JEFFERSON CITY — A campaign to legalize abortion in Missouri will formally kick off its signature-gathering effort on Tuesday, one that could come down to the wire.
Missourians for Constitutional Freedom as of Tuesday will have 90 days to collect the roughly 185,000 signatures that could be necessary to make the ballot — or more than 2,000 valid signatures per day.
Past successful signature-gathering efforts — such as the 2020 campaign to expand Medicaid and the 2022 recreational marijuana — had begun canvassing earlier in the election cycle.
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But the abortion campaign could be the beneficiary of increased public attention, with the issue rising to the top of the national discourse following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 decision allowing states to outlaw the procedure.
“That campaign in particular probably has the easiest path of any initiatives out there currently,†John Payne, who managed the 2022 marijuana legalization campaign, said Monday of the abortion campaign. “That’s because they are going to be able to tap into a massive pool of volunteers to supplement their paid efforts.â€
Missourians for Constitutional Freedom announced Friday it had raised more than $3 million for its campaign from over 2,200 individual donations, and had signed up more than 5,000 volunteers.
The campaign said in a news release it would hold events “across the state†Tuesday to launch signature-gathering efforts.
The campaign said “to prioritize the safety and privacy of our speakers and attendees,†only events in St. Louis and Kansas City on Tuesday were open to the media. The campaign didn’t initially release the locations of any events to the press.
In Missouri, where a near-total ban took effect in 2022, abortion-rights supporters have been encouraged by the results of votes in other states. Ohio voters in November enshrined abortion rights in that state’s constitution.
The Missouri ballot question would create a constitutional right to an abortion. It would allow the state to ban abortion after the point of fetal viability unless the procedure is necessary to protect the life or health of the mother.
“The outpouring of support that we are seeing from Missourians to join the campaign by volunteering, donating, and staying informed confirms what we already knew — Missourians are ready to fight back against political overreach and end Missouri’s abortion ban,†Mallory Schwarz, spokeswoman for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, said in a statement.
“But this is a marathon — not a sprint — and the fight for freedom to make our own decisions about our reproductive health care will depend on continued support for this Missouri-grown effort,†she said Friday.
While voters across Missouri may sign on to an initiative petition to legalize abortion, due to state law, canvassers could largely steer clear of two of the state’s eight congressional districts.
Constitutional amendment campaigns must submit signatures from 8% of legal voters in six of the state’s eight congressional districts to make the ballot.
It’s an established practice by initiative petition campaigns to conserve resources by targeting only districts necessary to make the ballot.
For recent initiative campaigns, that has meant avoiding some of the state’s most rural districts.
For example, the campaign to legalize recreational marijuana in 2022 turned in far fewer signatures than required in the 4th Congressional District, which included all of liberal Columbia but also broad swaths of rural southwest and central Missouri; and the sprawling 8th District, from south-central Missouri, to Jefferson County and the Bootheel.
“The biggest factor is really population density,†Payne said. “All the congressional districts have equal population at the time of redistricting, but the more spread out they are geographically, the more challenging they become for signature collection.
“The more people there are in a given area, the more opportunities you have to get signatures quickly,†Payne said.
Schwarz hasn’t said which congressional districts Missourians for Constitutional Freedom would target in its canvassing campaign.
But, if the campaign avoids the 4th and 8th congressional districts, the minimum number of signatures needed would be nearly 185,000.
With the string of progressive wins at the ballot box via initiative petition, Republicans in the General Assembly have sought to make it more difficult to alter the Missouri Constitution.
Legislators have discussed requiring signatures from all eight of the state’s congressional districts before a question makes the ballot.
But most of the debate this year has focused on raising the percentage required for passage up from a simple majority, or requiring a “concurrent†majority of congressional or state legislative districts for passage, similar to Electoral College.
A concurrent majority plan cleared a Senate committee last week and this week was awaiting debate on the Senate floor. The full House also had yet to take action on initiative petition changes as of this week.
Republican proponents of the changes want a “concurrent†majority on the August ballot, hoping that it would make a November ballot question on abortion more difficult to approve.