Missouri Republicans Warned About Amendment 6. Days Later, 10 Petitions to Remake the State Showed Up.

Missouri voters passed Amendment 6 on Nov. 3 to make citizen-led laws harder for the legislature to undo. Six days later, ten new petitions to rewrite the state constitution landed at the secretary of state’s office, and Missouri Republicans say it’s exactly what they warned would happen.

The petitions, numbered 2028-001 through 2028-010, were all submitted on Nov. 9, according to the secretary of state’s official list for the 2028 cycle. All ten list the same contact person, Winston Apple, and no organization. Every one of them is now marked “Accepting Comments,” the first step before anyone can start collecting signatures.

The Missouri Republican Party laid out what the ten would do in a long post on 𝕏 Wednesday night, under a blunt headline: “MISSOURI, THIS IS WHAT WE WARNED YOU ABOUT.”

Ten ways to rewrite a state

The list reads like a wish list for tearing up how Missouri governs itself. According to the party’s breakdown, the first would remove the constitution’s definition of marriage as between a man and a woman and add protections for gender identity and sexual orientation, including allowing minors to get transition care with a parent’s or guardian’s consent.

The second would let citizens hand their legislative vote to a single lawmaker by proxy, so one legislator could end up casting thousands of votes while another casts a handful. The third would repeal several constitutional provisions and restructure the legislature, including getting rid of legislative primaries. The fourth would let people sign initiative petitions electronically instead of on paper.

The fifth would strip the governor’s power to issue pardons, commutations and reprieves and replace the line-item veto with recommendations lawmakers would have to approve. The sixth brings in ranked-choice voting for races with more than two candidates. The seventh abolishes primaries for congressional and state legislative races and moves to statewide party lists.

The last three are about money. One creates a state-run health care cooperative paid for with income-based membership fees. Another puts a new tax on long-term capital gains and dividends to pay for a government renewable energy program. The tenth sets up a state housing program, funded with government bonds, that would sell homes at cost with no down payment and no interest over 30 to 40 years.

“These aren’t minor policy adjustments,” the party wrote. “These proposals would fundamentally reshape Missouri’s government, elections, and economy.” It added: “Missouri’s Constitution is not a playground for radical political experiments.”

Why Amendment 6 raises the stakes

Missouri has had fights over citizen initiatives for years, but the rules just changed in a big way. Under Amendment 6, lawmakers now need 80% support in both the House and the Senate before they can even propose changing or repealing a measure voters passed through an initiative, ProPublica reported. Even then, voters have to sign off in a statewide election. The protection reaches back to measures approved since 2010.

That’s the heart of the Republican warning. Before, if voters passed something the legislature thought was a mistake, lawmakers could go back and fix it with a regular majority. Now, anything that gets through on a simple statewide vote is close to locked in. Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, one of Amendment 6’s most prominent opponents, told ProPublica that it would cut the legislature “off at the knees.”

Supporters see it the other way. The Respect Missouri Voters campaign behind Amendment 6 argued that lawmakers kept overriding the will of voters on issues from Medicaid expansion to paid sick leave, and voters agreed by a decisive margin. Earlier this year, voters had also rejected a legislative proposal to make initiatives harder to pass in the first place.

Conservatives want a plan, not just a warning

Not every Republican was satisfied with an I-told-you-so. State Sen. Nick Schroer quoted the party’s post within about an hour and went straight to the next question. “Now, where is the plan to stop this crap?” he wrote. “It’s great to say I told you so, but now it’s time to educate the people of Missouri and stop this immediately.”

That’s a fair point from the right. Warnings didn’t stop Amendment 6, and they won’t stop these petitions either. What stops a ballot measure in Missouri now is a legal flaw in the paperwork, a signature drive that runs out of steam, or voters saying no at the polls, because the legislature’s usual safety net just got a lot thinner.

A long road from filing to ballot

It’s worth keeping the timeline in mind. Filing a petition in Missouri is the easy part. Each draft goes through a state review and public comment period, and the secretary of state has to approve it to circulate. Only then can backers start gathering the tens of thousands of voter signatures needed to make the 2028 ballot.

Plenty of petitions never get that far. The state’s own status labels include “Rejected” for proposals that fail legal requirements and “Withdrawn” for ones their backers pull. A lone filer with no organization behind him, as the state list shows for all ten, also faces a steep climb raising the money and volunteers that a statewide signature drive takes.

Still, Republicans have reason to take this seriously. In a state where voters just told the legislature to back off, the 2028 ballot could be where Missouri’s biggest fights get decided. That’s what the party is trying to get ahead of now, two years early.