CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

How Anti-Worker Lawmakers Are Trying to Muzzle Voters

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Missouri’s Republican lawmakers did exactly what their corporate patrons demanded in 2017 and rammed through legislation intended to prevent working people from banding together to fight for better lives.

This gift to the ultra-wealthy prompted a furious backlash, with members of the United Steelworkers (USW) and other Missourians turning out in force in 2018 to pass a citizen-driven referendum overturning the odious law.

You might have expected the corporate loyalists in the General Assembly to be humbled by this stinging rebuke. You might even have thought that the errant legislators would correct course and start doing their jobs the right way after being dealt such a blow.

But no, they’re now doubling down and trying to rig the system so that it’s much more difficult for the pesky voters to weigh in from now on. They want to raise the threshold for passing a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment, from a majority of votes statewide to a majority in every single congressional district, meaning a tiny group of naysayers could scuttle a proposal favored by everyone else.

Thwarting referendums in this way means usurping the will of the people, but it’s all just another day at the office for a growing number of anti-worker lawmakers around the country. Their message to voters: Shut your........

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