Respect Voters Coalition discuss importance, use of citizen initiatives at town hall

Respect Voters Coalition held a town hall discussion regarding the importance of citizen initiatives Thursday, Feb. 27, at the Cape Girardeau Public Library.

Respect Voters Coalition co-founder Toni Easter said the coalition is cross-partisan, and citizen initiatives allow people to come together and solve issues faced in their communities. Easter said Missouri is one of 26 states that use citizen initiatives.

She said that while citizen initiatives go by many names, they're all terms to describe people's tools to propose new laws or amendments into the Missouri constitution. Easter said while the Legislature puts most constitutional amendments on the ballot, citizens also do.

According to Easter, Missouri citizens have amended the state constitution 31 times, while the Legislature has amended it 134 times.

"That's why citizen initiatives rank highest in voter confidence for how to make laws, because it's the people governing ourselves," Easter said.

She said there are "largely" three steps to a citizen initiative — writing an amendment, collecting signatures and getting voters to vote "yes". Easter said 300,000 Missouri signatures would need to be gathered to place something on a ballot.

According to Easter, there have been 17 proposed bills introduced in the 2025 Missouri legislative session that would undermine the citizen initiative process.

"Together we can ban politicians from interfering with initiatives that have already been passed, attacking the citizens ability to use the initiative and for manipulating language on ballots," Easter said. "We need to make sure all voters are represented by the policy and included in the process."

Attendees at the town hall were given a survey, which said the organization wants to ensure that ballot language is "clear and honest" and keep citizens' power to help make laws that affect them and their families.

The survey was available only to the people at the town hall.

Respect Voters Coalition will have another meeting in Cape Girardeau, but the date has not been determined.