JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Several months after Missouri voters approved ballot measures to expand abortion rights and raise the minimum wage, both are now facing challenges from state lawmakers.

This raises an important question: How can Missouri legislators attempt to repeal or override policies that voters directly approved to be enshrined into state law?

The communications director for the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office tells FOX 2 that, currently, “There is no specific statutory protection in Missouri law that prevents lawmakers from challenging or altering voter-approved amendments or propositions.”

That’s something one advocacy group is hoping to change.

The Respect MO Voters Coalition has begun gathering public input for a constitutional amendment that would prevent Missouri politicians from overturning or undermining voter-approved measures.

The coalition aims to get an amendment on a future ballot through the citizen initiative process, ensuring that voters, not politicians, have a final say on voter-approved state laws.

Benjamin Singer, coalition representative and CEO of Show Me Integrity, says that challenges to voter-approved laws in Missouri typically happen when the political party in power of the state legislature opposes a voter-approved measure.

“It’s a political power grab,” Singer said in a phone call with FOX 2. “No matter who is in power in Jefferson City, they want all the power in their hands. They want to take away the people’s power.”

The coalition argues the issue at hand isn’t necessarily partisan but historical.

Singer pointed to past efforts from Missouri Democratic lawmakers to restrict the citizen initiative process after voters approved a tax-limiting measure. That effort was ultimately blocked by former Republican Governor John Ashcroft, who opposed legislative interference in voter-approved measures.

Now with a Republican-controlled legislature decades later, challenges are emerging against progressive policies like abortion rights, minimum wage, and sick leave expansion.

“It usually happens after people pass something that the party in power doesn’t like, and it’s been true for both parties. We have to continue protecting this freedom for the people, and after decades of attack on this freedom,” Singer said. “We clearly need a constitutional amendment to stop the biased language that politicians write on their ballots and stop them from continuing to try to take this freedom away, and try to reverse things that the people have passed. It’s about the will of the people. Majority rule. That’s how democracy is supposed to work.”

The Missouri Secretary of State’s Office tells FOX 2 that there have been past legislative efforts to require a higher threshold for the General Assembly to overturn voter-initiated statutes, though none have been successfully passed.

The office also acknowledged that not all ballot measures are equally protected from legislative changes.

For abortion rights, passed in November 2024 as Amendment 3, voters approved a change through an initiative petition process. The communications director for the Secretary of State’s Office says, “Changes or repeals to constitutional amendments must be proposed through a joint resolution, which would then require voter approval.”

For sick leave benefits, passed in the same election as Proposition A, voters approved the change as a statutory measure, meaning the legislature can repeal or modify it through standard legislative action. The Secretary of State’s comms director says, “Statutory measures have been modified or repealed through standard legislative action” in the past, though it did not elaborate on specific examples.

With this in mind, Missouri voters currently have no guaranteed protections against lawmakers challenging or reversing ballot measures.

“For a lot of us in this world, we take for granted that these protections don’t exist. We’re lacking a constitutional protection to stop politicians from these political power grabs and trying to overturn the will of the people,” Singer said. “That’s what this [the Respect MO Voters Coalition’s push for a] constitutional amendment is. It’s trying to put stronger constitutional protections in place over this freedom that we the people have that politicians are attacking.”

The Respect MO Voters Coalition already held one community town hall event in St. Louis earlier this week to discuss concerns with the public in greater detail. Another town hall event is planned next Tuesday, March 25, from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Deaconess Center in St. Louis at 1000 Vandeventer Avenue.