#missouri ballot

[destielmemenews]

"Missouri is currently enforcing a total abortion ban with exceptions for medical emergencies. The ballot measure's proposal to enshrine the right to abortion until fetal viability - typically around 24 weeks in pregnancy - drew support from 52% of Missouri voters in a St. Louis University/YouGov poll conducted from Aug. 9-16. The measure would need more than 50% support to pass."

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[iwriteaboutfeminism]

ABC News

Abortion rights supporters have prevailed in all seven states that already had decided ballot measures since 2022: California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Vermont.

...

The Missouri ballot measure would create a right to abortion until a fetus could likely survive outside the womb without extraordinary medical measures. Fetal viability generally has been considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks into pregnancy but has shifted downward with medical advances. The ballot measure would allow abortions after fetal viability if a health care professional determines it’s necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant woman.

[whenweallvote]

Just three hours before the deadline, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled abortion will be on the ballot this November. 🗳️

This November, voters in Missouri will have an opportunity to make their voice heard on abortion and reproductive healthcare like birth control.

Missouri is one of at least 10 states to vote on reproductive health-related measures this fall. There are just eight weeks left until Election Day — make sure you are registered and ready to vote right now at the 🔗 in our bio.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jason Rosenbaum at STLPR, via NPR:

ST. LOUIS — Five states have banned ranked choice voting in the last two months, bringing the total number of Republican-leaning states now prohibiting the voting method to 10. Missouri could soon join them. If approved by voters, a GOP-backed measure set for the state ballot this fall would amend Missouri’s constitution to ban ranked choice voting. Ranked choice voting allows voters to rank candidates and ensures the winner gains majority support, as compared to the vast majority of elections, where someone can win with a plurality of votes. “We believe in the one person, one vote system of elections that our country was founded upon,” Missouri state Sen. Ben Brown, the ballot measure’s sponsor, said in an interview. In the 2022 election cycle, a group of Republicans and Democrats unsuccessfully sought to advance a ranked choice voting proposal in Missouri. That would have instituted nonpartisan primaries for statewide, congressional and state legislative elections. The top four candidates would advance to the general election, where voters could then rank candidates from favorite to least favorite. If someone gets a majority of initial votes, they win. If no one gets a majority, the fourth place contender would be eliminated. And voters who ranked that candidate first would have their vote go to their second choice. This process would continue until a candidate gets a majority.

The Republican war on ranked-choice voting, including in Missouri, is an attack on democracy, as red states have passed preemption laws banning municipalities and counties from enacting RCV.

[mythigal1966]

Let's talk about big wins for women in AZ and MO and 2024....

[in-sightpublishing]

FFRF applauds Missouri abortion referendum ruling

Publisher: In-Sight Publishing Publisher Founding: September 1, 2014 Publisher Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada Publication: Freethought Newswire Original Link: https://ffrf.org/news/releases/ffrf-applauds-missouri-abortion-referendum-ruling/ Publication Date: September 11, 2024 Organization: Freedom From Religion Foundation Organization Description:…

[harriswalz4usabybr]

Tuesday, September 3, 2024 - Tim Walz

Governor Walz and Governor Kelly continued their swing through the midwest today and focused on the state of Missouri, a state we know is a long shot in terms of electoral map, but that we view as important in the America of tomorrow under a Harris-Walz Administration. The 'official' schedule of today's events is below.

Joplin, MO Event Location: Missouri Southern State University Spiva Library Event Type: Listening Tour Event Time: 8:00 - 11:00 CT *This listening tour was focused on primary and secondary teachers, principals, and librarians from across the state. The state of Missouri has attacked our rights to books, by trying to restrict funding to libraries and instating book bans. This affects education and Governor Walz views this group as an important constituency. The event garnered over 200 attendees and many stories were shared.

Springfield, MO Event Location: Missouri State University Event Type: Get Out the Vote Event Time: 13:00 - 16:00 CT *Governor Walz focused on-campus with student volunteers and Governor Kelly focused off-campus with democrat campaign volunteers for the region. Mail-in ballots and voter registration were major topics with students. Additionally, we had a small lunch with some students and connected them with student social media ambassadors for our campaign via Zoom.

Rolla, MO Event Location: Missouri S&T Gibson Arena Event Type: Campaign Rally Event Time: 19:00 - 21:00 CT *Full-text of the speech from this rally will be released shortly.

~BR~

[archaalen]

Initiative to enshrine abortion rights in Missouri constitution qualifies for November ballot | AP News

[mari-buginette]

For anyone voting today for Greene county, MO:

I’ve done research into the issues on the ballot April 2, 2024. Here is a guide with personal insight for Tumblr lgbtq+ individuals.

1) the question of if a mayor should be allowed to hold office for 4 years instead of 2, total 8 years with re-election.

No. Never let an official be safe from being evaluated for longer than necessary. Term limits keep officials accountable.

2) should the code of ethics for state employees be revised?

No. They try to get you with the word ethics. Currently a state employee is termed if monetary gain happens outside the channels of there job. Getting $ benefits from other enterprises, like real estate sells they had a .gov hand in, accepting bribes, etc. they want to change the law so that the mayor gets to review and decide if they’re in trouble or not, with the attorney’s input saying it’s not illegal before the action happened. They also get to rewrite the rules once a year. Not all bad, except who will benefit, and why change the language every year?

The example they cite is a teenager being hired to mow lawns who is a state employee’s child. Stop right there and ask yourself why a child is being hired to do adult work on government property.

This is a clear “more harm than good” policy if you have anyone not purely uninterested in personal gain in office. Corruption red flag.

Candidates for the school board:

3 positions open.

Best candidates: not great, it’s the best we have right now. These have been endorsed by the PAC, as non partisan candidates. i.e. not 100% Republican / Democrat.

Sherman-Wilkins supports nonpartisan schools and stopping religious influence controlling how public schools are run.

Kincaid: committed to making decisions instead of as she says, just punting (not voting to avoid dislike). Admits she has no kids and is a lawyer.

Crise: He is a business guy, and will rely on stakeholders for some decisions. Boo. He also stressed wanting to ask students what they need though.

Worst:

Mohammadkhani supports Moms for Liberty, the book banning group. Sad about this since she also states she wants to help lower income families.

McCarter quoted as saying he is endorsed by “groups that you may consider have a sort of a conservative leaning.” He means MAGA.

Rollins: opposes critical race theory and plans to seek Republican Mary Byrnes advice.

Provance: a girls athletic coach. She is endorsed by PAC, but is endorsed by Republican Mary Byrnes who is very anti lgbt, so likely against trans inclusion.

Do your own research if you can!

[liberalsarecool]

Great news for Missouri.

Women will turn out. Grab them by the ballot!

[amaditalks]

Abortion Is On The Ballot

In ten states, there are ballot measures or questions which will be decided in the November election which will impact the future of abortion access in those states. Here’s what you need to know.

Arizona

Arizona Proposition 139 the Right to Abortion Initiative will amend the state constitution to provide for the fundamental right to abortion that the state of Arizona may not interfere with before the point of fetal viability unless justified by a compelling state interest.

To enshrine abortion rights protection in the state constitution Vote Yes

Colorado

Colorado Amendment 79, the Right to Abortion and Health Insurance Coverage Initiative will amend the state constitution to create the right to an abortion and authorize the use of public funds (Medicaid) to pay for abortion care.

To enshrine abortion rights protection in the state constitution Vote Yes

Florida

Florida Amendment 4, the Right to Abortion Initiative, will amend the state constitution to declare that "no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” The current constitutional provision requiring parental consent for minors' abortions will not be affected.

To enshrine abortion rights protection in the state constitution and overturn the current six week abortion ban Vote Yes

Maryland

Maryland Question 1, the Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment, will amend the state constitution to establish a right to reproductive freedom, defined to include "the ability to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue, or end one's own pregnancy."

To enshrine reproductive rights protection in the state constitution Vote Yes

Missouri

Missouri Amendment 3, the Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative will amend the state constitution to provide the right for reproductive freedom, which is defined as "the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birthing conditions," and providing that the state legislature may enact laws that regulate abortion after fetal viability.

To enshrine broad reproductive rights protection including abortion in the state constitution and overturn the current complete abortion ban Vote Yes

Montana

Montana CI-128, the Right to Abortion Initiative will create a constitutional "right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion," and allow the state to regulate abortion after fetal viability, except when "medically indicated to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient."

To enshrine broad reproductive rights protection including abortion in the state constitution Vote Yes

Nebraska

The Nebraska Prohibit Abortions After the First Trimester Amendment will amend the state constitution to elevate the current twelve week abortion ban law to a constitutional provision with limited exceptions for medical emergencies or in cases of rape.

To prevent the current legislative abortion ban from being enshrined in the state constitution Vote No

Nevada

Nevada Question 6, the Right to Abortion Initiative will amend the state constitution to create a constitutional right to an abortion, providing for the state to regulate abortion after fetal viability, except where medically indicated to "protect the life or health of the pregnant patient."

To enshrine abortion rights protection in the state constitution Vote Yes

New York

New York Proposal 1, the Equal Protection of Law Amendment will amend the state constitution to provide that people cannot be denied rights based on their "ethnicity, national origin, age, and disability" or "sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy."

To enshrine equal rights protection for pregnant people and abortion patients in the state constitution Vote Yes

South Dakota

The South Dakota Constitutional Amendment G, the Right to Abortion Initiative will amend the state constitution to protect the right to an abortion based on a trimester framework, with no restrictions permitted in the first trimester, only limited medical need restrictions permitted in the second trimester and allowing deeper restrictions in the third trimester except "when abortion is necessary, in the medical judgment of the woman's physician, to preserve the life and health of the pregnant woman."

To enshrine abortion rights protection in the state constitution and overturn the state's current full abortion ban Vote Yes

If you live in one of these ten states and abortion rights matter to you, get registered or double check your registration and make your voting plan today. Every single vote matters significantly in amendment questions.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Nir at Daily Kos Elections:

Missouri Democrats scored a major win on Friday after Republicans abandoned their effort to make it harder to amend the state constitution. The victory paves the way for a ballot measure that would restore abortion rights to pass with just a simple majority this fall. The stunning climb-down came thanks to a record-breaking Democratic filibuster and bitter internal divisions among Republicans, both between warring factions in the Senate and between the upper and lower chambers of the legislature. Republicans were open about their desire to thwart an effort to undo Missouri's near-total ban on abortion by moving the goalposts for an amendment that's likely to appear on the ballot in November.

To that end, they sought to place a measure on the Aug. 6 primary ballot—just ahead of the November vote—that would require amendments to win not only majority support among voters statewide, as is currently required, but also a majority in five of the state's eight congressional districts. Those rules would have made it much harder to pass progressive proposals—but not conservative measures—thanks in large part to Republican gerrymandering. The fifth "bluest" district in the state (northern Missouri's 6th District) voted for Donald Trump by a daunting 37-point margin, putting it far to the right of the state as a whole, which Trump won by 16 points in 2020. By contrast, the tipping-point district for conservatives would have been the 3rd District, which backed Trump by 26 points.

[...] Like any confection, this candy was sugary, empty, and unnecessary. Republicans proposed to woo conservatives by including provisions that would ban non-citizens from voting and prohibit foreign political donations—things that are already illegal under state and federal law. Democrats were prepared to fight the GOP's amendment fair and square at the ballot box and would have let Republicans send it to voters (albeit with Democrats voting against it) without any blandishments. But they objected furiously to the inclusion of conservative candy. And they had good reason to, since this tactic had proven successful in the past: In 2020, voters repealed a redistricting reform measure they'd passed in a landslide two years earlier by narrowly adopting a Republican amendment that included some fig-leaf ethics reforms.

The Senate's Democratic minority turned to one of the few tools at its disposal to keep ballot candy off the ballot. In February, Democrats successfully staged a 20-hour filibuster that led the chamber to pass a version without these artificial sweeteners, though the measure's sponsor, Republican Mary Elizabeth Coleman, said at the time the battle to reinsert them wasn't over.

[...] As a result, on Thursday afternoon, the House rejected the Senate's request for a confab. Democrats, their bodies exhausted but their spirits energized, stood ready to renew their parliamentary marathon, knowing they would only have to sustain it until 6 PM local time on Friday—the drop-dead end of the legislative session. That turned out to be unnecessary. While the chamber's leader, Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, made one last public attempt early Friday morning to encourage the House to pass a ballot candy-free version of the amendment, the Senate adjourned a short time later. [...] Now the focus will be on November, when voters are very likely to have the chance to reinstate the right to an abortion. Earlier this month, reproductive rights advocates submitted more than double the number of signatures needed to place their amendment on the ballot. A review of those signatures is pending, but few in Missouri doubt they'll hold up—which is why Republicans were so desperately trying to pass their amendment.

Great news in Missouri: The Republican bid to end simple majority rule at the ballot box got quashed, thanks to the Senate Democrats filibustering SJR74.

That means an abortion access ballot measure will be on the ballot come November.

[reasonsforhope]

"For the first time in almost 60 years, a state has formally overturned a so-called “right to work” law, clearing the way for workers to organize new union locals, collectively bargain, and make their voices heard at election time.

This week, Michigan finalized the process of eliminating a decade-old “right to work” law, which began with the shift in control of the state legislature from anti-union Republicans to pro-union Democrats following the 2022 election. “This moment has been decades in the making,” declared Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron Bieber. “By standing up and taking their power back, at the ballot box and in the workplace, workers have made it clear Michigan is and always will be the beating heart of the modern American labor movement.”

[Note: The article doesn't actually explain it, so anyway, "right to work" laws are powerful and deceptively named pieces of anti-union legislation. What right to work laws do is ban "union shops," or companies where every worker that benefits from a union is required to pay dues to the union. Right-to-work laws really undermine the leverage and especially the funding of unions, by letting non-union members receive most of the benefits of a union without helping sustain them. Sources: x, x, x, x]

In addition to formally scrapping the anti-labor law on Tuesday [February 13, 2024], Michigan also restored prevailing-wage protections for construction workers, expanded collective bargaining rights for public school employees, and restored organizing rights for graduate student research assistants at the state’s public colleges and universities. But even amid all of these wins for labor, it was the overturning of the “right to work” law that caught the attention of unions nationwide...

Now, the tide has begun to turn—beginning in a state with a rich labor history. And that’s got the attention of union activists and working-class people nationwide...

At a time when the labor movement is showing renewed vigor—and notching a string of high-profile victories, including last year’s successful strike by the United Auto Workers union against the Big Three carmakers, the historic UPS contract victory by the Teamsters, the SAG-AFTRA strike win in a struggle over abuses of AI technology in particular and the future of work in general, and the explosion of grassroots union organizing at workplaces across the country—the overturning of Michigan’s “right to work” law and the implementation of a sweeping pro-union agenda provides tangible evidence of how much has changed in recent years for workers and their unions...

By the mid-2010s, 27 states had “right to work” laws on the books.

But then, as a new generation of workers embraced “Fight for 15” organizing to raise wages, and campaigns to sign up workers at Starbucks and Amazon began to take off, the corporate-sponsored crusade to enact “right to work” measures stalled. New Hampshire’s legislature blocked a proposed “right to work” law in 2017 (and again in 2021), despite the fact that the measure was promoted by Republican Governor Chris Sununu. And in 2018, Missouri voters rejected a “right to work” referendum by a 67-33 margin.

Preventing anti-union legislation from being enacted and implemented is one thing, however. Actually overturning an existing law is something else altogether.

But that’s what happened in Michigan after 2022 voting saw the reelection of Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a labor ally, and—thanks to the overturning of gerrymandered legislative district maps that had favored the GOP—the election of Democratic majorities in the state House and state Senate. For the first time in four decades, the Democrats controlled all the major levers of power in Michigan, and they used them to implement a sweeping pro-labor agenda. That was a significant shift for Michigan, to be sure. But it was also an indication of what could be done in other states across the Great Lakes region, and nationwide.

“Michigan Democrats took full control of the state government for the first time in 40 years. They used that power to repeal the state’s ‘right to work’ law,” explained a delighted former US secretary of labor Robert Reich, who added, “This is why we have to show up for our state and local elections.”"

-via The Nation, February 16, 2024

[asexualchad]

You could form militias of pissed off white ladies across the country to protect endangered birds TODAY or you could just ~✨VoTe✨! and wait for nothing to happen tomorrow no matter who wins.