Missouri voters rejected major Republican priorities on Tuesday as proposals to eliminate the income tax and change the way initiative petition majorities are counted lost by large margins across the state, according to a August 4 report.
Amendment 4 lost 80% to 20%, while Amendment 5 lost 83% to 16%. All eight of Missouri's congressional districts opposed both Amendment 4 and Amendment 5.
Amendment 4 would have required amendments to achieve a majority in every congressional district in order to pass. Scott Charton, a spokesman for the Missouri Realtor-funded opposition groups Missourians for Fair Governance and Missourians for Fair Taxation, said the outcome validated the need for a strong initiative process and taxpayer rights.
In contrast, two other statewide ballot questions, Amendment 1 and Amendment 2, passed easily, with each receiving over 75% of the vote. Amendment 1 extends the 0.1% sales tax for state parks and soil and water conservation, while Amendment 2 requires all county tax assessors in Jackson County to be elected officials.
Governor Mike Kehoe expressed optimism about the chances for both amendments after voting Tuesday morning, stating that defeat was not the end for the project to eliminate the income tax embodied in Amendment 5. Kehoe said he would continue to seek ways to make the burden of government less on Missouri families and expressed his intent to continue seeking changes to the state's tax structure.
The defeat of both amendments was engineered by the Missouri Association of Realtors alongside coalitions of activist groups from the left and right. The Realtors spearheaded the coalitions that defeated the two amendments, having previously spent millions in 2010 and 2016 to pass constitutional amendments regarding real estate taxes and sales tax expansion.
