Crowds rally in favor of citizen petition lawsuit at Missouri Supreme Court
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Missouri Supreme Court has still not made its decision after hearing arguments on a Respect Missouri Voters lawsuit against Secretary of State Denny Hoskins.
The lawsuit focuses on Hoskins’ rights to approve or deny citizen-led initiative petitions.
Three Missouri residents, including Jamie Howard of Jefferson City, filed the case against Secretary of State Denny Hoskins. The group submitted a proposal for Amendment 6, a citizen-petition-focused initiative, to Hoskins in July 2025. Hoskins approved the petition and certified its official ballot title, prompting residents to begin collecting signatures. Over 330,000 signatures were collected by May 2026.
If put on the 2026 ballot, Amendment 6 would:
Require ballot summaries to be clear and accurate Require at least 80% approval instead of over 50% from both the Missouri House and Senate to change or repeal a voter-approved initiative petition Limit the Legislature’s ability to change the initiative and referendum process
The 80% approval rate to repeal current citizen-led petitions passed since Jan. 1, 2010. This includes measures like Missouri’s approval of recreational marijuana or expansion of Medicaid. The state claims this is where the single-subject rule for petitions is violated, since previous citizen-led measures span several topics.
On Aug. 4 Hoskins also issued a certificate of insufficiency on the signatures, claiming the ballot violated the state’s single-subject rule.
“I made a promise to voters on the campaign trail, 2024, and one of those promises was, that I would only allow a single subject of ballot in issues on the ballot,” Hoskins said.
State attorney Kathleen Hunker added in court that Respect Missouri Voters failed to inform voters of the “full scope” of the ballot measure. She also warned the decision would be too difficult on future legislation, ignoring the right of the General Assembly to change their mind.
The group argues that Amendment 6 does not violate the single-subject rule, that Hoskins didn’t have the authority to decide the petition was insufficient, and that since no one challenged the ballot, Hoskins shouldn’t have been able to call it insufficient.
Respect Missouri Voters’ attorney Chuck Hatfield argued that Hoskins’ work is statutory, and his reach is limited to counting signatures, not deciding on a measure’s constitutionality.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this initiative, it should go on the ballot,” Hatfield said. “Now, they can argue that it’s too much democracy and people ought to vote no, and that’s fine”
A Cole County Judge ruled in favor of the state in August, claiming that Amendment 6 was overly broad and violated the single-subject rule.
Following the hearing, Respect Missouri Voter members remained confident in the group’s arguments.
“We need to pass Amendment 6 to make sure that it’s not so easy for politicians to overturn the things that we’ve already voted on,” Respect Missouri Voter volunteer Kate Catanio said.
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