GOP Sen. Rick Brattin was cheerful heading into the final year of Missouri’s 2024 congressional program. The Republican-controlled Senate appeared poised to pass legislation ( SJR 74), which raised the bar for amending the Missouri Constitution and, as a result, made it more difficult for Democrats to enshrine abortion in the state’s founding document, after months of delays and back-and-forth with the House.
However, the floor vote to pass the reform of the initiative petition ( IP ) was thrown out as the session’s final days approached.
Senate GOP administration immediately adjourned for the rest of the year before crossing the finish line, despite having the vote necessary to stop a more than 50-hour legislature from Senate Democrats and give SJR 74 to electors for acceptance. In a matter of seconds, republican ‘ chance to change the Missouri Constitution was gone.
The movement to destroy SJR 74 was no mishap, but, according to several GOP lawmakers who spoke with The Federalist. They claimed that what transpired in the final days of the 2024 period was the result of a planned campaign spearheaded by Senate GOP leadership to stop the proposed constitutional amendment from being passed.
” The fix was completely in”, Brattin, the chair of the Missouri Freedom Caucus ( MOFC), told The Federalist.
The Scenario
Initially introduced in January, SJR 74 sought to raise the level for amending the Missouri Constitution via program complaint by , requiring , the majority of citizens in “more than half” of the country’s congressional districts to accept any constitutional amendment plan. The Show Me State’s foundation document , currently , mandates that any article plan voted on by Missourians may just get a majority of support from the public to get written into the state’s constitution.
SJR 74 was approved by the Senate in February, but the lower chamber changed the legislation to remove a provision that forbids noncitizens from casting ballots on constitutional ballots. Republican Sen. Mike Cierpiot introduced the article after The Federalist’s earlier demand for clarification on his reasons for doing so.
The GOP-led House took SJR 74 into consideration over the course of several months, and it changed to restore the noncitizen election provision and add language prohibiting foreign actors from financing and influencing ballot measure campaigns. This variant was sent back to the Senate for final approval after the House approved it on April 25.
The Government Retains It
The upper chamber did n’t consider SJR 74 until the final week of the 2024 session, May 13 through May 17, despite the Senate leadership agreeing to do so in the early months of May after the MOFC orchestrated a 41-hour-long filibuster pressuring leadership to do so. Senate Democrats were able to establish a filibuster on May 13 to prevent the Senate from taking action over the bill’s subsequent two days due to this delay in its consideration.
GOP Senator Ben Brown admitted to working behind the scenes in the final three weeks of the session to gather support for a previous question ( PQ ) motion, which would allow Republicans to put an end to Democrats ‘ stall tactics after they had predicted Democrats would use one. According to the Missouri Independent, a Rating “must be a published movements with signatures from 10 members” to start and requires support from 18 senators to go.
( Republicans hold a 24- 10 majority in the Missouri Senate ).
Brown claimed to have 18 signatures for the PQ in the third and final week of the session, but he later learned that “every now and then he would lose someone and have to go in and make that up elsewhere” to keep the 18 senators needed to pass it.
” We get to the final week, and first thing Monday, ]May 13], we go to IP reform, but now I lost somebody else”, Brown said. It was kind of a constant battle to keep the number of people we needed.
Brown claimed that Majority Leader Cindy O’Laughlin had given him the job to lead the PQ initiative the same day, when 16 senators allegedly pledged to vote against the motion. Brown said he “felt pretty confident that two ]senators who ] would n’t necessarily sign the PQ” would “very likely vote for it” if and when they were “put on the spot” to do so.
Unfortunately, the opportunity never came to fruition. Brown and Brattin claimed that Republican Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman barged into Brown’s office on May 15 and demanded that she be allowed to bring the PQ forward because she was SJR 74’s primary sponsor after they informed Senate leadership that they had the 10 signatures needed to raise the PQ motion. Brown and Brattin said they had no problem with that, at which point Coleman, according to Brown, grabbed “papers, documents ,]Brown’s ] script, and everything off ]his ] desk and stormed off”.
Not long after that, Brown began to hear Coleman’s voice on the intercom and assumed she was going to present the PQ motion to the Senate. However, when Brown arrived on the chamber floor, Brown learned that Coleman had instead made a substitute motion to send SJR 74 to a meeting with the House, a move that would essentially eliminate any chance the measure would pass before the session was over.
According to Senate records, Coleman initially requested that SJR 74 be approved by the Senate, but he withdrew the request after Democrat Minority Floor Leader John Rizzo requested a conference. At this point, Coleman withdrew her original motion and introduced the conference motion.
The House rebuffed Coleman’s request and returned it to the Senate the following day, with Speaker Dean Plocher reportedly indicating that Republican senator Pro Tem Caleb Rowden “would not accept the legislation back without removing” the provision prohibiting noncitizen interference in Missouri elections. Prior to this time, Rowden backed the Cierpiot amendment, which removed such provisions from the original version of the bill.
Despite receiving SJR 74 back from the House, Senate leadership refused to take up the measure and ended the 2024 session early on May 17— the last day on Missouri’s 2024 legislative calendar.
Brattin and Brown placed Rowden’s blame for SJR 74’s defeat at the feet of him, who has opposed IP reform efforts since the session’s beginning in 2024. Brown claimed that while gathering signatures for the PQ motion, he was “warned by several people that there were some]senators ] working against]him], and]Rowden’s ] name was one that was mentioned”. The Republican senator remarked that O’Laughlin’s work with him was “actually helpful in trying to whip votes and apply pressure to get people to come on board.”
Rowden was similarly accused of working “behind the scenes” to assassinate SJR 74 by Brattin. He also claimed Coleman’s motion to move SJR 74 to conference made it “apparent” why leadership made her the bill’s sponsor.
” We kind of suspected that there was something not right with why]leadership was ] so adamant about having ]her ] be the handler of that”, Brattin said. And toward the end,” That was the case,” it was actually made clear.
Rowden and Coleman did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.
What This Means
It is impossible to overstate the effects of the Missouri Senate’s failure to pass SJR 74 and send it to voters for approval in August.
Due to the measure’s death, it is much simpler for left-wing activists funded by out-of-state mega-donors to enshrine radical policies like unlimited abortion in the Missouri Constitution. Democrats are currently collecting signatures to put a proposal for a constitutional amendment on the state’s November ballot that would accomplish that.
[READ: Abortion Radicals Will Expand Their Schemes From Ohio To Your State. Here’s How To Be Ready ]
SJR 74 would have protected Missourians from the rule of the majority by requiring “more than half” of the state’s congressional districts to ratify any proposed constitutional amendments. Leftist organizations would be forced to expand their efforts to rural areas less likely to support their extreme policies if they used their dark money to snag votes from Democrat-friendly, high population centers like St. Louis.
With SJR 74 defeated, Democrats do n’t have to worry about overcoming that obstacle in Missouri.
” The initiative petition process is ripe for abuse, and we have a target on our back for these out- of- state interests pouring millions of dollars into our state]who are trying to ] essentially purchase]our ] constitution”, Brown said. It’s “our state’s most sacred document, and we have a constitutional duty to protect that”.
The Federalist staff writer Shawn Fleetwood graduated from the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClear Health, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
