Abortion rights, sports betting to appear on Missouri’s Nov. 5 ballot

By St. Louis Post-Dispatch via My Courier-Tribune

JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri voters will decide whether to overturn the state’s abortion ban at the ballot box this Nov. 5, the secretary of state’s office announced Tuesday.

The elections office said organizers submitted more than enough signatures from six of the state’s eight congressional districts to place a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot.

The announcement by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft sets up a high-stakes fight this fall between pro-abortion rights activists and abortion opponents over the future of the procedure in the state.

In addition to the abortion measure, which has already generated national attention, Missourians will also weigh in on sports wagering, as well as a $15 minimum wage and guaranteed paid sick time this fall, the Republican-controlled secretary of state’s office confirmed.

A fourth petition to allow a new casino at the Lake of the Ozarks failed to win enough support to make the ballot.

Currently, abortions in Missouri are only allowed in medical emergencies — the result of a state “trigger law” that took effect in 2022 after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.

The abortion measure would create a right to abortion until after the point of fetal viability, unless the life or health of the mother is at risk. Fetal viability can be reached at 24 weeks of pregnancy.

The abortion question only made Missouri’s Nov. 5 ballot after months of legal wrangling last year and an abbreviated signature-gathering campaign this winter and spring.

Activists launched a signature gathering effort in January to place the question on the ballot, following numerous court fights over the wording voters would see on the ballot.

The ballot wording, as approved by a Missouri appeals court, asks if voters want to amend the 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.
• Allow abortion to be restricted or banned after Fetal Viability except to protect the life or health of the woman.

Sports wagering

The state’s six professional sports teams — the St. Louis Cardinals, St. Louis Blues, St. Louis City SC, Kansas City Chiefs, Kansas City Royals and the Kansas City Current — are all backing the legal sports betting question, along with sports-betting giants FanDuel and DraftKings.

The ballot measure would set the sports betting tax rate at 10% and allow Missouri’s professional sports franchises and the state’s 13 casinos to operate retail and online sports betting.

Part of the wagering tax would go to “institutions of elementary, secondary and higher education” and a $5 million “compulsive gambling prevention fund.”

Minimum wage

A proposition that would raise Missouri’s minimum wage from $12 an hour to $15 an hour by 2026 also submitted enough signatures to make the Nov. 5 ballot, officials said.

The measure would also guarantee paid sick time to workers. Employers would need to provide one hour of sick time for every 30 hours an employee works.

The proposed law would require employers to honor use of up to 40 hours of accumulated paid sick time per year if a company has fewer than 15 employees, or 56 hours per year if there are 15 or more employees.

The earned sick time off requirement wouldn’t apply to government workers, employees of retail or service companies with less than $500,000 in annual business, offenders within the Missouri Department of Corrections, babysitters, golf caddies and others, according to the proposal.

Employers would be free to offer earned paid sick leave plans “more generous” that the minimum outlined in the proposed law.