The St. Louis American: “Prop R coalition turns in over 38,000 petition signatures”

“‘Independent commissions — not bipartisan commissions but independent — commissions are the gold standard for ensuring a transparent, citizen-driven redistricting process,’ said Benjamin Singer, executive director of Show Me Integrity, the organization spearheading Reform St. Louis.

‘Proposition R started as a dream of this coalition a few months ago,’ [Jami Cox, Reform St. Louis Policy Chair] said. ‘And for the last few months, we have been working hard gathering opinions and voices of Saint Louisans on how we can make a better government. Proposition R has been built on a grassroots coalition through polling and testing and making sure we have citizen-led some opportunities and coalition meetings to hear how people feel about this policy.’

Proposition R includes a host of reforms, such as decreasing the influence of big money by stopping aldermanic conflicts of interest; ensuring ward boundary maps drawn by an equitably selected independent citizen commission; preventing the Board of Aldermen from overriding the will of voters; and ensuring the public knows if an alderman has a personal conflict of interest in something they are voting on.”

Read the full story on its original platform here.