What Is Happening With Missouri’s Two Ballot Measure Lawsuits?
Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected two proposed ballot measures after reviewing their constitutional compliance. The lawsuits challenging those decisions present two distinct legal questions.
On August 4, while Missourians were voting in the primary election, Secretary of State Denny Hoskins declared two proposed ballot measures legally insufficient: the People Not Politicians referendum on repealing the Missouri First congressional map and the Respect Missouri Voters initiative petition.
Missouri law assigns a compliance review to the secretary of state before a measure is certified for the ballot. Hoskins found constitutional problems with each proposal. He did not release final signature counts.
Supporters of both measures responded with lawsuits in Cole County Circuit Court. The People Not Politicians case asks whether Missouri voters may use the referendum process to reject a congressional map enacted by the General Assembly. The Respect Missouri Voters case involves whether the wide-ranging constitutional amendment violates the single-subject rule and whether Hoskins could revisit legal issues after approving the petition for circulation in 2025.
Understanding the lawsuits begins with the review Hoskins was required to conduct.
Missouri law requires a final compliance review
Section 116.120 requires the secretary of state to examine each submitted petition for compliance with the Missouri Constitution and Missouri’s ballot measure laws. Section 116.150 then requires the secretary to certify the petition as sufficient or insufficient and explain any finding of insufficiency.
That constitutional review is part of the secretary’s job at the certification stage. In an earlier federal case involving the map referendum, the court recognized Hoskins’s authority and duty to conduct this review once the signature process was complete. The court left the underlying constitutional questions for another day.
Hoskins made the initial determinations assigned to his office. The two lawsuits now ask the courts to decide whether he reached the correct conclusions.
Can Missouri’s congressional map be referred to voters?
The General Assembly enacted House Bill 1 during a 2025 special session, replacing Missouri’s congressional map. People Not Politicians received approval to circulate Referendum 2026-R004 in October and submitted its petition boxes in December. On August 4, Hoskins declared the referendum insufficient after concluding that the Missouri Constitution does not authorize voters to refer a congressional redistricting plan.
People Not Politicians campaign manager and Communist Party of Missouri award recipient Richard von Glahn filed von Glahn v. Hoskins in Cole County Circuit Court later that day. The lawsuit asks the court to reverse Hoskins’s decision, certify the referendum, and prevent further use of the Missouri First map, including for the November election.
The dispute centers on three provisions of the Missouri Constitution. Article III, section 45 directs the General Assembly to divide Missouri into congressional districts by law. Section 49 reserves to the people the power to approve or reject acts of the General Assembly through a referendum. Section 52(a) exempts certain emergency and appropriations laws from that power.
Hoskins and Hanaway also rely on the federal Elections Clause, which assigns state legislatures responsibility for setting the rules governing congressional elections. Hanaway’s opinion argues that Missouri’s Constitution would need a clear statement before its referendum provisions could displace the General Assembly’s redistricting authority. She finds no such statement and reads section 45’s specific assignment to the General Assembly as controlling over the constitution’s general referendum provisions.
Hanaway also identifies a practical problem with applying Missouri’s referendum process to a map already being used to conduct an election. Missouri held its congressional primaries under the Missouri First Map on the same day Hoskins issued his decision. The remaining election calendar could not accommodate new primary results and meet federal deadlines for mailing general-election ballots to military and overseas voters.
Von Glahn relies on the broad referendum power reserved in sections 49 and 52. His complaint argues that House Bill 1 is an act of the General Assembly and falls outside the constitution’s stated exceptions. He also cites federal precedent recognizing that a state may include a referendum within its lawmaking process for congressional redistricting.
Missouri courts have decided several related questions while leaving this one open. In Luther v. Hoskins, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the General Assembly’s authority to redraw congressional districts between censuses. The court did not decide whether voters could refer the resulting law.
In Maggard v. State, the court held that submitting referendum signatures did not automatically suspend House Bill 1. It assumed, for purposes of that case, that the map could be referred, and expressly declined to decide the question.
A federal court took a similar approach in Missouri General Assembly v. von Glahn. The court dismissed an earlier challenge as premature because the signatures had not been submitted and Hoskins had not completed his review. Its ruling recognized his authority and duty to examine the referendum’s constitutional compliance once the petition process was complete.
The new lawsuit places the unanswered question directly before the court. The judge must decide whether section 45 limits the referendum power reserved elsewhere in Article III and what relief remains available after Missouri conducted its primary under House Bill 1.
Respect Missouri Voters presents a different dispute
The Respect Missouri Voters initiative went through Missouri’s pre-circulation review process in 2025. Secretary of State Hoskins certified the official ballot title for Initiative Petition 2026-106 on September 9, allowing supporters to begin collecting signatures.
The proposal’s name conceals its scope. The full text of the amendment would add several provisions to Article III of the Missouri Constitution. It would establish new standards for initiative and referendum summaries, expand the power of courts to rewrite ballot summaries, and designate initiative and referendum as fundamental rights subject to strict scrutiny.
The amendment would also require an 80 percent vote in each chamber of the General Assembly to amend or repeal a law approved by voters. The same threshold would apply when lawmakers seek to enact a law substantially similar to one voters rejected through a referendum. Some of these protections would apply to measures approved or rejected after January 1, 2010.
The implications are significant. Republicans currently hold around 70 percent of each chamber in Jefferson City. If this amendment passed, legislative Democrats alone could block lawmakers from amending or repealing a voter-approved law, even if every Republican supported the change.
Supporters submitted their signatures in May. On August 4, Hoskins declared the petition legally insufficient, finding that it violated the Missouri Constitution’s single-subject and single-article requirements. He also raised constitutional concerns about restricting future sessions of the General Assembly. Hoskins withdrew the ballot title he had certified in 2025 and issued a replacement describing those concerns.
Three petition signers filed Harris v. Hoskins in Cole County Circuit Court on August 6. They ask the court to reverse Hoskins’s decision, certify the petition for the November ballot, and restore the original ballot title.
Hoskins’s substantive concern is that the proposal combines several distinct changes under the broad label of protecting direct democracy. It would regulate ballot summaries, expand judicial authority, impose a new standard of constitutional review, restrict the General Assembly, and reach backward to cover earlier election results. His decision treats those provisions as separate subjects with different legal effects.
The lawsuit argues that the amendment has one purpose: protecting Missouri’s initiative and referendum process. Missouri courts generally apply the single-subject requirement liberally, allowing an amendment to contain several provisions when they all relate to an identifiable central purpose.
The challengers have a stronger procedural argument based on the Missouri Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Coleman v. Ashcroft. In that case, the court held that the secretary’s pre-circulation approval of a petition’s form was a final agency decision. The secretary could not use the final compliance review under section 116.120 to reconsider form issues after signatures had been collected.
The court’s treatment of the single-subject rule is key here. Coleman described single-subject compliance as a matter of form and held that a proposal satisfies the rule when all its provisions relate to a readily identifiable and reasonably narrow central purpose.
Hoskins’s decision raises other objections that may extend beyond the form review discussed in Coleman. The court will have to determine whether those substantive concerns remained open for review at the certification stage.
Why these lawsuits are different
The map lawsuit asks the court to answer a question Missouri courts have left open: Can voters use a referendum to overturn a congressional map passed by the General Assembly?
The Missouri Supreme Court declined to answer that question in Maggard. Its decision in Luther confirmed that lawmakers could redraw the map between censuses but did not address the referendum. The court must now answer the underlying question and decide what relief remains possible after Missouri conducted its congressional primaries under the new map.
The Respect Missouri Voters lawsuit starts from a different point. Hoskins approved the petition for circulation in 2025. In Coleman v. Ashcroft, the Missouri Supreme Court held that this approval was a final decision on the petition’s form.
The court must decide whether his other constitutional concerns involve the amendment’s legal effects and remain open for review.
The map case asks a judge to settle an unanswered constitutional question. The Respect Missouri Voters case begins by asking which objections Hoskins still had authority to raise. Hoskins made the initial decisions required of his office. The courts will determine whether Missouri law supports them.
Andy Bakker
Executive Director
Liberty Alliance USA