Missouri voters block GOP-led effort to raise bar to pass constitutional amendments

The push came after progressives in the solidly Republican state found success with ballot measures related to abortion, health care and the minimum wage.

Missouri voters blocked a Republican-led effort to raise the bar for passing citizen-led constitutional amendments, NBC News projects.

Under current state law, such ballot measures require a simple statewide majority for passage, a process that has been used in recent years to grant abortion rights, expand Medicaid and legalize marijuana.

But Amendment 4 would have required citizen-led ballot initiatives to win a majority in each of Missouri’s congressional districts, boundaries that are drawn by state lawmakers. Other ballot measures, like those referred from the Legislature, would not have been subject to this higher bar.

It would have created “the strictest passage threshold in the country for citizen-initiated ballot measures only,” according to Hannah Ledford, the deputy director of the Fairness Project, a group that supports citizen initiative processes. She added it could have left Missouri’s direct democracy process “functionally dead.”

Missouri is one of 26 states that allows voters to legislate directly by petitioning to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot.