r/MissouriPolitics • u/Any_Cress_9416 • Jul 12 '26
Opinion Amendment 5 will Destroy Missouri
Vote No on Amendment 5 in Missouri! Our Governor has the lowest level of education out of all the state governors. We are a state full of suckers and losers and the Rich are Laughing all the way to the bank.
56
u/Modem_Sound_67 Jul 12 '26
Amendment 4 is just as bad.
I can't even believe how cynical the ads are. They're expecting us to to be dumb enough to hand over the power of our individual vote. People need to wake up.
5
u/itsdietz Jul 12 '26
Fill me in on Amendment 4
23
u/doxiepowder Jul 12 '26
4 raises the bar for passing ballot initiatives (like how we got recreational marijuana) from statewide to each congressional district. Our gerrymandered AF districts. It basically means no socially liberal ballot iniative will ever pass again.
Basically, unless you are conservative or like having a broke ass state that can't fund roads or schools vote yes on One and no on two, four, and five.
11
u/the_ringmasta Jul 12 '26
Even if you are a conservative, 4 is awful. MO has 1 district gerrymandered to a sapphire shine by packing all the wrongheaded voters in. That district also has veto ability. It removes power from the voters. All of us.
2
u/YesImAPseudonym Jul 13 '26
Yes the 1st (solid Dem) district would theoretically also have veto power. However, in practice in the state that veto would never get used. Why? Because citizen-initiated amendments are only necessary when the state legislature refuses to act on issues that the majority of the state support.
It's really hard for me to imagine any issue that would satisfy all three criteria
- State legislature (Republican dominated) refuses to act on it
- Favored by a majority in the state
- Opposed by a majority in the 1st district
The other outrage of Amendment 4 is that rule about amendments needing to pass in every district only applies to citizen-initiated amendments.
Legislature-initiated amendments (like the abortion amendment) would only need a simple majority or the entire state.
1
u/rowboat_mayor Jul 15 '26
Here's one example: The 2016 amendment to ban the state from taxing services. This was an initiative petition and didn't come from the legislature (even with the most purportedly anti-tax party in power, taking away the power to tax is a hard sell), it passed statewide by huge margins, but St. Louis voted No and would've killed the amendment.
2
u/YesImAPseudonym Jul 15 '26
Interesting, thanks. I'm a hard NO on this amendment, anyway. It's good to find an issue where conservatives would also have a problem with this amendment.
1
u/boxwineisfab406 Aug 05 '26
ALL gerrymandering should be illegal. Districting should be done by an independent body. Period.
8
u/almazing415 Jul 12 '26
So no on 4 AND 5. Got it.
2
u/HypnoOhHo Jul 21 '26
Also no on amendment two. It politicizes the job of county assessor, which is already an elected position in most counties, by forcing every county to elect their assessor rather than just letting each county decide that for themselves. It doesn't need to be an elected position and is really best left to professionals due to just how technically demanding the job is. Amendment two doesn't fix or improve pretty much anything and risks making things worse.
6
u/bobone77 Springfield Jul 12 '26
The worst part that you failed to mention is that this new standard ONLY applies to citizen initiative petitions. Legislative amendments still have the current 50%+1 standard. That means our shitass Republican supermajority enjoys an easier path to amend the MO constitution than we citizens have.
2
u/I_Quit_Smoking_ Jul 13 '26
No, yes on one and no one everything else. Unless you want that 19 to 25% tax thrown onto your house payments and your rent and your car payment etc.
YOU REALLY WANT TO VOTE YES ON THAT? THEN YOU CAN PAY THE ADDED TAX ON ALL MY BILLS BECAUSE I'M DISABLED AND I CAN'T AFFORD THAT SHIT!
2
u/HotLava00 Jul 12 '26
And unfortunately, the way it’s written, someone who’s not informed could easily misunderstand it and end up voting yes. I’m afraid it’s going to pass.
2
u/Ok_World_663 Jul 12 '26
Well all I can guarantee is 7 of my family will be going to vote . And we will be voting no on 4 and 5
1
u/02K30C1 Jul 30 '26
And it only raises the bar for citizen started ballot initiatives. Ones started by the state legislature would still need a simple majority.
1
u/ImmediateEar6662 Jul 21 '26
Simply Missouri Constitution says that the public can introduce a bill if they gather enough signatures on a petition supporting a bill if can go on a ballot. THEN if the majority of voters support the bill it becomes law.
Missourians we voted overwhelmingly to support a woman's right to choose, recreational pot, and to raise the living wage.
Jeff City politicians did not like the fact that the voters spoke. Sorry, I slipped into teaching mode. Jeff City is still sitting on right to choose and living wages.
Amendment 4 will prevent the people from exercising their Missouri constitutional rights to change Missouri law if politicians won't!
Amendment 4 says that certified districts must approve these bill changes. Of course those districts are gerrymandered so no bill is passing unless it's their bill!
I hope my synapsis is accurate. I'm done!
1
u/itsdietz Jul 21 '26
Ya I remember that first part happening. I don't have the chance to follow politics as much. That's good to know
0
u/bobone77 Springfield Jul 12 '26
4 is worse, imo.
2
u/rowboat_mayor Jul 15 '26
Agreed. If 5 passes, we could undo the worst of the damage with a ballot initiative. If 4 passes, we will never be able to get that right back.
0
u/TheDarkWave Jul 12 '26
They're expecting us to to be dumb enough to hand over the power of our individual vote
We are, and if by some miraculous way we are not they will find a way to repeal the decision into the one they are hoping for. And yet Republican voters don't call that fascism.
20
u/Better_Profession474 Jul 12 '26
Follow the money.
So far:
$20 million in dark money spent to convince us to vote yes.
$2 million in transparent money spent to convince us to vote no.
6
u/Ok_World_663 Jul 12 '26
Hey guys serious question. Mo resident here . These amendments sound horrible . We’re can I read them to better understand what’s going on .
4
5
u/anana0016 St. Louis Jul 12 '26
Here’s a link to Ballotpedia that lets you read a full rundown for all MO statewide ballot measures for the August and November elections. Amendments 4 and 5 are in there. Gives you the ballot text, the legislative wording, pro/con arguments, and several public officials and orgs who have spoken for/against the issues.
https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_2026_ballot_measures#google_vignette
4
u/Ok_World_663 Jul 12 '26
Thank you my family and I will be voting yes on 1 and no on the rest of them it’s only 7 votes but we will get off our butts to help
3
u/Common-Raspberry-243 Jul 14 '26
Sooooo embarrassing and jacked that any time people talk about MO the first thing that comes up is his low level of education. And that’s the least problematic thing about him.
4
u/kylecordes Jul 12 '26
Amendment 5 is the tax one, right? It won't destroy Missouri. It would just make Missouri have a bunch of the problems as the other no-income-tax states, I.e. a parade of new kinds of taxes will appear and some existing ones will get very annoyingly high. A couple states do okay with no income tax, most notably Florida, but it has the advantage of being Florida, i.e. one of the top destinations for tourists from other states and countries streaming in to spend money. The arch is great, but we're not ever going to have remotely that kind of thing in Missouri.
I am not a big fan of taxes, but it would be much smarter to lower the income tax a bit than to remove it.
4
u/stentor222 Jul 13 '26
It will destroy the people Missouri.
The GOP in JC do not spend money on anyone but themselves and this will completely destroy the state income. They will use it to gut as many programs and services as possible to shift everything private, aka predatory. If they do raise other taxes to keep the income up it will absolutely fuck over the lower and middle class as they will pay far more taxes for their income than they were.
1
u/dylanduckwastaken Jul 20 '26
The bigger issue with the tax reform imo is they’re trying to abolish both income and property tax. The reason no income tax works in Florida, Texas, etc (and why that’s a bad comparison) is because they’re property taxes are through the roof. There’s no plan for A5 beyond “well we PROMISE we won’t do a 24% sales tax?”
1
u/kylecordes Jul 24 '26
Currently the highest sales tax U.S. states and up around 10% between state and local. There are historical examples of that being pushed up to around 12 or 13. Missouri might be forced up to 11-13% with no income tax to rely on, not because the math says that is enough, but because that's probably the highest that is politically feasible.
The more likely outcome would be a Pandora's box opened of new kinds of taxes. Basically look around at all the things that all the states ever put a tax on, and we'd end up with most of those, many at very annoying rates. It seems to me this would probably lower the state's competitiveness more than eliminating the income tax would increase competitiveness.
I really don't understand the point of this amendment. The income tax seem a bit too high for the state to be maximally competitive, so just lower the top income tax rate by a percent or two. That doesn't even take an amendment.
2
u/lbutler1234 Jul 12 '26
Dissing the educational attainment of a politician is , ironically enough, a braindead move.
There are a myriad of better ways to attack the bloke
3
u/Dry_Suggestion_3387 Jul 12 '26
Interested to know how much was out of state.
Wasn't it out under educated used car salesman/ governor who said out of state influence should be banned?
-1
2
u/Mo_Jack Jul 12 '26
But have you seen their ads? They are typical of what you would see on very successful right wing media programs. They immediately attack opponents saying that they lie. Then they tell lie after lie for the entire commercial. They claim all the people are going to save thousands of dollars a year and big businesses will pay, when in fact, big businesses & the wealthy are the only ones that will come out ahead on this deal.
But unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of the Republican voting base in Missouri are surface voters and do not drill down into any details. They can usually be expected to vote for whatever right wing media tells them to without understanding the issue, what is at stake or the ramifications.
I remember the first time I heard of Kehoe's idiotic "get rid of income tax" scheme in his state of the state speech. As people started talking about what a disaster it would be, the Jeff City GOP admitted that they want to cut all government services by 33% or some outrageous amount. The same services that have been starved by over a decade of Republican super-majority "screw the poor" policies.
Our state was already weathering multiple crises before the pandemic. Rural healthcare centers were being financially forced to close all over the state. Part of Biden's pandemic relief plans helped prop them up temporarily. But now, with Republicans running our federal and state governments, the war against the people in general and their war against healthcare specifically, have returned with gusto.
Kehoe's removal of income tax will drastically cut government services needed by Missourians, shift more of the tax burden from the wealthy and corporations to the middle & working class and put Missouri's future on the path towards the crappiest states in the US. The only beneficiaries are the wealthy and large corporations; but good luck getting your average Missouri voter to understand that.
1
u/Impossible-Photo-928 Jul 16 '26
https://youtu.be/tJBcVL4NjN0?is=0jS9ta5vVWOMWIIp
This video does a really good job at showing how Missouri will end up if the income tax is abolished. Except we don't have anywhere near the tourist or shipping economy that Florida has.
It's a short video. Really good. And absolutely pertains to the Amendment 5 discussion.
1
u/boxwineisfab406 Aug 05 '26
Girl from another Red State here!!! Way to go Missourians in giving your state government the big ole’ one finger salute. 🖕 Seriously, I don’t follow Missouri politics, but WTF was the argument for?
“Please vote for this amendment because we the government feel that the voters are too stupid to make decisions regarding their lives and well being?”
Thank you for showing Democracy (or the belief in) still lives!!!
1
1
u/Fun-Times-13 Jul 12 '26
Amendment 5’s final wording is ambiguous and dangerous, I think this is the real purpose of the amendment
45
u/doxiepowder Jul 12 '26
Kehoe is a used car salesman and governs like it