2023 legislative recommendations, the commission listed the issue among its highest priorities. It recommended that Congress explicitly extend the federal foreign-national prohibition to state and local ballot initiatives, referenda, and recall elections.
The recommendation cited the Montana matters and explained that ballot initiatives generally fall outside federal campaign-finance law when they are not connected to candidates.
The agency that said it lacked authority to act asked Congress to give it that authority. Until Congress closes the gap nationwide, states must decide how to protect their own ballot campaigns.
Foreign money does not always arrive directly
A contribution from a foreign government-owned utility is relatively easy to identify.
Modern political funding can be much harder to trace.
Hansjörg Wyss is a Swiss billionaire whose organizations have given enormous sums to American nonprofits involved in public policy and elections. Wyss-backed organizations gave the DC-based Sixteen Thirty Fund about $208 million beginning in 2016.
Sixteen Thirty Fund contributes directly to political committees and supports organizations involved in ballot campaigns across the country.
But the funding structure still reveals a real problem. Money is fungible. Even if Wyss-linked contributions were completely segregated, they would still free up other money that the Sixteen Thirty Fund contributes to ballot measure campaigns.
Sixteen Thirty Fund spent millions in Missouri
Missouri has already seen this nonprofit network become a major player in a constitutional campaign.
Missouri Ethics Commission records show that Sixteen Thirty Fund contributed the following amounts to Missourians for Constitutional Freedom in 2024:
- $1 million on January 17
- $3.5 million on August 29
- $89,721 in in-kind support on October 15
- $5,780 in additional in-kind support on October 31
That comes to $4.5 million in cash and $95,501 in in-kind support.
Missouri Ethics Commission records show the Sixteen Thirty Fund gave nearly $4.6 million to the pro-abortion Amendment 3 campaign in 2024.
— Liberty Alliance (@LibertyAllUSA) July 14, 2026
Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss has given Sixteen Thirty more than $200 million since 2016.
Amendment 4 constitutionally bans foreign… pic.twitter.com/q3omPwouGJ
But isn’t foreign funding already illegal in Missouri?
Yes. By statute.
Missouri lawmakers responded in 2025 by passing Senate Bill 152.
The law addresses more than a foreign national writing a check directly to a ballot committee. It also covers contributions made indirectly through another person, organization, or entity.
SB 152 requires a new ballot-measure committee to certify that prohibited foreign sources did not fund its preliminary work. The law specifically includes activities such as polling, focus groups, drafting ballot language, telephone calls, and travel.
The law also prohibits foreign nationals from directing, controlling, or participating in decisions about ballot-measure spending. It gives the Missouri attorney general authority to investigate suspected violations and bring civil enforcement actions.
The central question voters are being asked to decide through Amendment 4 is which protections should remain ordinary laws and which deserve a place in the Missouri Constitution.
A future General Assembly can amend or repeal SB 152 through the normal legislative process.
Amendment 4 would place the core prohibition against foreign funding of statewide ballot measures into the Constitution. Future lawmakers could maintain and strengthen the detailed rules surrounding that prohibition, but they could not eliminate the constitutional protection without returning to Missouri voters.
SB 152 provides the detailed enforcement framework. Amendment 4 would ensure that the basic protection cannot be quietly removed from Missouri law.
Missouri voters should decide Missouri’s Constitution
Foreign nationals should not be able to use a federal loophole to influence changes to Missouri law.
Amendment 4 puts our ban on foreign funding of ballot measure campaigns into the Constitution.
Our Constitution should be written by Missouri voters, not foreign interests.
On August 4, vote YES on Amendment 4.
Andy Bakker
Executive Director
Liberty Alliance USA