Bob Johnson for the Kansas City Star: “I thought my fellow Republicans learned this lesson: Missourians deserve petition power”

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, when I served as a senator in the Missouri General Assembly, my fellow Republican legislators and I understood the importance of the citizen initiative process and the need to defend it.

During my final term in the Missouri Senate, Democratic lawmakers tried to gut the petition process in retaliation for Republicans using it to pass the Hancock Amendment. Gov. John Ashcroft, with support from fellow Republicans, vetoed these attacks, saying the General Assembly “should be reluctant to enact legislation which places any impediments on the initiative power.”

With more than 20 bills filed this session — all by Republicans — seeking to block state residents from using the petition process, it seems members of the majority party have switched their position entirely, opting to follow the Democrats’ lead instead of the former governor’s.

The citizen initiative process is a sacred and trusted constitutional right that Missourians have freely exercised for more than a century. It gives voters the freedom to determine the laws that govern us and serves as a fundamental check and balance on the legislature. Republicans should reject these legislative attempts to regulate the people’s right to take action.

- Bob Johnson, Lee’s Summit

Read this Letter to the Editor on the Kansas City Star website here.