History
Initiative and referendum became part of Missouri’s constitution
primarily as the result of a decade of work by three people: St. Louis
attorney Silas L. Moser, William Preston Hill, M.D., Ph.D., and Anna Beard,
Dr. Hill’s assistant.
Moser, as president of the Missouri Direct Legislation League, brought
an I&R bill to a vote in the lower house of the state legislature in 1900. A
majority of legislators wanted to be recorded as voting in favor of it: which
is not to say that it passed, for after the roll call showed a majority in favor,
enough legislators switched their votes to make the bill lose by one vote.
In 1904 the legislature approved I&R, but Missouri voters rejected it by a
53,000-vote margin.
Refusing to accept defeat, the I&R leaders persuaded the legislature
to pass another I&R amendment in 1907. To avoid a repeat of the 1904
disaster, they embarked on a year long voter education campaign. They
engaged the Illinois Progressive leader John Z. White to travel through the
state making four speeches a week for the entire year before the vote. Dr.
Hill prepared a three-piece mailer and sent it to all 60,000 names listed in
telephone directories throughout the state. The effort paid off when
Missouri’s voters backed I&R by a 35,868-vote majority.
Missouri’s most notable initiative was probably the 1940 constitutional
amendment to establish a nonpartisan system for the nomination,
appointment, and retention elections of judges. This was copied by
several states and is now known as the “Missouri Plan” for judicial selection.
The first initiative to pass was a 1920 statute requiring that a new state
constitution be drawn up. The next was a 1924 measure to provide
funding for the maintenance and construction of the state’s highways,
followed in 1928 by a $75 million bond issue for further construction. Also
approved in 1924 was an initiative to allow voters in the city of St. Louis
and St. Louis County to consolidate their local governments.
In the 1930s Missouri voters enacted initiatives to allow public
employee benefits and to create a Conservation Commission to manage
fish, game, and forest resources. In 1980, the voters adopted the
“Hancock Amendment” which limited state and local taxes. In 1992 a
term limits initiative was adopted and in 1994 campaign finance reform
and riverboat gambling initiatives were approved by the voters.
Excerpted from the Initiative & Referendum Almanac by M. Dane Waters.