And of course it's a little messy.

This week we moved from soccer pitches to polling places.

The next big competition in Kansas City isn't on the field.

It's at the ballot box.

The headlines may be focused on the race for Congress and the battle to be Kansas's next government.

But look further down the ballot and you'll find some seismic issues awaiting your verdict.

Should Kansas phonies directly elect the Supreme Court justices?

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and ACLU head Micah Kubek face off in our studio, and we unpack Missouri's four statewide constitutional questions, from scrapping the income tax to rewriting Missouri's century old initiative petition process.

Every year, politicians place their money, and every year they treat my piggy bank like hogs and trough.

This is a power grab.

That's mule poop.

And here in Kansas City, five ballot questions come with a staggering $1.7 billion price tag from water and sewer upgrades to convention center improvements.

Fortunately, so far, we haven't had a lot of people turn away because of the condition of the nature center.

But I think I think we're on the cusp of that.

In this bumper hour-long edition of the program, we cut through the ads and campaign slogans to bring you the pros and cons, tradeoffs and consequences of a ballot.

Bigger than you think.

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of Bob and Marlese Gourley, the Francis Family Foundation, through the discretionary fund of David and Janice Francis, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Nick Haines.

Glad you could join us.

We were in election mode this week while Kansas City is being distracted by the World Cup.

Primary election day has snuck up on us.

In fact, advance voting is already underway.

And prepare for a lengthy ballot.

Now, depending on your zip code, you could be deciding as many as ten issue questions.

Most of those are on the Missouri side, but we start in Kansas, where voters have a rare statewide amendment on the ballot that would allow for the direct election of Supreme Court justices.

Have you seen the ads?

Our democracy is strongest when voters elect our leaders.

For 100 years, Kansans voted for our Supreme Court judges.

But today, insiders and politicians pick our Supreme Court.

Voters have no voice at all.

The right to vote amendment on the August ballot puts voters back in charge.

Kansans will get to vote on the Supreme Court judges.

Your vote and your voice matter.

Vote yes on the right to vote amendment.

Politicians make promises.

Their donors make demands.

And in Kansas, billionaire political donors may soon demand a court they can control.

Right now, the Kansas Supreme Court is fair and impartial because judges are qualified and voter approved.

But if this ballot measure passes, impartial judges will become politicians for sale.

Billionaires will bankroll campaigns and then push whatever laws they want.

Vote no.

The Kansas Supreme Court is not for sale.

Well, those are the ads now.

Hear the arguments from both sides encouraging you to vote yes.

As Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, who before entering elected politics was a constitutional law professor at UMKC, Micah Kubik is chair of the Vote No campaign.

Kansas United for Impartial Courts.

He is the executive director of the ACLU of Kansas.

We don't Kris Kobach directly elect members of the United States Supreme Court.

Why should Kansas vote for the seven who sit on this?

Well, you know, there are three different models out there in across the United States.

There's the federal model where you have the executive free to put who nominate whomever he wants or she wants, and then you have the Senate approved.

You have the election.

Direct selection of Supreme Court justices, which is the most common system.

22 of the 50 states do that.

And then you have what's called the Missouri model, which Kansas now has.

And that's where you have a commission of people who they choose, who the three choices are that are sent to the governor, and the governor's forced effectively to choose one of those three.

And the system we have now has failed.

We've had it since 1958.

And the Kansas Supreme Court is among the most overturned state supreme courts in the country.

When those cases go to the U.S.

Supreme Court, seven out of eight times, they get flipped.

87.5% failure rate when it goes to the U.S.

Supreme Court.

So can you point to one specific case that you feel the Supreme Court has failed?

Yeah, I'll give you a great one.

The Carr brothers case, this was the infamous Carr brothers multiple murder about 20 years ago in Wichita.

Just a horrific murder.

They were sentenced to death.

And the Kansas Supreme Court bent over backwards to try to overturn the death penalty.

Coming up with really bizarre Eighth Amendment arguments.

So bizarre that the U.S.

Supreme Court overruled the Kansas Supreme Court 8 to 1, almost unanimous, and the following words, quoting from the U.S.

Supreme Court, the reasoning of the Kansas court was un, quote, untenable, based only on the most extravagant speculation and beyond reason beyond reason, end quote.

Those are very rare words.

As a person who taught constitutional law for 15 years at KC.

I've read a lot of U.S.

Supreme Court opinions.

You rarely hear the U.S.

Supreme Court speak so derogatorily about a state Supreme court, but they have spoken that way about the Kansas Supreme.

So we have 22 states that directly elect their justices now.

So, you know it's happening.

What are they doing so terribly wrong?

Micah?

So I'm opposed to this amendment because I really think that, billionaire political donors are already able to buy just about every ding dang thing in America.

And so I'm glad that there's at least one thing that they still cannot buy.

And that's the Kansas Supreme Court.

We can look to other states to know exactly what will happen here, which is that our justices will become just another crummy set of career politicians.

That opens the door for billionaire political donors to choose and buy justices and call the shots at the court.

And when that happens, and it will as it has in other states, when that happens, then the issues between what billionaire political donors want and what the Constitution demands and what Kansans want.

Those won't be abstract.

They will be real and they will be harmful.

They'll be things like whether we have public school funding, whether there's a total ban on abortion, whether workers have rights, whether consumers have protections, whether everyday folks in Kansans stand even a fighting shot against the elites.

All of that is what happens when billionaire political donors buy the court.

And that's why I hope Kansans vote now.

Last year, Wisconsin, showed what elected Koch could mean.

$140 million spent there to win one state Supreme Court seat with billionaires like Elon Musk pouring in millions.

If this amendment passes, is that what we can expect in Kansas?

Absolutely not.

I'm glad you asked.

What's the difference there?

I'll tell you the difference.

It's an apples to oranges comparison.

Wisconsin, by law, has to have their Supreme Court elections on a Tuesday in April, when no other election is happening in Wisconsin and no other election is happening in the country.

So all of the political money has only one place to go.

But if you compare apples to apples and you look at the other 21 states that elect Supreme Court justices, they do so in November on the normal election day, when all 50 states are having elections, when the president might be on the ballot, when senators, attorneys general, governors are all on the ballot and you don't see the money flowing into one state like that, and I'll give you the statistics to back it up.

Look at West Virginia State approximately the same size is Kansas.

The according to the Brennan Center, not a conservative organization, the average amount spent in 2024 on a judicial race in West Virginia was $240,000 total.

Both sides look at Minnesota even bigger state.

The average amount spent was only $129,000 total.

Those are peanuts.

In terms of that's a very small amount for a statewide election.

So the case of Wisconsin is in-app as it doesn't work.

Micah.

So I think the idea that there would be any more political advertising on television is not something that's particularly appealing to me.

I think Mr.

Kobach, maybe the only person in America who wants to see more political ads rather than less.

I think we know what happens.

Those ads, they don't air for free.

Billionaire political donors are the ones who pay the cost.

But our court and Kansans are the ones will pay the price.

Well, I mentioned earlier, the 22 states currently elect their state supreme court justices.

What do those election campaigns look like?

Well, here's a look at some of those ads.

I'm looking for judges, people that will respect the Constitution.

I'm judge Sarah Stuart.

I think it matters who serves on the Supreme Court like President Trump.

Judge Sarah Stuart will protect our Second Amendment gun rights.

And Judge Sarah Stuart will defend the Constitution and guard our nation against evildoers or threaten our way of life.

Liberal Chris Harris wrong for the Kentucky Supreme Court.

But we have judge Bob Conley, supported by the NRA and Kentucky right to life.

Judge Conley on order.

Judge Bob Conley for the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Just a little snapshot of the kind of bounce I was able to find on on YouTube.

Is that what we're going to see in Kansas, and will we see candidates running for office as, as a Supreme Court justice with an O and a D next to their names?

So that second question, we don't know yet.

The amendments leaves it up to the legislature whether to have Partizan or non Partizan elections.

Of the 22 states that currently elect their Supreme Court justices, 14 are nonpartisan, eight are Partizan.

So we don't know the answer to that question.

Will we see ads that might be like that?

I think so, and I think that's a good thing.

You know, my my opponent here, Mr.

Kubik, says that political ads are bad, bad, bad, bad.

Well, you know what?

Political ads.

The money that goes into advertising is a way candidates speak to the voters, and you can evaluate the candidate based on that.

And if you look at the states that have these, elections for justices, there's a much greater involvement of the people in the process.

And you can see this statistically, right now, we have these retention elections for our judges, which are fake elections, because there's not two people running and no one has ever lost a retention election in the Supreme Court.

25% of the population drops off.

They don't even fill out the rest of the ballot because they know it's meaningless.

But if you look at the states that do have these competitive elections, only 12% drops off.

And that means the people are interested.

They've got they formed a point of view about this person who's running for the office.

And people might actually be able to name a Supreme Court justice.

I'll bet you 99% of the people watching this program right now cannot name a single Supreme Court justice, and that includes most attorneys in Kansas.

And think about that.

They make it.

When people do go to the polls right now in August, they'll be thinking, I've got this member of Congress, I'm interested in this governor's candidate.

And I go in there and I see this other issue about these judges and should I retain them?

And I've never heard of them in my life before.

Would you have more information about the judges that we are electing to the Supreme Court if we went to a direct elect model?

So I think it's really important to remember that we do already have the right to vote on justices and Kansans.

Kansans have the right to day, to vote, to keep or fire justices and sit with them and for them to have been recalled.

And I think what is really important there is that Kansans know and support the fair and impartial model of the state Supreme Court, even if they can't name a justice, they can certainly name for you the ways that the court is intervening to protect their rights and defend them, including on issues like public school funding and abortion rights.

That's what is really important here.

And I think Kansans are fully capable of judging people based on their record, without billionaire paid for political ads to guide them along the way.

Okay, I'd like to challenge my opponent here, Mr.

Kubik, to tell me so he says billionaire political ads or that wealthy donors, let's just use the term, are going to buy the loyalty of justices.

Kansas had an elected Supreme Court for a century from 1861 until 1958.

Can you name one Kansas justice who was beholden to a political donor named one?

Just one out of the more than 100 in that time?

Well, I think we should remember that the reason that we have this model at all is because of the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the state, the so-called triple play that resulted in a defeated governor overturning the will of the voters and inserting himself back into the process to become, a member of the court.

That's why we have the system that we have.

Kansans already voted on it to say that's what they wanted.

And I think this election is about overturning the will of the voters on so many fronts.

He couldn't name one.

Let's just go.

Okay.

Let's look at how this is actually work in practice.

We've talked about them not necessarily running on party labels because that hasn't been decided yet.

Right now, the qualifications for being on the Supreme Court is you have to be 30 years old.

You have to be admitted to practice law in Kansas and engaged in the active and continuous practice of law for at least ten years.

Those are the qualifications.

Do any of those qualifications go away?

If this passes, the legislature can decide what the qualifications get.

So they can show the age limit.

Okay.

They can they can also set contribution limits too, like they do for any office in Kansas.

They can set all of these rules for the elections, when they when the voters pass this, it then goes to the to the people in Kansas.

They decide that you don't have to be an attorney to be on the Supreme Court.

I, I theoretically, but I think that's highly unlikely.

You know, the office of Attorney General requires that you be an attorney.

The office of judge, I think by Kansas law, will require you to be an attorney.

So I think it's, you know, almost a certainty that will be required.

So I'm glad that Mr.

Kobach has such great confidence in the legislature of the state of Kansas.

But I do not.

And I think this is really part of the way that this entire amendment is a trick that they are trying to play on Kansans.

Step one is to make the language as misleading, as confusing as possible.

Step two is to put it in a low turnout August election.

Mr.

Kobach noted before that the elections in West Virginia, he went to great lengths to tell us that that April election was a sham.

It's interesting that the proponents of this decided to put it in a low turnout August primary, a time when most Kansans are worried about sending their kids back to school and paying the electric bill.

Billionaire political donors have time in August to do political plots on their yachts, but the rest of us don't.

So that's step two a low turnout primary.

And step three are these misleading arguments about it being about the right to vote when it is instead about giving billionaire political donors all of our power?

That's also the argument, Mr.

Kobach, from opponents, that this amendment is really an attempt to undo the court's abortion ruling through, quote, the back door.

If the Kansas Supreme Court never protected abortion rights in 2019, would this amendment even be on the ballot today?

Yeah, absolutely.

It would be.

You would have you have so many areas where the Kansas Supreme Court is unaccountable to the people and has made decisions that are can't be squared with the text of the Constitution.

I gave you the examples of the United States Supreme Court overturning them not once, but actually twice on the Eighth Amendment question concerning the death penalty.

There was another example in 2005, in the Montoya decision, where the Kansas Supreme Court read the Kansas Constitution in a truly bizarre fashion to give itself the power to decide how much money is spent in K through 12 education, rather than the people's representatives arguing in the legislature and deciding how much in tax dollars should be taken.

So there are many, many decisions like that that have gone that have caused people like me to say, you know what?

They are unaccountable.

There's no way that when the court decides to become political, which they are hyper political right now, there's no way for the people of Kansas to say, hey, wait a minute.

You need to stick to the words of the Constitution here.

Kansas is the only state, Mike, where lawyers apparently hold a majority on the nominating commission.

Why wouldn't voters see that as an insiders club?

Does it just simply move the politics into public view?

If we elect them?

So I think we should first know that everything about this process is already in public view.

It is not behind closed doors.

It happens on a YouTube channel.

It's pretty hard to say something is in secret when it's on YouTube.

Beyond that of the three of us at this table, only one of us is a lawyer.

It's not unique, and it ain't me.

So I have no interest in carrying water for lawyers.

What I do have an interest in is making sure that the court remains fair and impartial, and that justices are selected based on their merit, based on their knowledge of the law, based on their loyalty to the Constitution, and to candidates not based on who makes the most promises to win a popularity contest among billionaire political donors.

Can I follow up on that?

So there's a real problem with the way Kansas has its oddball system, where lawyers, by law, can, by Constitution, control the majority of this nine member commission.

And that is interestingly, the lawyers don't ask the tough questions in this came out in the legislative testimony when the Kansas Legislature was considering this bill and one of the lawyers.

So there's four non-lawyers and five lawyers on the commission.

One of the non-lawyers pointed out only the non lawyers are asking tough questions.

The lawyers are only asking puffball questions.

And then one of those lawyers said, I can't ask a difficult question because I'm going to have to be practicing law in front of this judge whether he stays at his current judicial post or he's elevated to the Supreme Court.

In other words, the whole theory behind the Missouri model of having a lawyer dominated commission, as we do it in Kansas, was that lawyers will be experts.

The less the tough questions when the opposite occurs.

The lawyers don't ask tough questions.

It's the non-lawyers.

If Michael were on the commission, he would be.

Have no fear about asking a judge, hey, what are you going to do on this issue?

What is your opinion on that constitutional question?

But the lawyers sit back and they don't ask tough questions.

How would you respond to that argument, Michael?

I think I would invite anyone to watch the YouTube channel, to watch the live stream, to participate in the process and see whether they can answer the questions.

Just because Mr.

Kobach doesn't think they're tough, that just means that they're not the questions that he would.

I believe he would ask tough questions.

Let me give you an example.

Beyond that, I think what is really important here is to note that all of this is about overturning the will of Kansas.

Mr.

Kobach has said he disagrees with the rules, with the rulings that the court has handed down in a different setting, not here, he said.

It was about, quote, slowly and quietly overturning abortion rights.

In another context, he said that it, quote, changes everything about abortion rights and public school funding.

Let's be clear, all of that is not about accountability because we already have elections.

It is about whether this amendment will overturn the will of the voters, overturn the Constitution, and turn the court over to billionaire political donors.

Up is up, is down and left is overturn the will of the voters by giving the voters the power to select their justices.

This gives the voters the opportunity to express their will in selecting justices.

It is nonsense to argue that this overturns the will of the voters.

It's putting a question on the ballot for voters to decide.

And if they say yes, we, the voters of Kansas, should have the right to do this like we did for a century, then we will be able to express our will and we'll be able to bring some accountability to the court.

Right now, there are always political decisions.

Let's just get that out there.

As someone who has argued it, and many appellate courts and supreme courts across the country, highly controversial decisions are inherently political.

Whether you're talking about gun rights, abortion rights, you name it.

And the reason is, and that's the reason why there are always dissenting opinions.

You rarely have a unanimous opinion because there's a plausible legal argument on either side.

And when that happens, the justices ideology and the justices preferences start to come through.

Whether you're talking about the U.S.

Supreme Court or any state Supreme Court.

So the question is, in those gray area cases, do you want the justices exercising their political ideology in decision making without constraint?

Or would you like there to be some constraint where we, the people can say, hey, wait a minute, now, that wasn't a good reading of the Constitution.

And I say, we the people should have the power to control this.

Would that be a new set of constraints?

They want a Supreme Court justice who is elected because they will be worrying potentially about his decision they make and how that will be judged then by voters at the next ballot box.

They will have to defend their decisions.

And that's exactly right.

And a justice who goes one way and the other justices go the other way will say, I went this way because I read the Kansas Constitution and the plain language says X. And I was elected to read the Constitution fairly.

Right now, these justices can do whatever they want, and they face no consequences whatsoever.

If your side loses in August, will you accept that Kansans have spoken or immediately begin looking for another way to change the system?

No, I think Kansas will.

Look.

I think this is it.

I mean, it's this is the chance Kansans have to return to an elected Supreme Court like we had for a century.

And by the way, to respond to one of the thing, like I said earlier, you know, he said that in 1958, when the system was changed, it was because of this scandal about a vacancy in the Supreme Court.

I agree.

And the problem with the scandal is they went around the people and the governor resigned.

And then had his lieutenant governor put him on the court.

The problem with that scandal is the people weren't involved.

We have to get the people of Kansas back involved, back in control of their court.

If this amendment fails.

Mike, are you willing to support changes to make the current system more transparent and accountable?

So I always believe that the court should be fair and impartial and making sure that that remains is what is most important.

I actually agree with Mr.

Kobach that it was a scandal in the 1950s.

First of all, I'm glad we found common ground there, at least.

But beyond that, what is really at stake here is whether folks can have confidence in their court or not.

And I don't think any Kansan should have to go into the courtroom wondering whether justice is going to be served up to the person who shoved the biggest pile of cash at the justices.

And I don't think any Kansan should have to go into court wondering whether the justice is going to leave the bench in the middle of the hearing to take a call from their billionaire buddy, or take the lunch break to dial for campaign dollars.

That's exactly what would happen under such a system.

And we have to make sure that we keep the court fair and impartial.

Complete this sentence.

Kris Kobach five years from now, if this amendment passes, its biggest impact in Kansas would be blank.

Changing the way the court, addresses questions.

In a way, it's going to be a long sentence so that, the voters of Kansas have confidence in the decision.

I think right now, the justices know that they the voters don't know who they are.

There will be no chance of the voters can do anything to remove them from office, because these retention elections are a sham.

And so they will now be writing their opinions in a more defensible way, like, you know, somebody may criticize this, there might be somebody running against me.

I think that's the biggest change.

They will write their opinions, thinking about how who's going to run against this backfire?

Couldn't it actually become a more liberal culture?

Absolutely.

Could.

I mean, California and Oregon and a lot of other blue states have elected courts and they love them.

And those courts tend to be a little more left leaning and that's fine.

The point is, the people of those states have the final say.

We the people have the ability to control our government.

If this amendment passes five years from now, the biggest impact this would have on the state would be blank.

No one said it better than Mr.

Kobach himself when he said that it changes everything.

It will change the landscape for reproductive rights.

It will change the landscape for school funding.

What it will do is give the decisions to billionaire political donors rather than to Kansans themselves.

We already have retention elections.

We have the ability to hold people accountable.

Despite a 20 year crusade to attack voting rights, that right to vote is still intact.

What this will do would change everything and take the power away.

You have been watching Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and ACLU Executive Director Micah Kubik, the proponents and opponents of the Kansas Constitutional amendment to directly elect Supreme Court justices on your ballot August 4th.

Thank you for being with us.

I, next up, we head to Missouri, where, depending on your zip code, you could be voting on nine different questions.

Surprised?

Confused.

We have you back next on this special Hour-Long edition of Weekend Review.

Many of you may be tuning in to Week in Review this week to hear us dissect the city's headlines, from the Chiefs releasing the new stadium designs to the head scratching stories like the Kansas City man who had to be rescued from the toilet bowl of a porta-potty after he said he fell in trying to recover his bottle of Mountain Dew.

But this week we've got bigger fish to fry should Missouri eliminate its income tax, and what would that mean?

It's the biggest issue in the upcoming election.

Now less than two weeks away.

And if you beam close to a TV screen recently, you no doubt have been bombarded with TV ads on this.

This race is really heating up.

Jobs, investment, quality of life.

It's all on the line.

Tennessee is in Oklahoma and Arkansas close behind, blazing down the track.

Now to phase out income taxes.

Missouri is getting lapped income and property taxes are really holding Missouri back and costing families to take the lead.

Missouri needs amendment five this August, phase out taxes on paychecks and cut property taxes.

Expert tax and unleash prosperity.

Amendment five Missourians are saying no to the new everything tax no on amendment five, say no to higher taxes on trucks, cars, motorcycles, hammers, computers, cell phones, towels, pots, pans, furniture, tablecloths.

Napkins, groceries, gadgets, computers, cell phones.

Amendment five would raise taxes on everything forks, knives, steak and eggs.

Firearms.

Nails, barbed wire, boots, toys, video games, Barbie dolls, bicycles, tricycles.

An amendment five.

Confused well, two very different views of amendment five eliminating the Missouri income tax to help us make sense of it all.

And the all the other big questions on that Missouri ballot.

A Park university political scientist Matthew Harris, and William Jewell, political scientist Abigail Vegter from KCUR”S news chief political analyst Brian Ellison is with us and from the world of television news Kshb.

41 political reporter Charlie Keegan.

Now, amendment five is the big one governor Mike Kehoe top priority.

He says killing the state income tax will make Missouri more competitive and turbocharge economic growth.

But what is the evidence for that?

You know, if we're looking at the social science here, very mixed results, we don't have a very clear answer on if cutting income tax brings a ton of people into the state, brings new business into the state, there's certainly some people who like to cite that evidence, looking at places like Tennessee who have seen kind of massive increase in population and tourism over the last decade or so, but it's not super consistent across the board with all of those states that have cut their income tax.

Matthew Harris, If we were to eliminate the income tax, would we see moving trucks lining up at the borders of Missouri ready to swoop in?

Probably not.

I mean, some of the research suggests that people move for family or job opportunities, not the tax burden itself.

Missouri actually already has a relatively low tax burden, about 12 out of the 50 states.

So, you know, you look at some other states like, Texas and Florida and Missouri maybe want to line up with them, but they have very different, tax structures, tourism, oil, things like that.

So I don't think the moving trucks are going to be, streaming down I-70.

But as we just pointed out, a professor from William Jewell mentions that there were already nine states doing this, Brian.

And some of them, including South Dakota, Tennessee.

So it's is not particularly unusual.

Missouri wants to do this.

Well, it is only nine states.

And it's also worth noting that most of those states did not build their budget around that income.

And then make the change.

There are different reasons in each of those states that historically or because of other revenue sources, income taxes are less common.

For example, Alaska depends on oil revenues and, New Hampshire hasn't had, you know, tax for 100 some years.

So it's not as though, you can simply flip a switch and draw lessons that compare it instantly to those other nine states.

Now I see that Missouri gets about $9 billion a year from that income tax.

Charlie, where then would that money come from if it was to be eliminated?

Well, that's what you heard in that TV commercial.

The everything taxed kind of make up for losing income tax.

This amendment would give the legislature the power to tax other things like services and, like labor with your plumbing, you know, department or on your haircuts or on your Netflix subscriptions.

So they might tax things that aren't taxed right now, the sales or use tax.

Now I see that, you know, some people, the supporters are complaining that, you know, everybody's talking about the sky is falling.

These are false views according to supporters.

Because this is not going to eliminate the tax immediately.

It would be phased out.

And in fact you would only see changes to the individual income tax once revenue growth targets, they say, met.

So it would remain in place until that happens.

Correct.

But there is this concern, right, that we're giving the legislature this big go ahead.

And they wouldn't have to return to the voter to kind of adjust those taxes as needed.

So some opponents to this particular amendment, that's what they're leaning into.

But they don't have to come back to the voters to make some of those changes.

Now.

Okay, we've mentioned there's tons of ads here, lots of claims being made on both sides.

What's truth and what's spin.

And here's a big one.

What does amendment five got to do with data centers?

Data centers are money machines making millions every minute.

And Missouri's 1917 tax code means they make all that money and get away tax free.

But amendment five fixes the big tech loophole phasing out taxes on paychecks, cutting property taxes, giving average working families over $3,000 a year.

Amendment five makes big tech pay so you don't have to.

Yes, on amendment five.

So if you hate data centers, will voting yes on amendment five force them to face new taxes that can make it harder for them to be built and threaten their business models.

Doctor Harris maybe.

I mean, I I've been referring to this amendment as the just trust us pro amendment because a lot of this is up to the legislature.

It's kind of a blank check.

How do they make up that, that, that income tax, revenue.

And so, you know, there's a relatively clear there's a lot of paths they could choose.

And so, you know, when you have that on the, on the table, you can kind of choose your own adventure when it comes to the ads.

If you're doing a truth check on your station trolley and you look at that ad, what where would that come down?

And yeah, and our meter, I don't think it would be, fully truth.

I think that would be more on the, on the, on the low, truth side of things that it definitely there's nowhere in the amendment or bill written data centers will have to pay extra taxes.

But looking back at the AD two, it says, if you support amendment five, then your property taxes will also go down and the average family would say $3,000 a year.

Well, first of all, I thought this was about income taxes.

How does this affect property taxes?

Why?

It doesn't actually affect property taxes, at least not directly.

The the theory I imagine behind that claim is that, because you are, because overall, the health of the state will improve the economic benefits of of reducing the income tax will trickle down to the point where property taxes can be reduced.

I guess that's the theory.

But this bill does not reduce property taxes.

This this, proposal.

And as for that claim about a family saving $3,000 a year, that that is a study that proponents of this measure, cite, and it refers to the average family.

So all families, the families that make six figure, salaries or seven figure salaries, and the families that are, working class, what the studies generally show is that, the lower the income, the less tangible impact this is going to have, because any gains from reduced income taxes are going to be offset by the increases that are paid on sales taxes on all of those other items.

But what about the claims of opponents?

Are they also playing fast and loose with the facts?

Under amendment five, the politicians hidden tax shift plan, they'll be up to eight losers for every two winners.

Amendment five opens your family to being hurt by new taxes on services, doctor visits, child care, even apartment rent and higher sales taxes that could rise to over 20%.

That's why they're.

Amendment five eliminates your constitutional protections, including your right to vote on new taxes, your odds in their hidden tax shift game are bad.

Vote no on amendment five.

We're talking about sales taxes over 20%, paying sales taxes for the first time on doctors visits, child visits, child care, even on your rent.

But I looked at the amendment.

It doesn't say any of those things in it.

No, as we mentioned earlier, acts a function sort of as this blank check that we're giving to the legislature.

So that language is certainly not in the amendment, but it doesn't mean that that can't happen.

What would happen if this amendment passes is essentially previously exempt.

Goods would be now included, to be subjected to some of these sales tax.

So it's not out of the realm of possibility that child care doctor's visits could be included.

But that's certainly not in the language of the amendment either.

I will say I've talked to some Republicans in the last two weeks, and they've pledged to me that they have no desire to charge doctor visits included.

And that's true of those states that don't have income taxes directly.

So, you know, on the truth meter on that ad, you know, nothing's written in stone, I guess, when it comes to doctor visits.

Why wouldn't lawmakers then just write into this bill to begin with, right into this amendment language to say this is where we would replace it rather than leave it so open ended.

Did you have to guess what it is?

The short answer to your question, Nick.

It's because nobody would vote for it.

I think, you know, people who like books are not going to vote for a tax on books.

People who go to the doctor are not going to vote for a tax on doctor's visits.

And, and, and as others have said, we don't know what the offsetting taxes will be.

What we do know is that currently the state income tax funds more than a third of the state's budget.

And, well, Republican leaders have talked about needing to reduce spending as well as lowering taxes.

For the most part, there's still a chunk of money that there's not clarity about where it's going to come from if it's not an income tax.

Currently, the state of Missouri has what is called the Hancock Amendment, which was a citizen amendment put on the ballot many years ago that says if you're going to increase taxes of any kind, you have to go to a vote of the people.

Does that suspend this amendment?

Because now it's up to lawmakers.

Will be allowed to decide when they want to do that.

On on what things.

Yeah.

So essentially there'll be a five year period, in which the legislature could decide, to increase sales taxes, to increase use taxes.

So, yeah, this amendment puts a lot of it's asking voters to put a lot of trust in the legislature to decide how to make this switch.

Okay.

That is amendment five.

Perhaps the most consequential issue on your upcoming ballot is amendment four.

Now, it would rewrite Missouri's century old citizen initiative process that has been used to pass everything from the minimum wage to Medicaid expansion.

And let's not forget the legalization of marijuana right now.

Citizen led constitutional amendments pass with a statewide majority.

Amendment four would require them not only to win statewide, but in every one of the state's eight congressional districts.

No other state has a requirement like this that eight out of eight congressional districts have to approve it.

This just raises the bar a little bit to say, we so want that initiative petition available for Missourians who want to take advantage of it, but we don't want our Constitution for sale.

This is a power grab.

The politicians want you to surrender this right, this power, this freedom.

So many times, rural voices are left out of the conversation until they get to the ballot box.

This ensures that important issues of consequence for our state constitution truly reflect a broad consensus of all Missourians.

Why did lawmakers put this on the ballot in the first place, and what do they hope to achieve by doing this?

Yeah, well, I think if we look to the last several years, we've had some major changes that have come from this citizen initiated constitutional amendment, things like marijuana, things like sports, gambling, all of those have passed with relatively slim margins.

And so I think we have, Republican controlled legislature that's a little bit concerned about the types of policies that are being passed through this process.

Now, it's worth noting, as we do in some of this, this material, that it's been around for a long time.

This hasn't always been a way for Missourians to pass liberal policies.

Historically, it's also been a way for Missourians to pass conservative policies when our legislature was democratically controlled.

So it's it's sort of acted as this checks and balances process for the state of Missouri.

So why we're coming at it now, certainly, I believe has to do with what's happened over the last several years.

Do you think lawmakers are right when they say it has become easy to change the Constitution?

Just to remind our viewers, the U.S.

Constitution has been amended only 27 times in 250 years.

Missouri has changed its constitution 126 times since 1945.

That translates to 1.7 amendments every year.

Yeah, I think you could look at it the other way and say the U.S.

Constitution is maybe too hard to amend.

I think a better comparison might be to look across different states.

The Texas Constitution has been amended some like 500 times.

The constitution of the state of Alabama is like 300,000 words.

And so I think, you know, in a system of federalism, different states are going to come to different conclusions about how easy or hard it should be to amend their constitutions.

There's another factor besides the fact that the state constitution functions differently than the US Constitution, and contains lots of policy in it.

The other factor is that voters have the right to to have citizen led efforts to apply statutes rather than constitutional amendments.

But time after time in the last couple of decades, voters have passed laws which the legislature has proceeded to overturn, to go against the will of the voters, because they're free to do that if it's not in the Constitution.

Part of why voters have been driven to change the Constitution is because it has been the only way that they could protect against the legislature, undoing their will.

What what is the practical effect of this?

Charlie, when we think about all those issues from whether it be legalizing marijuana, you know, sports betting, Medicaid expansion, if they all had to pass with a majority in every one of the eight districts, how would that have gone?

Would any of them have passed?

No, none of them would have pass fallout from amendment four.

Should it pass?

Is that a lot of citizen led initiative petitions would not pass?

Well, let's talk about what happens or the implications of amendment four on something that's happening in November, which there is an amendment number three coming on the ballot that would that would actually prohibit abortion in most cases.

What implications does amendment for have on that?

Does that would that require that you have a majority in every one of the eight congressional districts for that to pass?

Well, this brings up a really interesting component of amendment four.

So this would change the process for citizen initiated, amendments to the Constitution, but not for those amendments that have been initiated by the legislature.

So for any legislature initiated amendments, they have the same sort of majority, system, simple majority system to get any of those amendments passed.

This is only changing things for citizen initiated amendments.

Haven't other states made it tougher to get constitutional amendments across the finish line?

I was digging through the internet and found that Colorado requires 55% support to pass amendments.

In Florida, it's 60%, New Hampshire 66.67%.

That's specific.

So what Missouri is doing is not unheard of.

Doctor Harris no, but I would say this, the bar in Missouri under this amendment is particularly extreme.

Some studies have shown that as little as 5% of voters, if they're situated in a particular district, could be enough to sink something that has broad public support.

So this, this is this I think goes beyond what those other states.

But some people might view that as a good thing.

That would require, they say, petition gatherers or those putting the initiatives on the ballot to have more compromise language that would win over more rural voters.

Sure.

But on the flip side of that, two opponents need to focus now on a single district.

Well, those trying to get those amendments passed have to focus on all those who are trying to sink such an amendment, only need to put all of their efforts in one single district to sink that amendment.

And when we talk about how easy it is to get an amendment on the ballot, if you've ever talked to a citizen gatherer of these signatures, they push back at you when you say that, because they say it requires not just going to the grocery store for a few weekends, it's 172,000 signatures.

And according to ballot pedia, 21% of all signatures on 1 in 5 are tossed out because the person wasn't registered to vote.

They didn't include the correct mailing address, so you'd have to collect a whole lot more than that.

Oh yeah, you have to go way over your or your minimum there to just make sure that you're safe when you turn in your ballot.

And I think right now you have to get signatures from six of the eight congressional districts.

So you're you're forced to go out into the rural areas.

You can't just get all your signatures from Kansas City and Saint Louis to get something on the ballot, as it is right now.

Could we also say, Bryan, that Missouri already is progressive in this area because the only one of 18 states that allow citizen petition to begin with, Kansas would only have a lot of Kansans would envy such an opportunity.

Right?

I think that's right.

I mean, I think the opponents of this measure would point out that you already do involve the voters from across the state, not only in the, petition gathering requirements, but in the fact that everybody gets a vote.

You have to win the majority of all voters.

And with all those votes, counting the same, we have a simple majority system.

This this really, you know, yes.

There are states with higher thresholds, as you said.

But but this is an unprecedented sort of requirement that is that is pretty, plainly designed to prevent amendments from passed.

When you read through amendment four, you'll also see a couple of other elements added to the ballot language, Doctor Harris, including banning foreign nationals from providing money, to issue campaigns is not part of the this the you know, the concern of supporters that you got people from who live very long away from Missouri, you know, funding all of these ballot measures.

You know, while it is true that sometimes these ballot measures are shaped by particular interest groups, I think, that, opponents of the amendment, would say that these pieces are ballot candy, that these things are already prohibited by statute.

And so, okay, we want to put in the Constitution, but sometimes when something is a little perhaps unpopular, you got to put a little candy in there to sweeten it for voters.

But, you know, isn't it true that a lot of these citizen initiative petition gatherers are being people who are being paid to do that?

They're not just regular people from Missouri.

There are professional petition gatherers, for sure, who do get paid to do that.

But I've spoken to a lot of them who live in Missouri and do this work because they care about where they live.

All righty.

Well, finally, a ballot question.

The probably won't start a family argument or are you willing to support the renewal of a sales tax to fund parks and conservation programs in the state?

It's amendment one.

Missouri State Parks has something for everyone, and we're proud to consistently be ranked as one of the top state parks systems in the nation.

But even more importantly, our guest give us a 97% approval rating year after year.

Missouri state parks are supported by the one tenth of 1% parks, soil and water sales tax.

The Parks and Water Sales tax provides the majority of the budget that it takes to operate, maintain and improve state parks and historic sites.

Thank you for your support.

Well, for more than 40 years, Missouri voters have renewed this tax with little controversy but taxes and taxes and with this brings in about $140 million a year.

It's still worthy of scrutiny.

Where does this money go, Brian?

It goes to state parks.

It keeps them from charging admission.

Which most many, most states do for their state parks.

And let's be clear, it's a pretty small tax.

In the grand scheme of things, it's not for every hundred dollars you spend, this is a ten cent tax.

So a lot of folks are not even noticing this in their bills.

And it's providing a valuable public service is what supporters would say.

Is there another side to this that we need to be aware of?

Doctor Harris?

Not particularly.

I mean, taxes or taxes, it's relatively small tax and it's extremely popular.

The last time it was up, it passed with almost 80% of the vote.

And so, you know, we can talk about how certain things are funded and if this should have its own special category.

But, it's broadly popular.

People seem to like it.

Well, next up is amendment two.

Should the Jackson County assessor be elected rather than appointed?

But wait, isn't this deja vu all over again?

Didn't we just vote for this?

For six years, the assessments in Jackson County have been done incorrectly.

They've been done illegally, they've been unfairly.

And we need to fix that already.

Didn't Jackson County residents, Charlie already vote for this back in November, when 88% of voters said yes to having an elected assessor as a matter of fact, they did, yes.

So why do we need this?

Well, this would cemented on the state level, you know, so that, Jackson County and other home chart home rule charter counties in the state of Missouri have to have that elected assessor position.

It's interesting that Gayle McCann baity, who was the assessor, was fired immediately after that vote in November.

And yet today we don't even have an assessor.

Right.

Can executive fill a voter says he's kind of overseeing the assessment department with two deputy assessors.

So, right now we're just kind of waiting until 2028, I think, is when Jackson County will elect its first assessor.

Yeah.

I think this is one of the most confusing items on the ballot, particularly since it applies to five counties in the state.

But in fact, the other four counties have had an elected assessor for quite some time.

Jackson County has been unique.

And remember, some some would point out they don't really have an assessor.

Even Gayle McCann wasn't the assessor.

She was the director of the Department of Assessment.

The county executive is where the the Jackson County Charter has lodged all of the authority to assess the values of properties.

And that's what changes as a result of the vote last year.

This vote will simply make it something that can't change back.

Now, if the ballot wasn't long enough already, Kansas City has decided to add five more election questions for your approval.

They're wanting $1.7 billion to fund everything from sewer upgrades to improvements at City Hall, the convention center and Municipal Auditorium.

1.7 billion with a B. These five questions are critically important to the future of Kansas City.

You know, this is $1.7 billion worth of desperately needed infrastructure, new construction, maintenance and repairs that will take the city into the future.

This is work that unfortunately does not end.

Before we delve into them separately, why couldn't Kansas City just condense five questions into one?

Isn't it asking a lot of voters doing what is a much lower turnout election in August?

Sure.

I mean, there's been questions on why this hasn't been combined, but frankly, it doesn't seem that necessary to combine all of them.

They're pretty straightforward questions, pretty easy to digest, and I think voters will do just fine with all five separately, even though you might be at your polling station for an extra ten minutes because of all of these issues.

Charlie.

Well, I hope you come in prepared, Nick.

And you read your sample ballot before you go in on Election Day and fill it out, bring it with you and just copy it over.

Well, question one, by the way, is cash for affordable housing.

Kansas City says it needs more of that a lot more.

The city estimates a shortage of 64,000 affordable units.

Voters are being asked to authorize 100 million in bonds to fund new construction and rehab existing housing units.

Now, the mayor says this won't raise your taxes.

You're just approving bonds now.

Sounds a little like monopoly money.

Politicians seem to prefer bond issues because they don't sound like taxes.

Should voters view them differently?

Doctor Harris they're a little different, right?

Because really, what it is, is you already pay taxes.

And so the idea behind this bond, the way the city sees it, is that as all bonds are paid off, these new ones will come in and hopefully that will not, lead to an increase in taxes.

It'll just the money that's already being, collected in taxes will go to pay for these.

That's not necessarily the case.

100% of the time.

There's a chance that taxes have to go up to pay for these.

But that's the city's argument as we kind of old bonds come out and new bonds come.

So bonds are not free money.

They're not free money.

But it's just that in this case, they're bonds that are already, contained within the city budget.

At least that's the hope going forward.

You know, we should note on the subject, like affordable housing, that over and over, voters identify affordable housing is one of their top priorities.

One of the things they think is most in need in Kansas City at this time.

This asks voters to put their money literally where their mouth is.

Some people don't see all of these.

Any effort for money and say, I'm going to vote no, because they really don't know where the money is going to go.

How do we know where this money is going to go, Charlie?

Well, I think that's part of why there are 5 or 7 questions, because each question ties that pot of money to a specific item.

Are they worried to that?

If they put them all together, it would be easier to to actually have them fail and that it would be okay if 1 or 2 lose in this, in this, in this, in this method, maybe to some degree.

Mayor Lucas, of course, wants all of them to pass.

And, you know, said that there's many reasons he hears from people every day who say, we've got to solve homelessness.

Well, here's an answer.

Let's build more housing.

Let's.

He feels like this answers a lot of questions people bring up to him.

The other factor, I think, and why they're all separately listed, besides the fact that there are some questions in state statutes about, single topics for, for voter initiatives, but, but, but the other issue is that these five questions raise different funding mechanisms.

So they're actually asking voters to not just support different subjects but different kinds of fundraising methods.

Now, question two is $100 million for city hall and convention facilities.

You know, your house needs repairs.

Turns out City Hall does too.

And so does Municipal Auditorium and the convention center.

Fortunately, so far we haven't had a lot of of people turn away because of the condition of the convention center.

But I think I think we're on the cusp of that now.

Some people will see, of course, you know, Municipal Auditorium, they may have been there, they may see some sense of, raggedy carpets and so on.

But then when they see City Hall in their, trolley, they're going to think, oh, is this the mayor?

What new carpet?

So what is going on here?

It's not like that.

No.

For us who are in City Hall on the regular every week, we city host closed or the council chambers.

Anyway, we're closed for a long time.

For me, a good month earlier this summer because of some mold remediation.

But we had a little footage there of the mayor's office, had a leak in it.

And back in March when we had a real heavy rain storm.

So there are some legitimate concerns that need to be tidied up.

I'm skipping over question three for a moment because it's a little different, but questions four and five are also major bond issues $750 million for water system upgrades.

And question number five, $750 million for the sewer system.

Now, we pretty much all fail to notice the pipes under our feet, but when the water main break so there's a sewer line break, we start to pay attention to those things.

Absolutely.

And it sounds like, the mayor's communicated this, too, that these are repairs that are going to need to happen kind of one way or another.

And this is the most efficient way to do so in part of that language.

I see also the mayor saying at his press conference that if this fails, your bills may go up.

How could that be?

Well, I mean, I think that is that is true.

This.

So, sometimes we talk about bonds as general obligation bonds or go bonds that that you essentially are raising taxes to spend some money on something.

These are revenue bonds.

These are bonds that are based on future collections of essentially your utility bills.

So approving these bonds is simply a way of locking in the most favorable, borrowing rates to do this work now and pay it off as those bills come in over the next many years.

If this were not approved, if they had to borrow the money at a higher rate.

Yeah, the money's going to come from utility bills one way or another.

And if it ends up being more, it can only happen by paying higher bills.

Well, question number three, let's return to that for a moment, which I skipped.

And I did so because it's the only actual tax question on the Kansas City ballot and asks voters to renew an existing one eighth of a cent sales tax that funds, economic development projects on Kansas City's east side.

The central city tax, as it's listed on the ballot, was put in place a decade ago.

But where has that money gone?

What has it funded, Charlie?

Well, it has to go to a very particular, part of the city from like ninth Street to Gregory and Paseo to Indiana, kind of the inner city part of Kansas City.

And it's gone to different things like childcare centers in there, affordable housing in there.

And they can say there how those would have happened even without this tax.

No, but I spoke to the owner of a, child care center and he said, yeah, without that tax, they would have been able to, to open up.

It's kind of amazing though, Doctor Harris, with all of these, whether it be the statewide amendments and these five questions and all we hear is this is essential.

This is so important.

So why do we even put these on a ballot when most people are on vacation not focused at all.

And the heat of the summer.

Yeah.

You know, election timing and, what what is put on what ballot, and what time of the year is usually not a coincidence.

And I think August is probably a time where compared to a general election, smaller turnout.

So you can really drive your campaign to vote.

Yes, you may get a more liberal audience in an urban area than you would, in a general election.

Now, at the start of our show, we brought you the contentious debate over electing the Kansas Supreme Court.

But if that is successful, could Missouri be next?

Apparently, the vote is being closely watched in the state amid anger over judges in the Missouri legislature.

Here's Missouri State Senator Rick Bratten.

And how do we pick our justices?

Well, first off, they're not accountable to the people.

Let's be real.

People have no clue who they're voting for when they see them on the ballot.

We had the former senator from the second that used to call them the Black Robe tyrants across the street in the brick building, because that's exactly what we had.

Instead, they get to hide behind the little black brick building like little kings and queens and their black robes, but countless rulings of this court that flagrantly throws that constitution into the mud, stomps on it, and flips the middle bird to us every fricking day.

Now, I bring this to you because actually, we wanted to do the whole debate on the Kansas Supreme Court justices with the Kansas City, Missouri Public Library, and we were told nobody would be interested because this is a Kansas issue.

But if Kansas is successful on August 4th, and choosing to directly elect Supreme Court justices, could Missouri be next?

I mean, certainly, right.

This is an issue that people are talking about, not just here, not in Missouri, not just in Kansas, but really nationwide, especially as trust in these institutions are really nearing record lows.

And so that's something that a lot of individuals are talking about and pushing for.

You know, the interesting thing about this, Nick, is that the whole plan, the idea of appointing judges that are recommended by a panel and then putting them up for retention elections later, is often referred to as the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan.

Other states have emulated the Missouri Plan because it is seen as a way that has higher standards for judges and is less partizan.

But you're absolutely right.

I think, as we saw from Senator Bratton's speeches, it's very much in jeopardy.

But the mood about how we view judges across the country has been diminished.

Yeah.

And to a certain extent, the view of judges reflects a view on government more generally.

But I think, you know, I had a, a professor who said that, judges are just legislators in robes.

And I think the public is increasingly, of that view.

We've been talking about all the ballot issues on this program.

But of course, I'm going to talk about these next week when we look at the candidate races.

But as you look on Election Day, what is the race you'll most focused on on August 4th?

Oh, I'm excited to see what happens with amendment four for sure.

I think as someone who talks with young people every day, it's something that they're looking to as well.

And and a way that they are thinking about how their voice matters in future Missouri election.

Ryan, I think over on the Kansas side, I you know, I think the Democratic primary for the U.S.

Senate is one that is, very likely to not result in the eventual winner.

It's a very Republican leaning state.

And yet it is raising all these interesting questions about what is the future of the Democratic Party in Kansas.

And I think it'll be interesting to see that result.

Charlie, I'm looking at the Republican primary for Congressional District five is Emanuel Cleaver seat currently.

See who will face him in this new redrawn district.

And Rick Bratten, who we just saw there, giving his opinion on judges, is one of the leading candidates in that race.

Certainly.

I'll see Missouri's fifth and raise you Missouri sixth.

Who's going to replace Sam Graves?

You've got, Christie Steagall, you've got Nathan Willett.

They both are aching for that Trump endorsement, and we'll see if one of them gets it.

And on that we will say we have dissected your ballot with Park University political scientist Matthew Harris and Brian Ellison from KCUR news, from the political science department at William Jewell College, Abigail Vegter and Kshb 41 news political reporter Charlie Keegan.

Now, next week on the program again, we look at the big candidates races, by the way, on both sides of state line and not just for governor but Congress.

But the meltdown also going on in the Jackson County Executive race and the under the radar campaign to lead Johnson County.

And finally, before we leave you, we are making it even easier for you to catch up on Weekend Review with our very own Casey Weekend Review YouTube channel.

Subscribing gets you new episode reminders and On-Demand streaming.

Check it out!

KC Week in Review on YouTube.

I'm Nick Haines from all of us here at Kansas City PBS.