Columbia Daily Tribune

During this year’s legislative session, Missouri lawmakers rewrote a voter-passed law regulating dog breeders. They also tried to meet a demand of business groups to eliminate cost-of-living increases in the voter-approved state minimum wage. And since voters imposed strict campaign finance limits in 1994, lawmakers have twice acted to change those limits, including eliminating them entirely in 2006. The routine rewriting of voter initiatives would end if a new initiative makes the 2012 ballot and wins approval.

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A Missouri Senate committee has endorsed a proposed constitutional amendment revising how residents get initiatives placed on statewide ballots. Organizers of initiative petition campaigns now must get signatures from voters in two-thirds of Missouri’s congressional districts.

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Missouri voters would need to show government-issued identification to vote, under a bill approved Tuesday in the Missouri Senate. The measure, which also includes provisions for early voting in partisan elections, does not take effect unless voters approve a state constitutional amendment that will be on the ballot sometime between now and November 2012. The measure, a key Republican goal for several years, was sent to Gov. Jay Nixon on a 25-9 vote. Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, voted in favor of the bill.

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A new state ballot initiative committee wants stricter regulations for commercial dog breeding operations in Missouri. Representatives of several animal protection agencies held a forum that drew about 100 people last night to the Columbia Public Library to gather support for an initiative they call Missourians for the Protection of Dogs.

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A Missouri group backing ballot initiatives limiting the use of eminent domain claimed yesterday to have recorded evidence that opponents are using the courts to try to delay its petition drive. Missouri Citizens for Property Rights has proposed a pair of constitutional amendments for 2010 that seek to prevent a person’s home, business or other property from being condemned for private development, such as a shopping center.

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