Everything you need to know about Missouri’s most controversial 2024 ballot issues

The 2024 election brings quite the packed ballot in Missouri, where voters across the state will weigh in on not only president, governor and a Senate seat , but also six different ballot issues.

Keeping them all straight and understanding the impact of your vote can be tricky, so The Star has been explaining the various issues for weeks and putting together detailed Q&As to help voters get informed. We also partnered with the KC Media Collective on voter guides to candidates on both the Missouri side and in Kansas .

Four of the ballot issues are particularly contentious, involving sports gambling, abortion rights, voting regulations and minimum wage for workers, so we’ll cover those in more depth.

Here’s your comprehensive guide to the ballot issues and what your vote means:

Which amendment is which on my Missouri ballot?

With such a packed lineup of votes, it can be tricky to keep track of which issue corresponds to which question on your ballot.

Two pieces of context that might help:

• There is no Amendment 1 or 4 on the Nov. 5 ballot. That’s because Missouri voted on those amendments in August, which is considered part of the same election cycle. Amendment 1 on tax exemptions for child care facilities failed, while Amendment 4 to require Kansas City to fund its police to a certain level passed.
• And one of the ballot issues up for a vote is not an amendment, but a proposition . That’s because that Proposition A — to increase the minimum wage — is not modifying the Missouri constitution, just Missouri law. Supporters had to meet a lower threshold of signatures to get it on the ballot than the constitutional amendments. But all of the issues just require a simple majority to pass at the state level.

Here’s the full list of the five amendments and one proposition up for a vote this election:

• Amendment 2 would legalize sports betting in Missouri for people 21 or older and impose a 10% tax on wagers that would fund regulation of sports wagering, resources for gambling addiction and education.
• Amendment 3 would enshrine reproductive health care rights , including the right to abortion and birth control, in the Missouri Constitution, reversing the state’s near-total ban on abortion implemented after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Abortion could still be restricted or banned by the state after fetal viability.
• Amendment 5 would allow a gambling boat to operate in the Osage River between Jefferson City and the Lake of the Ozarks, raising the limits by one on how many of the floating casinos can operate in the state.
  
  
• Amendment 6 would implement new court fees for people going through the legal system to fund the pensions of sheriffs and prosecuting attorneys. The fees are limited by state law to $3 for sheriff pension funds and $4 for prosecuting attorney pension funds per defendant. The original ballot language was rewritten by court order in September after it was found to be misleading.
• Amendment 7 would ban ranked-choice voting and open primaries everywhere except St. Louis and amend the constitution to specify that only U.S. citizens can vote, which is already illegal under U.S. law.
• Proposition A would raise Missouri’s minimum wage and require most employers to provide paid sick leave. If the proposition passes, the base pay for workers would increase from $12.30 an hour to $13.75 an hour on Jan. 1, 2025, and to $15 an hour in January 2026. Proposition A would also require employers with 15 or more workers to provide one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked.

What would Missouri’s Amendment 2 on sports gambling do?

Missouri voters will decide if they want to legalize sports gambling in the state when they vote on Amendment 2 on the Nov. 5 ballot.

In May, a pro-sports gambling coalition submitted 340,000 signatures to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot, with language written by the organization.

The campaign, called Winning for Missouri Education, is backed by all major Missouri professional teams — including the Kansas City Chiefs, Royals and Current — and received large donations from mobile sports betting operators FanDuel and DraftKings.

How it will appear on your ballot

‘Do you want to amend the Missouri Constitution to:

• allow the Missouri Gaming Commission to regulate licensed sports wagering including online sports betting, gambling boats, professional sports betting districts and mobile licenses to sports betting operators;
• restrict sports betting to individuals physically located in the state and over the age of 21;
• allow license fees prescribed by the Commission and a 10% wagering tax on revenues received to be appropriated for education after expenses incurred by the Commission and required funding of the Compulsive Gambling Prevention Fund; and
• allow for the general assembly to enact laws consistent with this amendment?

State governmental entities estimate onetime costs of $660,000, ongoing annual costs of at least $5.2 million, and initial license fee revenue of $11.75 million. Because the proposal allows for deductions against sports gaming revenues, they estimate unknown tax revenue ranging from $0 to $28.9 million annually. Local governments estimate unknown revenue.”

What your vote means

Voting “yes” would allow people in Missouri over the age of 21 to place bets on professional and collegiate sports games in casinos and online starting in December 2025 at the latest. The state of Missouri would impose a 10% tax on sports betting, with the first $5 million allocated to a fund intended to help prevent compulsive gambling. The remaining money would go to K-12 schools and higher education.

Voting “no” would keep Missouri sports betting laws the same as they have been since the 1990s, prohibiting state-sanctioned sports gambling.

Potential revenue estimates

Supporters and opponents disagree on how many tax dollars sports betting could bring to Missouri. The ballot language states that tax revenue could range from $0 to $28.9 million, according to an analysis by the Missouri State Auditor’s Office, an independent watchdog agency.

A report commissioned by the pro-sports betting campaign stated $105 million could go to Missouri education in the first five years of legal sports gambling.

Both the Missouri Department of Revenue and Gambling Commission said in the fiscal note they did not anticipate the gambling operators will pay any gaming taxes, because of the deductions they could claim for the cost of free play and promotional credits. Winning for Missouri Education has refuted those estimates, pointing to a 25% cap on deductions included in the amendment.

If the taxes are paid into education, it’s not clear how they will be used. There is no state fund specified in the amendment.

That lack of specificity implies that the tax revenue generated from sports betting could go to the state’s general revenue fund, which lawmakers could use for other government services, according to the Missouri School Boards’ Association, which has not taken an official stance on the measure.

Arguments for and against

The Missouri AFL-CIO, a federation of unions that represents teachers and casino workers, among other industries, advised its members to vote no on the amendment.

Jason Roberts, the president of the Kansas City teachers union, AFT 691, said he thinks that the pro-sports gambling organization is “making promises that can’t be fulfilled” in advertising education funding.

In addition, a growing number of academic studies suggest that sports betting is worse for household finances than other types of gambling and the accessible online format helps fuel gambling addictions.

Jack Cardetti, spokesperson for Winning for Missouri Education, said that the Show Me State is missing out on tax dollars when gamblers travel out of state to bet on games.

Cardetti said the problem with Kansas’ legal sports betting is that they did not have a cap on deductions, while Missouri’s amendment has a 25% cap.

What does Amendment 3 on abortion rights mean?

Missouri has effectively banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, “except in cases of medical emergency,” since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

But that could change with Amendment 3, Missouri’s ballot initiative up for a vote in the Nov. 5, 2024, election.

How it will appear on your ballot

“Do you want to amend the Missouri Constitution to:

• establish a right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptives, with any governmental interference of that right presumed invalid;
• remove Missouri’s ban on abortion;
• allow regulation of reproductive health care to improve or maintain the health of the patient;
• require the government not to discriminate, in government programs, funding, and other activities, against persons providing or obtaining reproductive health care; and
• allow abortion to be restricted or banned after Fetal Viability except to protect the life or health of the woman?

State governmental entities estimate no costs or savings, but unknown impact. Local governmental entities estimate costs of at least $51,000 annually in reduced tax revenues. Opponents estimate a potentially significant loss to state revenue.”

What your vote means

A “yes” vote supports restoring the right to abortion in Missouri and enshrining protections for reproductive health care in the state’s constitution, making them harder to overturn through legislation in the future. The government could still restrict abortion after the point of fetal viability.

A “no” vote opposes the amendment, keeping the state’s near-total ban on abortion intact.

Potential cost estimates

The financial impact of the amendment has been a point of debate for months, but ultimately only the $51,000 estimate from one county appears on the ballot, based on abortions recorded in 2020 and that county’s tax revenue per capita.

“Greene County estimated that 135 future citizens would be lost in that county annually due to legalizing abortion in Missouri,” state Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote. “It estimated nearly $51,000 in lost revenue annually to that county based on the reduced population base.”

Supporters of the amendment say it would cost governments nothing to legalize abortions, while some opponents made estimates in the billions of dollars.

Defining fetal viability

Legally and medically, there is no set time period at which a pregnancy reaches fetal viability, so the exact point at which Missouri legislators could restrict abortion if the amendment passes is not yet clear.

How Missouri defines fetal viability — generally the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb — will be key to determining future legislation, and likely court decisions. Lawmakers could ban abortion after viability as long as they include exceptions for the life, physical or mental health of the pregnant person.

Amendment 3 defines fetal viability as the point in pregnancy “when, in the good faith judgment of a treating health care professional and based on the particular facts of the case, there is a significant likelihood of the fetus’s sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.”

Medical providers broadly caution that viability is a fluid concept that depends on many factors . But infants do tend to have survival rates above 50% if they’re born at 24 weeks or beyond, research has shown.

Restoring abortion access

For all of the excitement, the actual process and timeline of restoring abortion access remains incredibly murky.

The amendment, which would take effect 30 days after the vote, would almost certainly kick off a series of legal battles that would decide how soon those protections could actually allow abortion access.

Even before it banned nearly all abortions in 2022, Missouri had for decades enacted restrictions on providers that whittled down access to just one clinic by 2019. Those laws, as well as the abortion ban itself, would likely have to be struck down in court if the amendment passes.

So abortion will not return to Missouri overnight, interviews with experts indicate. But the passage of Amendment 3 would offer a pathway to tear down the ban and years of restrictions, allowing providers to eventually offer the procedure again.

What does Amendment 7 on voting rights do?

Amendment 7 would clarify and modify the way elections are run in the state, but it’s more likely to affect elections far down the road rather than the immediate future.

The amendment would have three main impacts:

• It would clarify that only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote in Missouri elections — which is already the case under state and federal law.
• It would ban ranked-choice voting in the state, with an exception for St. Louis’ nonpartisan citywide primary races, which already use this method.
• It would allow only one candidate per party to win a primary and proceed to the general election, again with an exception for St. Louis’ nonpartisan primaries.

How it will appear on your ballot

“Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:

• Make the Constitution consistent with state law by only allowing citizens of the United States to vote;
• Prohibit the ranking of candidates by limiting voters to a single vote per candidate or issue; and
• Require the plurality winner of a political party primary to be the single candidate at a general election?

State and local governmental entities estimate no costs or savings.”

What your vote means

A “yes” vote supports changing Missouri’s constitution in several ways that wouldn’t have a significant impact on the way voting currently works in the state — but would prevent certain changes to the electoral system from being made in the future.

A “no” vote opposes these changes to Missouri’s constitution. If the amendment fails, nothing would immediately change about the way elections are run in Missouri. But it could allow for state or local officials to introduce ranked-choice voting or mixed-party primary elections in the future.

Arguments for and against

Amendment 7 is generally supported by conservatives and opposed by progressives.

Its supporters include Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe, who is the state’s Republican candidate for governor, as well as Attorney General Andrew Bailey and state Treasurer Vivek Malek.

“We need Amendment 7 to secure our elections in Missouri,” Kehoe said, according to the conservative political group Liberty Alliance USA.

Opponents of Amendment 7 include Missouri Rep. Eric Woods, the ranked choice voting group Better Ballot KC and Kansas City Councilmember Wes Rogers, who represents the 2nd District.

“What makes this amendment especially devious is that there’s actually no need for it. Noncitizen voting is already illegal in Missouri elections,” Rogers wrote in an Oct. 13 guest column in The Star. “The amendment would also prohibit two other things we don’t currently have in Missouri: ranked choice voting and open primaries.”

What does MO’s Proposition A on workers’ rights mean?

Missouri voters will decide this fall if they want to increase the minimum wage and let workers earn paid sick days.

In May, a campaign called Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages, submitted 210,000 signatures to get the proposed law on the ballot.

The question has two parts, affecting Missouri’s minimum wage and paid sick leave policy.

The ballot measure would raise the minimum wage gradually. It would grow to $13.75 an hour on Jan. 1, 2025 and to $15 an hour in January 2026. The wage would then be adjusted annually based on inflation. Governments, school districts and educational institutions would be exempt from the increases.

Proposition A would also require employers with 15 or more workers to provide one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked. According to the proposal, the earned sick leave provision would not apply to government workers, retail or service employees who work for a business that makes less than $500,000 a year, people who are incarcerated, golf caddies and babysitters, among others.

How it will appear on your ballot

“Do you want to amend Missouri law to:

• increase minimum wage January 1, 2025 to $13.75 per hour, increasing $1.25 per hour each year until 2026, when the minimum wage would be $15.00 per hour;

• adjust minimum wage based on changes in the Consumer Price Index each January beginning in 2027;

• require all employers to provide one hour of paid sick leave for every thirty hours worked;

• allow the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations to provide oversight and enforcement; and

• exempt governmental entities, political subdivisions, school districts and education institutions?

State governmental entities estimate one-time costs ranging from $0 to $53,000, and ongoing costs ranging from $0 to at least $256,000 per year by 2027. State and local government tax revenue could change by an unknown annual amount depending on business decisions.”

What your vote means

A “yes” vote supports raising the minimum wage beginning in January 2025 and requiring many employers to provide paid sick time.

A “no” vote opposes the proposition, meaning Missouri’s minimum wage will increase slightly in 2025 and beyond, in line with the Consumer Price Index. The minimum wage is currently $12.30, a 30-cent increase from 2023.

Arguments for and against

Richard von Glahn, campaign manager for Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages , said the current minimum wage is not enough. Currently, a full-time worker can make as little as $492 a week.

“Full time workers deserve better than poverty. But right now, unfortunately, with the minimum wage that we have, that’s what we get,” he said.

Over 500 small business owners from across the state signed a letter of support for Proposition A. The campaign’s website lists over 130 Missouri organizations that support the measure, including unions, religious groups and health organizations.

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce opposes the proposed law. Kara Corches, interim president & CEO, said that higher minimum wage would cause the cost of goods to increase.

“We are in a very tight labor market. If an employee does not believe their wages are competitive, then they likely can go somewhere else and find a wage that does meet their needs,” Corches said.

Corches said the Missouri Chamber of Commerce generally encourages its members to offer competitive wages and benefits, “but the approach to mandate an amount, and paid sick leave, just isn’t the right approach in our free enterprise system,” she said.

Potential impacts of Proposition A

Economists have long debated the effects of raising the minimum wage on inflation, unemployment and businesses closing. Many scholars believe that those negative effects are relatively small.

A 2021 study by Jeffrey Clemens of the University of California at San Diego found that even though raising the minimum wage causes little to no job losses, workers can end up with stricter schedules, fewer health benefits or training, and higher costs for goods.

Missouri’s cashiers, restaurant hosts, dishwashers and fast food workers are some of the most likely to receive raises under Proposition A. At least ¾ of these workers were paid less than $15 an hour in 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

How Missouri wages compare

Missouri’s minimum wage is currently $12.30 an hour. Voters approved the last two minimum wage increases in 2018 and 2006.

Nearby, Iowa and Kansas employers follow the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, while Arkansas’s minimum wage is $11 and Illinois is $14.

Missouri does not have a statewide paid sick leave policy, though 15 states , including Colorado and Minnesota, have paid leave laws. As of March 2024, 19% of American workers did not have paid sick days, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report. For those in the lowest quarter of wages, 40% went without paid sick time.

Have more questions about the upcoming elections or Missouri’s ballot issues? Email kcq@kcstar.com .