Everyone's fixated on the race for the White House.

But how up to speed are you on all these issues on your ballot?

This week we debate the proposed $15 minimum wage hike in Missouri.

We truth check the campaign ads for and against sports betting and dissect the pros and cons of nearly a dozen local and statewide issues on your ballot.

It's all ahead on this special hour long election edition of Week In Review.

Week In Review is made possible through the generous support of Dave and Jamie Cummings, Bob and Marlise Gourley that Courtney as Turner Charitable Trust.

John H. Mies.

And Bank of America.

and co Trustees.

The Francis Family Foundation through the discretionary fund of David and Janice Francis.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Are you team Trump, or Team Harris or team?

None of the above.

Hello, I'm Nick Haynes.

It seems almost everyone has decided how they will vote for president.

Chances are good You've also decided who you want to represent you in Congress.

But what about all the other choices you're being asked to make on Election Day?

Depending on where you live?

Did you know there are nearly a dozen issue questions on the ballot?

From fixing up classrooms in Kansas to hiking the minimum wage in Missouri to statewide amendments on everything from sports betting to abortion.

Confused?

Well, we have your back.

Over the next hour, we lift up the hood on every question on your ballot.

And as you're about to see whether you live in Kansas, Missouri, you could be feeling their ripple effect soon.

Perhaps no ballot measure will have more ripple effects between the two states than Missouri, Proposition eight.

It's another push to raise the minimum wage.

Now, if you thought you already voted on that issue just a few years back, you did.

But this time, backers are aiming higher.

$15 an hour, which would put Missouri's minimum wage at a level twice that of Kansas.

Families deserve sick pay and deserve a living wage.

I don't look at this as a Democratic or Republican issue.

This is about the people.

For small business like mine.

I mean that that's a lot of money.

But unlike the last time Missourians voted for a minimum wage increase, this measure has a twist.

For the first time, it also guarantees paid sick leave for Missouri workers.

Businesses would be required to provide one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours, worked.

My bills don't take a day off, so I can either come to work sick because I have no choice.

It's that or miss pay that they need to pay their bills to pay their rent.

In just a moment, we have a proponent and opponent of the measure.

Joining me in the studio.

But first, my colleagues, data journalist Julie Fresh that has been crunching the numbers to see what it means to live on the minimum wage in Missouri right now.

So how well does the current minimum wage support Missouri workers?

Let's do some math.

And remember, we're estimating here, based on the current minimum wage, a full time worker in the state of Missouri would make $492 a week or $2,132 a month prior to taxes.

According to Zillow, the average rent in Missouri right now is about $1,345 a month.

Subtract that number from one month's pay and you're left with about $787 for the month.

Not excluding taxes, benefits, utilities and other bills, food, toiletries or any other expenses you have to pay.

This is what some workers have had to say about living off of this wage.

No matter what I brought home, it still was not enough to pay all my bills, literally.

You're literally living paycheck to paycheck.

And my kids, I went without water and we went without electricity to the point where I had to put my kids at another location so that they can have lights and water.

That hurt my soul because I felt that as a parent I was a failure to my kids because they weren't with me.

I couldn't be that mother I was supposed to.

Opponents of raising the minimum wage argue that an increase to $15 would negatively impact low income workers.

Citing a study out of Seattle where the minimum wage was increased to $15 in 2017.

Something else to note is that currently Missouri's minimum wage is higher than in some other states.

Take Kansas, for example.

Kansas has no minimum wage, aside from the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour.

So should we increase the minimum wage in Missouri?

Well, that's up to you.

And joining us are two players on both sides of the minimum wage question.

Caitlin Adams is executive director of Missouri Jobs with Justice, one of the leading organizations fighting for the minimum wage hike.

And Patty Toohey is in the No camp.

He is co-founder of the Better Cities Project and a senior fellow with the Show Me Institute.

Caitlin, first of all, many of us are going to say, Boy, didn't we already just do this?

Back in 2018, we went up to, you know, to $12 an hour.

That's almost $5 more than neighboring Kansas.

Why do we have to do it again so soon?

Yeah, I mean, we have worked with over a thousand folks who gathered signatures in every county in the state and 210,000 people signed the ballot to get it in front of voters in November.

And we think that this is a solution that continues to be a need for our economy.

We continue to see prices going up, and we think that this is a good guardrail that we need to continue to pay attention to for workers to put in place a minimum wage that gradually increases to 50.

We see in our presidential election polls that inflation is the biggest issue and prices of eggs and everything else that we are paying for at the grocery store and other places, Patrick, are going up.

So why shouldn't workers minimum wage go up at the same time?

Well, what this is going to do is just exacerbate inflation.

The measure basically increases the price of labor.

And so if you are a shop owner, your choices are either to hire fewer people, give them fewer hours, or raise your prices or a combination of the three.

So the irony is this is only going to drive prices up and provide fewer jobs, which is exactly the type of thing that that activists would not want.

Did we have fewer jobs created businesses closing in Missouri when in 2018, Missouri went from $7.85 to $12?

I mean, the sky fall of Missouri then?

No, the sky didn't fall.

But understand that the economy is not as robust as it would have been.

Research around the country, hundreds of studies, the vast majority of them find that workers at the very bottom of the income level suffer the most because the jobs go to people with reliable transportation or with people in the middle class, high school kids, for example.

And so what we're doing is we're benefiting a few middle class white kids in Kansas City, but we're not helping the people at the bottom of the economic ladder who desperately need that first job, who need that, you know, experience to move up their career.

The minimum wage gets a lot of the attention in this ballot measure.

But there's a twist to this that, yes, you've also added a guaranteed paid sick leave.

Why make this even more complicated by adding an entirely different issue to this?

At the same time, I don't think that people find it complicated.

500 businesses have signed on to it because they know that when their workers make more money and are able to take off when they're sick, they retain better employees and that makes their business better.

And when people have more money to spend in the economy, they're going to spend it at their businesses.

And so we see these as really combined issues.

We know that we know that folks get sick.

I have two kids that dreaded phone call from the school of your kids sick.

Like I shouldn't have to choose between when I can go get my kid or be sick myself or get other sick in the place that I work or if I can make money.

How much of a problem is this?

How many people in Missouri don't have paid leave now?

Yeah, one in three Missourians do not have one minute of paid sick leave.

And that's that's impacting about 338,000 kids and their parents.

But there's a long laundry list, though, of exceptions I see in this measure, including if you're working for a business that has fewer than 15 employees, you be exempted.

They wouldn't be part of not exempted, No.

Yeah.

We if you are a business with 15 or less or 15 or fewer employees, you can still earn up to seven days of of sick days.

And then if you are over 15, you can actually earn up to 56 hours.

We did learn from the pandemic, Patrick, that part of the problem of not having paid sick leave meant people came to work even if they were feeling sick, and that actually increased problems in nursing homes and other facilities because the people were more minimum wage workers were the ones who didn't have that.

Isn't there an advantage to be having paid sick leave in Missouri?

Well, look, if a company wants to offer it as a way to attract the workers they want, they are perfectly able to do that.

What this does is take those 500 employees who signed on, who can already offer it, already afford it, and force that policy on to smaller mom and pop shops, for example, who can't afford it.

In a way, it's a way for bigger businesses to chase smaller competition out of the market because they simply can't afford these benefits.

You know, we've had viewers coalesce and say, why does this even?

Why isn't this even necessary when we have companies like Walmart, Target, McDonald's, even Walls, a fund now offering workers more than $15,000 an hour now.

So isn't the market already working here?

We don't need the government to come in and say you have to have a minimum wage of $50.

So I think that we see this as a guardrail or a benchmark that we need to have in place, just like we have child labor laws, FMLA, OSHA, like we think it is important to have a guardrail for the economy and for workers.

And that's why we think that this is a good policy.

Well, look, the effective minimum wage is $0, because when you impose higher labor costs on a business, they hire fewer people.

So you've got fewer people working.

And again, this isn't just me saying so.

This is research around the country.

What happened in Seattle is that people were given fewer hours to work and employers hired fewer people.

So again, this will benefit the suburban kids who have reliable transportation to their parents car.

This will help them earn more money.

The people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder lose that first rung of being self-sufficient and the other thing I worry about is if you are looking to open a business in the Kansas City metropolitan area, what this tells you is stay on the Kansas side, don't come into the plaza, don't go downtown, don't go into Missouri at all.

Is that a fair criticism?

We are on a winner by state community.

If a business has to increase their costs, wouldn't they just move over to Kansas, where it's now 725, one of the lowest in the country?

It's going to be more than double in Missouri to hire the same.

Yeah, I would argue and kind of do a little bit of myth busting.

Patrick said, because our friends at Missouri Budget Project have put out a report where it shows that since the minimum wage increase in 2018, that Missouri has outpaced our neighbors who have not increase the minimum wage.

We've outpaced the nation in economic growth and we've outpaced our neighbors in and unemployment going down.

Missouri Republican Senator Rick Broughton was from the Harrison Ville area here in the metro, says it will be detrimental to Missouri, which is already feeling the effects of inflation.

It does nothing, he says, but turn the dollar menu into a $5 menu.

When voters see that, they're going to say, why?

Why would I want to vote for that?

Yeah, I disagree heavily with Rick Broughton on most things.

So, you know, his opinion doesn't weigh very heavy on me, but I am thinking about the workers in the businesses that have been supportive of this and what they think is that prices have already gone up regardless of whether or not the minimum wage has gone up.

We've been seeing corporate greed play out in lots of ways, both in the state and across the country.

And I think what we want to be paying attention to is, again, guardrails in this in these policies to offset what is corporate greed.

And, you know, Patrick was talking about the mom and pop shops.

That's a lot of the 500 businesses that have signed on to this policy.

They are folks who are taking good care of their employees and quite frankly, want to see corporations do the same.

Did we see a mass exodus of businesses leaving for Kansas when the minimum wage went up in 2018 from 785 to $12?

I mean, that's a complicated question because we have seen businesses and people leaving Missouri for Kansas for decades now.

I fear that this is just one more thing that makes the Missouri side of state line less attractive to open a business.

And again, every time we all go to the grocery store, we react to higher prices sour cream, soda, beer we consume less.

Employers are going to do the exact same thing.

If it costs more to hire somebody, they are going to hire fewer people.

And and again, this is research that we've known for years.

We've seen it in Seattle.

It would be wise perhaps to give us a few more years at the rate we have before we go and increase it again.

And my fear is, if this passes, activists will be right back at the ballot in a few years to do it one more time.

Why wouldn't they?

Well, one reason why they might not do it again is unlike abortion and unlike sports betting, which are constitutional amendments, this is actually a proposition means a statute.

Okay.

Which means that lawmakers could vote to repeal the measure if it passes.

If if this is passed in November, they could be back in January and overturn this completely.

Why didn't you go that extra route that we saw with sports betting and abortion so that you could guarantee that this remained law in the state of Missouri?

Yeah, we have always passed the the minimum wage as a statute.

And I'm not a lawyer.

I don't actually know all of the the legal thinking behind it, but I think it would be pretty foolish of the state legislature and and even some of our opponents agree, if this is a popular thing with voters, it should stay in place.

Both sides of Missouri Proposition a Caitlyn Adams and Patrick, too.

We thank you for being with us.

Lots more to come on our hour long on the ballot special.

We could dig into abortion and sports betting in just a moment.

But you ever wonder how these issues get on the ballot in the first place?

Well, so do we.

We've been taking a closer look.

Our country's not perfect, but at least in an aspirational sense, our country tried to be founded on the idea of minority rights with majority rule.

The Missouri Constitution retains the right for the people to use the initiative petition process.

Anyone can file a prospective change in constitutional law with the Secretary of State's office.

First of all, people need to come together and write the initiative.

Once that's written, it gets submitted to the Secretary of State's office.

We will go ahead and we will send a copy of your prospective change off to the state Auditor's office.

The state auditor will work on what's called the fiscal vote, and that's to inform the people of the state.

How would that affect the finances of the state?

So it's going to cost the state money.

It's going to make the state money.

It's going to cost counties money.

It's going to make the money exactly what that is.

While the state auditor is doing that, the secretary of state's office starts going through the actual legal language of either the statute proposed statutory change or constitutional change.

We outline all the changes it would make because we have 100 words in which to concisely, completely and clearly explain to anyone what that change would do.

Attorney General's Office signs off on whether or not he thinks those meet the legal requirements.

And then we send it to the individual that wants to have the AP that filed it with us, and they now have what they need to go and start collecting signatures in six of the eight congressional districts.

We would need 8% of the votes from the last election, which would bring us to about right up under 172,000 signatures in order to qualify for the ballot.

Smart campaigners will definitely go for way more than that because we know some of them might get tossed out.

Somebody might assign it correctly.

We then digitally send those signatures to the 116 election authorities across the state checking to make sure that the individuals are registered voters that the signatures match.

Once we do meet, address all the signatures, the secretary of state issues a certificate.

We gave out either a certificate of sufficiency.

If an initiative petition had met the requirements for signature collection or a certificate of insufficiency.

If they hadn't met the requirement for signatures.

Then there is judicial review.

We write a ballot summary that puts it on to the ballot.

Still, the work isn't finished.

Now we have to educate our community more like what is this really mean?

Let's get all of these questions answered.

The final step is turn out to the polls, right?

We need people to actually vote on it.

The initiative process began to become popular again in terms of being used widely.

In the 1970s, conservatives discovered that they could get around liberal state legislatures.

Over the last decade, decade and a half, when conservatives have enjoyed greater strength at the state legislative level, it's liberals who have now rediscovered the utility.

Increasingly, over the last ten years, voters have sought to go around the legislature to enact policy that otherwise is stalled out.

Medical marijuana was a good example.

So was Medicaid expansion in 2020.

It'll take you about an hour to gather 8 to 10 signatures.

And for Medicaid, we submitted 350,000.

So it's something that is increasingly gotten under the skin of Republican lawmakers who have supermajorities in the legislature.

And they're watching these ballot measures being pushed, for the most part by liberal interests and voters overwhelmingly approving them.

And so one of the things that they have tried to do for several years now is make it harder to either get something onto the ballot or pass something when it's on the ballot, especially when it comes to a constitutional amendment.

Let me tell you a little bit about House Joint Resolution 79.

It will put before the Missouri voters.

The question is a simple majority to change the constitution of our state to low a threshold, increase the number of signatures you would need, increase the cost, increase the number of congressional districts that you have to collect signatures.

There's some that want to say that the legislature has a veto over it or increase the threshold.

So maybe instead of 51%, you have to get 60% and it's worth noting this is a constitutionally protected right initiative petition process.

So ironically, in order to make it harder to amend the Constitution, this would have to go on the ballot and voters would get to weigh in.

And so there be a spirited campaign about whether to amend the Constitution to make it harder to amend the Constitution.

We need to hold on to every single piece of power that we have.

And there are initiative processes that we basically have the opportunity to participate in direct democracy because every vote actually counts.

Now that you know how the sausage is made, let's head back to the issues themselves.

Two years after voters in Kansas went to the polls to affirm abortion rights, it's now Missouri's turn and the state is getting lots of attention.

That's because Missouri could become the first state in the nation to overturn the a total ban on abortion at the ballot box.

I was a child who was told often that I wasn't dress the right way or acting the right way and doing what I was supposed to be doing with my body.

And so this work is very personal to me.

That's the fuel that keeps me going when I am burnt out and tired from traveling all over and seeing patients that are also, quite frankly burned out and tired because of the amount of hoops they've had to jump through.

There were 210 prosecutions for pregnancy related complications in our country.

Politicians will always say we're never trying to prosecute pregnant people, and that's quite frankly, not true.

Missourians, four years before the Dobbs decision, were already going to Kansas and Illinois.

Even those here in Kansas City or in Saint Louis who may have had just a quick jaunt across the river, are being displaced because there are patients coming from around the country.

We saw in Missouri the first state to deny a pregnant person carrying a dead fetus inside her care at multiple emergency rooms.

Because those hospitals, those providers were scared, threatening physicians The way that this ban does means that new providers, medical students and residents don't want to come to Missouri, especially in Missouri, a state with one of the highest rates of maternal mortality and morbidity in the nation.

That will have a long term impact on our state.

The opportunity to vote yes on Amendment three means that we can rebuild a level of abortion access that our state has never had before.

It defers to physicians judgment to determine fetal viability, and it allows patients to be able to have open and honest conversations with their providers.

All Missourians are on the same team that we want good health care for mothers, and we want to preserve life.

We have significant concerns about the initiative.

Allowing late term abortions up until the moment of birth would allow young minors to obtain abortions without parental notification and consent, and that provider immunity clause should be a very significant concern for Missourians.

And we're encouraging all Missourians to vote no on this initiative.

Just like deciding between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, most of us have probably made up our minds on this abortion question months ago.

But there are still lots of unknowns you need to be aware of.

With more on the potential legal minefields and unintended consequences of Amendment three and the other big questions on your ballot, um, K.C.

political scientist Beth Varnum, eight, and Park University political scientist Matthew Harris tracking the region's top political stories for Casey Wahl news, Brian Allison and Meg Cunningham, who has been tracking all these ballot measures for the Beacon.

So what does Amendment three actually do?

Now, we know Missouri now has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country.

Does this swing the pendulum to the opposite extreme, as already secretary of state Josh Corp's claims it gives women a right to abort at any point in their pregnancy, even at nine months.

Does it matter?

No, I don't think it does.

I mean, there's still the opportunity for the legislature to put in place restrictions after viability or approximately 24 weeks.

So I don't think it opens up the possibility for most cases of abortion after that point of time.

Even though the ballot language does allow lawmakers to put restrictions in place after this, Meg.

But you still have to require three exemptions lawmakers do, and that would include the mental health of a woman.

And so critics of this measure would say, boy, you could find any doctor who's going to be able to tell a woman that this if she has an abortion, this is going to affect her mental well-being.

So isn't this just an opportunity to say any abortions can happen?

That's certainly what critics are arguing when we're talking about Amendment three heading into November.

I think one thing that's really important to note with this, this is going to be court battles for the next year.

So, I mean, they have all of those.

A lot of these things are going to be ironed out in the court.

You know, that definition of mental health, that might be up to a judge to decide.

So we're just going to really have to wait and see.

But I bet to use the word fetal viability, which, you know, that might be fuzzy enough legally that that could also be after if if this is voted in in November, that could also then be something that we see in the courts for months.

Yeah.

I mean, there's a general definition of fetal viability in the 23 to 25 week range.

But there's that's not something where there's a specific definition of that on the books in Missouri.

And so judges are going to sort out how does Amendment three coalesce or meet with these laws that are already on the books, which ones can stand, which ones are now vacant?

And we think about some of those laws, like, for instance, you have a 72 hour waiting period before you can have an abortion.

And if you're a minor, you have to have parental consent.

Do those go by the wayside if Amendment three passes?

Well, I think that remains to be seen.

And I think Meg's being very optimistic by saying it will only be a year in the courts.

I think it's going to be several years.

Well, one of the things we've learned from Kansas, Nick, is that lawmakers who are who are opposed to abortion are going to try to push every possible edge to try to limit the scope of this these abortion rights protections.

So maybe it is to say a certain kind of waiting period doesn't violate that constitutional language about delay.

Maybe they will argue that requiring certain kinds of counseling is not an infringement on the access.

And so I think courts will have to determine those things in coming years.

And and I think we'll see other things like trying to funnel state funds to the to crisis pregnancy centers, for example.

I've done a little bit of reporting on how the legal scenario might play out after or if Amendment three passes next month.

And I talked to some lawyers in Ohio.

And basically what they said back to me was we're seeing lower courts really kind of side with the progressives who are challenging the old state statutes on the books.

And those cases are in the middle of appeal.

So those are heading up to the state Supreme Court.

And it's really going to be at that point that those decisions come down.

But so far, the lower courts are ruling alongside abortion rights supporters in their arguments against waiting periods, parental consent, all of those sorts of things.

The lower courts say there's not much argument this is unconstitutional.

Brian mentioned it could take years to go through the courts.

We're also told even if this passes and there aren't those challenges, it could still take years to ramp up a system of clinics and open a brand new set of clinics in Missouri.

Now that they've all disappeared, once you get past the legal challenges, there's the logistical challenges of actually getting these clinics up and running and being able to staff them and getting actual patients to those clinics in a timely manner.

I was looking at national statistics and it said 63% of all abortions today are now taken by women involving a combination of pills, what we call medication abortions.

If the number really is that high, Matt, would the impact of this new amendment won't be as great as we really think it is?

Well, I think it will still have a great impact.

The AG in the state of Missouri had been threatening pharmacies for prescribing those medications.

And so I think the role of mifepristone, which is Supreme Court, declined to rule against in June.

The role of medication abortions, I think, can help to fill that void in terms of women being able to access abortion while it takes time for clinics to get back up and running.

I mentioned at the beginning of the program all of these issues we'll be talking about today have ripple effects in Kansas, and that would certainly be true of abortion, too.

We have nearly 3000 Missouri women heading over to Kansas every single year to take advantage of abortion procedures there.

Do some of those clinics close as a result of if this passes?

Oh, I don't think so.

I think the demand is already exceeding what they can provide.

And the states that have legal abortion.

And so given the legal challenges, but the logistical challenges and the demand, I don't anticipate those clinics having trouble staying.

Meg, is there anything else we need to know about this amendment before we vote?

I would just add that this is this is very broad language.

There aren't a ton of definitions that are included in the amendment.

So what that ultimately is going to lead to is lots of court battles for the attorney general in the next three or four years.

And certainly the legislature is going to get involved with that fetal viability element as well.

While abortion is getting more attention than any other issue on the ballot, running a close second in the number of ads at least seen on TV is sports betting.

38 states have already approved it, including Kansas, $15 in honor of Patrick Mahomes on the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl.

Already.

It's been two years since Governor Laura Kelly placed that first legal bet in Kansas.

Since then, thousands of Missourians have been crossing state Line Road to place their own wages on the Chiefs, royals and other sports.

So if this passes, Missourians won't have to sneak over the border any more Brian.

Well, apparently not, although plenty and plenty of them were doing that by all accounts.

The reality, Nick, is that I think voters and potential sports bettors have been asking for this for many years.

It's had generally bipartisan support in the legislature.

Other than a little complexity that was keeping it from being passed, this will be a significant change and there will be significant dollars at stake.

Where will you actually be able to get if this to actually bet if this passes?

Well, so there are a few different locations, obviously, at casinos.

This legislation also provides for the casinos to partner with apps.

So there'll be different platforms where you can place a bet from your phone.

There's also a piece in this legislation that would potentially provide for there to be betting spaces at actual stadiums.

So there might be eventually you may be able to actually place a bet on Patrick Mahomes plus one and a half touchdown passes while you're at Arrowhead Stadium.

So that's why then the Chiefs and the royals were so fixated on trying to get this on the ballot and helping with their money to put it on the ballot.

So that's what's in it for them.

Yeah.

I mean, sports teams across the state are really interested in seeing this pass.

Of course, there's that provision included.

But also they're just looking to see more engagement around their teams.

You know, looking to see the public be really engaged in those games.

That's that's the ultimate pay off for them.

Now, we have seen tons of ads in this campaign to legalize sports betting.

I thought it would be valuable to truth.

Check the ads.

Here's one of the main commercials for the proponents campaign.

As a mom and former first grade teacher, I cared deeply about education.

That's why I'm voting for Amendment two.

Legalizing sports betting will generate tens of millions of dollars every year for our classrooms helping increase teacher pay.

Amendment two has a constitutional guarantee that ensures the money from sports betting goes to our schools.

No more wasted dollars.

Take it from this mom and former teacher.

Amendment two is the right thing to do.

Wow.

Missouri teachers all going to be driving BMW and putting in ground swimming pools in their backyards if this sports betting measure passes.

No, no.

I think the there will likely be more than $0 in tax revenue that comes from this amendment.

But whether it's $0 or $28 million or $100 million is really uncertain because that tax revenue depends heavily on the tax rate, on how much is actually generated in revenue, but also in all the exemptions and deductions that they sports betting houses are able to claim.

But the campaign website says you can get $100 million over five years that will be generated for education.

Yeah, there there is certainly going to go on the max end of the range when they're marketing this to the public.

There's, you know, a lot of concerns among teachers and school board associations across the state about where this money is actually going to end up.

You know, the School board association put out a note to its members saying this doesn't even designate for public schools.

So there's a concern that this money could just be dumped into the general revenue fund and the legislature and appropriations could be made differently than what we're seeing on television.

We have a long time viewer by the name of Raymond who tried to do the calculation for us, Matthew, when he says there were 67,000 teachers in Missouri, so 100 million over five years that worked out for $298.50 per year.

Yeah, so that's a nice television at Costco.

I think, you know, if you're going to vote for this against this, I think you really have to A big part of it has to be, Do you want sports betting or not?

Because the money will there be some money?

Probably.

But given the deductions, given that we're not sure if, you know, this money will be dumped into education, but other funds will be taken out of the general fund that would have gone to education?

I think it's just really hard to say what the amount of money.

But isn't this better than nothing, which is actually what will happen because they all go over to Kansas.

They're not getting any money out of this.

It may be better than nothing, but maybe not much better than nothing.

When she said tens of millions of dollars, she meant to tens of millions of dollars and and hold that against the amount that is budgeted for education in Missouri each year, it's $8.7 billion.

So so I'm not even sure we should be surprised if teachers don't even notice that little TV sized bump in their in their wages.

And let's remember, in Kansas, none of the money goes to education.

It goes to help a special fund to lure a major sports franchise over to Kansas.

So this actually at least some of the money is going to schools, at least what the proponents say.

Let's just check one of the opponents ads now.

Big out-of-state gambling corporations are spending millions pushing amendment to a deceptive measure they claim will fund education amendment to would give them the power to operate online sports gambling and rake in billions.

But the state's official analysis concluded Amendment two would allow them to pay zero gaming taxes to Missouri.

That means $0 for Missouri schools.

Zero Stop the deceptive online gambling amendment vote No on two.

Now, can you understand why the public is confused?

$0 now going to schools?

Matthew, What are we to believe?

I mean, the number is probably somewhere between zero and somewhere in the millions.

One of the interesting things about these ads is one of the big proponents of the No side is actually Caesars.

So, you know, and they're not on the know side because they are opposed to gambling.

They want a deal that's more favorable to them.

So that's good to know.

So that's the reason why they are opposing it, though, when you would think that they would be, what else do we need to know about the sports betting measure before we step into our polling station on Election Day?

Meg The campaign would direct you to a part of the measure that says that there's a 25% cap on those free and promotional bets which are the tax free bets.

So they want to direct you to that figure and say, no, the $0 is not true.

We're capping out those free and promo bets and the schools are actually going to get this money.

Now, sports betting isn't the only gambling measure you're going to be asked to decide on Election Day.

Did you know you're also voting on whether to approve a 14 casino in Missouri?

The Netflix series Ozark was largely set at a fictional casino at the Lake of the Ozarks.

But you get to vote on a real one there.

But wait, didn't we already approve casino gambling in Missouri?

Why do we even need to vote to go from 13 to 14 casinos?

Brian Nick, you have tapped into the most arcane aspect of gambling regulation in Missouri that requires casinos.

Basically, the Constitution forbids gambling, except and it's always in the exceptions that the law is made.

So the exceptions allow for certain casinos along riverboats up up to along rivers, up to a certain size.

And every time they said they don't have to be boats, they just have to be surrounded by water.

Yeah, little moats of water.

They limited the number.

And so what this this amendment would do is simply create one more permission for one more casino in one more place, a place that currently doesn't have casinos, which currently are limited to the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

It is a strange feature of Missouri's petition process.

This is how you give permission for a casino.

So people in Kansas City will say, Well, why?

Why should I even be voting on it anyway?

Pat, why didn't you just let the Lake of the Ozarks residents decide if they want a casino in their neck of the woods?

I mean, as Brian pointed out, the number and placement of casinos is regulated by state law.

And so as a result, the state is obligated to make a decision if we're going to expand that number and placement.

I'm assuming, Matthew, that our own local casinos on both sides of state line here in Kansas City would hate this because that means less money going to their places.

But yeah, you have to assume, you know, I think the estimate is a couple of million dollars a year would be going to local government entities where the Ozark Casino will be.

And some of that money will be some of that money will have to be new gamblers, but some of it will be people who would would have otherwise gone to Kansas City or Saint Louis.

And so, yeah, there are a few bucks at stake for for local casino and local government.

Absolutely.

And you've got Kansas City and Kansas City who also rely on some of that revenue.

Does that mean less money for potholes, less money for snow plowing if this new casino is built?

What we're hearing from proponents of this measure is the Lake of the Ozarks already has a really robust tourism destination.

People aren't necessarily going to Kansas City to gamble there.

They're going to the lake.

So let's tack on a casino and maybe we can pull in some extra money.

That way.

If there is one local Kansas City casino that is not opposed to this, it's Bally's because Bally's is going to control the casino that opens at the Ozarks.

And and that really makes the point that this is really a a process driven by by one company that will profit from this change to Missouri law.

Now, you may have noticed that all these issues are playing out on the Missouri side.

Does Kansas have any ballot questions to decide?

Well, outside of whether to retain a massive list of state and local judges, the answer is no, with one exception.

After voters in April turned down a tax increase to fix up crumbling classrooms in the Kansas City, Kansas, school district, administrators are asking for a second chance instead of a tax hike, they've sliced their wish list down to $180 million, which district leaders say they can be paid for through bonds.

What's the need?

Well, let's go inside.

One of their more than 100 year old middle schools.

The ceiling collapsed.

This entire hallway was full of water.

Water got into classrooms, ruined teacher supplies with the common station on the walls.

It makes it extremely hard to put anything on the walls.

Duct tape doesn't even hold it.

It's hard to work and also learn in a building that is literally falling apart.

Now, it seems suburban districts are willing to tax themselves to improve their schools.

That's a hard enough to crack in urban districts.

Yes, absolutely.

But I also think the size of the tax originally the 400 and what it was at $8,420 million is more the issue than the actual existence of a tax.

I also enjoy when we talk about bond elections.

Well, it's not a tax hike.

I just bond.

Money is free money.

Is it free money?

Well, who pays for that?

I mean, I think one of the big issues we talk about bonds is if the government entity defaults on those bonds, that can have an impact on things like the credit rating of the government entity.

So that's always a concern.

We talk about these bond measures, Bryan.

I'm also assume that Kansas City, Missouri school district is also closely watching what's happening in Kansas City, Kansas, because they too are looking to go to the voters very soon in April and put a tax election on the ballot to fund schools there for the first time since 19 the 1960s.

That's right.

And with a lot of the same kinds of concerns, buildings that need complete replacement, buildings that need major upgrades, the size of the price tag on the Kansas City, Missouri site is $474 million larger.

Of course, it's a larger municipality, but the fact is that leaders, I think, are very worried, especially in light of the property tax debacle.

Some would say that Jackson County has experienced over the past year, while Jackson County officials failed to put either the stadium tax before voters, they did add a tax increase to fund senior services.

With so many other races competing for attention, it's got lost in the shuffle.

But proponents want you to approve a property tax increase to allow older residents to age in place with better transportation, Meals on Wheels, home repair programs.

It's an issue that came up in our recent documentary on aging in Kansas City.

How should we care?

Let's say I'm closer to 90 than I am to 85.

I really don't know why I've lived this long.

It's just I came from a family where the women lived forever.

By 20, the 85 and older population is projected to more than double, and many, like Mary, will want to live in their own home.

I don't mind my own company.

I read a lot.

If people need to think about it from a selfish perspective, what do you want as your aging are going to want the dignity of staying in own environment for the household tasks that are too big to tackle by yourself?

Oh my goodness.

Mary is helped by the nonprofit Jewish Family Services.

It's so important to me to be able to live here.

Jeff asked is helping about 150 Jewish and non-Jewish households on both sides of the state line in America.

We expect that older adults will have families who care for them, and the reality of that is it doesn't work for everyone.

You wouldn't do that today.

Mary's children live away the East Coast.

Our society demographics are shifting rapidly and we have not been very proactive.

And preventative infrastructure takes decades to build well.

So Jackson County is now trying to build that infrastructure with a new tax.

There are many seniors who would love more services.

But is it kind of odd that given all the drama that Brian just talked about, about skyrocketing property, property assessments in Jackson County, that they've chosen to fund this with a property tax increase?

I Don't know if it's that surprising in light of there's just not that many other places to find revenue.

The sales taxes are already pretty much maxed out according to state law.

It's also to put it in perspective, it's not the most enormous tax increase that an entity has ever sought from the governor.

So how much are we talking about?

You know, we'd be $1,000 more, $100, you know, about a cup of coffee depends on the value of your property.

But for a $200,000 home, it would be about $100 a year.

So about $8 a month.

Not I don't mean to diminish that for people who are living paycheck to paycheck any dollar counts.

But at the same time, a lot of families are not going to notice it on their taxes.

And other counties do have this exact senior tax.

Just don't Jackson County.

So what they would try and to get in line with what's happening elsewhere in the metro, if Jackson County has its senior tax, voters in Platte County are being asked to approve a children's tax, more specifically, a quarter cent sales tax to fund mental health and suicide prevention programs for tens of thousands of children and teens in Platt County, We know mental health is a big issue, but who gets the money and how do we know it'll go to the places the measure's supporters say it will work?

Yeah, so we heard county officials when discussing this, you know, they were largely opposed to to passing this.

They were concerned about where the money would go.

You know, county commissioners are conservative.

And they said if there are liberals that are elected to the Platte County Commission in the future, this might be funding, you know, liberal liberal groups and that sort of thing.

So that's a fear that they have.

But, you know, they're pointing to surrounding counties and saying this is something that's happening and, you know, we need to catch up in Clark County very quickly growing, as those critics have pointed to counties like Saint Louis County and Lafayette County that have similar children's taxes as funds in place.

And they say it become slush funds for favored groups who have clout with the politicians in control of the money.

Is that an unfair criticism or is this something that voters be aware of, at least, Matthew?

Well, I think it's a little unfair because I think that supporters of the measure will point to similar measures in Jackson County and and Clay County that proponents would say have worked, have been very successful.

And so I think there is a place for accountability in making sure you keep track of where the money's going.

But another thing to keep in mind is you know, voters could easily just repeal that.

The Jackson County measure could have sunsetted a few years ago and voters decided to renew it.

So it's something you can try out.

And if it doesn't work, you know, rethink it.

But that's one of the other criticisms, that there is no sunset on this tax.

It will go on forever.

If you say yes, that might be a negative for people going to the polls.

Absolutely.

I think that's obviously a concern for all voters.

And I actually think it applies more broadly to almost everything we've been talking about when we talk about constitutional amendments.

These are constitutional amendments.

This isn't just a piece of legislation.

And so I think that's something that voters should be paying attention to.

Let's head back to some of the statewide issues you're going to be deciding on November 5th or earlier if you're casting an advance ballot.

While immigration may not be directly on the ballot this year, Missouri is one of eight states that will vote on a constitutional amendment declaring that only American citizens can vote.

Our elections are bad, and a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they're trying to get them to vote.

Donald Trump has made it a big campaign.

We keep hearing it.

News reports that federal law already prohibits non-citizens from voting.

So why is this considered necessary?

Matthew?

I don't think it is necessary.

To me, this piece of the amendment is eye candy for some of the stuff that comes later about ranked choice, voting and basically trying for it's a Republican attempt to have partizan control of elections.

It's sort of similar to the repeal of Clean Missouri a few years ago, where there's little eye candy that says, oh, we're going to lock gifts from lobbyists, are going to be set at $0 was already at $5.

So you have a little eye candy to draw in, the voters drawing the base.

And then the stuff you really want is further down.

We're going to talk a little bit about those other meaty parts of this amendment, but you have to read further down to see.

But let me just stick with the citizen voting part of this.

But, you know, other than saying you have to check a box when you register to say, I am a U.S. citizen who's who's checking, I mean, do we have local authorities doing audits, going to people's home and hiring investigators to see if people are lying or not?

No, we don't have that trust system.

Yeah, it's not included in the amendment.

I would also note, you know, our wonderful election officials who do very thankless work, they already struggle with staffing and putting an election on.

So this would be an additional burden to them.

And I would just note, we've seen the legislature attack this non-citizen voting provision onto a number of other voting changes that they have looked to pursue initiative petitions in the spring.

That was it was a point of contention.

They couldn't really agree on whether or not to include this.

And for that exact reason, you know, they think that the non-citizen voting will draw voters in for other measures that might not be so popular.

The governor of Texas says the state just removed 6500 non-citizens from its voter rolls.

The governor of Virginia removed 6300 non-citizens from its voter rolls.

And this week, the Associated Press reporting how the DMV in Oregon mistakenly registered more than 300 non-citizens to vote.

So it is still an issue.

It would have been an issue with or without this.

In those state constitutions, the law isn't changing.

Non-citizens have not been allowed to vote even before this.

This has passed.

But we all see non-citizens being allowed to vote in local and state elections.

And I see an increasing number of places where that's happening from Washington, D.C., Maryland, Vermont and California.

So if this passed, it would stop, for instance, in Kansas City, non-citizens, if there was an effort made in the future to vote for mayor or perhaps your local school board, perhaps, But the Missouri Constitution specifically says citizens.

So it's not just you know, Matthew referenced federal law, but it's both federal law and Missouri law that it's citizens who have the ability to vote in statewide elections.

And I yes, this would perhaps make it even harder.

But I also want to pick up on something that was said earlier.

When you submit a voter registration form, those forms are in fact, checked.

And so if you put on there that you are a citizen and you are in fact not a citizen.

State officials check all kinds of databases, federal databases like the Social Security Administration and state level databases like the DMV.

So they are checked, even though they may not have all the staffing they desire.

They certainly go through some checking.

Now, while voters may look at the first line in the ballot question and make their choice, the crucial change on Amendment seven, as Matt already mentioned here, is buried further down in the lengthy ballot question.

It prohibits some of the major election reforms that are gaining steam in states across the country, like ranked choice voting, which is now being used in Alaska and Maine and could be approved by voters in Nevada this November.

Clueless about what ranked choice voting is.

Well, here's a quick primer.

Politics is tearing us apart, and it's because elections aren't working for most of us.

Here's why.

In the U.S., each of us can vote for the candidate we like the most.

But whenever more than two candidates are running to win, one seat, it's possible for most voters to hate whoever wins because of the split vote.

Politicians can ignore the will of most voters and still win.

Ranked choice Voting gives you the freedom to select a backup choice to prevent that from happening.

Let's say a group uses ranked choice voting to decide what to eat for dinner tonight.

Each voter selects their favorite dish, but also has the option to choose back up dishes.

If one food receives more than half the votes, it wins, just like in any other election.

But let's get to dessert where the competition is more fierce.

What if no ice cream flavor has more than 50% of the vote under a normal race?

Vanilla would win, even though a majority of voters didn't pick it with ranked choice voting.

The flavor with the fewest votes is eliminated, and voters who chose that flavor as number one will have their votes count for their next choice.

Everyone gets a say.

No one waste their vote and the winner is the flavor that the largest number of people agreed upon.

That's ranked choice voting.

It's as easy as one, two, three.

So if you like the idea of this system, you may want to vote no on Amendment seven because it would.

Election reforms like this one, it would ban them.

Now, if you find the whole thing confusing, silly, even dangerous, then you want to vote yes.

Matthew.

Yes.

I mean, I think there are some proponents of ranked choice.

Voting will say things like it opens people up to feel like they're free to vote for a third party candidate and still feel like they're not throwing their vote away.

But I would add ranked choice.

Voting can be incredibly confusing, and there can be some sort of counterintuitive effects.

I think on the Republican side of this, though, that they're looking at things like what happened in Alaska, where Mary Paul Taylor was the first Democrat to win the statewide House seat there since the 1970s and saying putting, taking ranked choice, voting off the table will allow for more partizan control of of election results.

Can you think of any big race, Brian, that if ranked choice voting had been used, we would have seen a different result here?

Well, it's impossible to know without the ranked choice voting actually happening, but I think as recently as the most recent primary election for lieutenant governor, the Republican primary, David Weisinger, won with 31% of the vote, the most conservative, some would say less experienced candidate than the next two candidates.

Lincoln Huff and Holly Rayder, both serving in the General Assembly.

Half got 30%.

Holly Rader got 22%, and then 17% were split among several other candidates.

I don't think it's at all a stretch to imagine that as those candidates second choice and third choice votes scrolled up to the top candidates that Lincoln Huff or Holly Raider might have ended up with a majority of Republican voters over David Watson.

So if these are such fabulous systems, Beth, why is it that some of the places that have adopted this, including Alaska, I see they've got it back on the ballot this November in Alaska.

They're going to be looking to repeal the ranked choice voting system they've already put in place.

So is not working the way they think.

Well, I think there are some downsides, as Matthew pointed out, sort of in the way that it actually operates.

But the reality is these are political reasons because political parties don't like uncertainty and ranked choice.

Voting creates uncertainty and it pits potentially Republicans against Republicans and Democrats, Democrats.

And that makes people uncomfortable.

And instead of just, you know, voting against it or not bringing it forth, they're going to ban it entirely before it even has a chance.

Now, of all the issues on the ballot, perhaps the strangest and most befuddling is Amendment six, which is why I left it to the end.

It sounds innocent enough.

It reads, Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to preserve funding of law enforcement personnel?

Who could be against that?

Well, here's what it actually does.

It charges offenders convicted of crimes in Missouri with a fleet, a full dollar fee to help pay for sheriffs pensions and the retirement funds of prosecuting attorneys.

It seems kind of audacious.

I was just wondering, first of all, you know, where are these prisoners getting all this money to be paying for those sheriff's pensions?

Yeah, that's something we're hearing from proponents, is you know, this is baked into the court fees.

This is something that they see is really an administrative cost ultimately funneled to those retirement systems.

But we do know, of course, that prisoners Missouri are disproportionately low income or living in poverty.

Three, $4 really adds up.

And the state does have the power to track down those dollars, which is ultimately a cost to every taxpayer.

Why limit yourself there, though, Brian?

If you can have prisoners paying for the sheriff's pensions, why not helping to pay for a new royals downtown ballpark, for instance?

I mean, is there any limit here?

I knew you'd find a way to work the ballpark into today's conversation, Nick.

I think that's an argument that opponents might very likely make, is if we start adding a fee here and a fee there rather than taking a more comprehensive approach to taxation and budgeting.

Where does it end?

And is that really what's best for the state?

Matthew and Beth, I mean, are there really any limitations on what you actually can place on the ballot?

It seems a lot of the things we've been going through on this show that you can basically pour anything you want before voters?

Well, there are limitations in the sense that you have a little bit you have to get enough people to sign on to this decision makers who put this one right.

So whether it's the voters or it's lawmakers, you have to get enough people to sign on to put it on a ballot.

So there's at least some minimal support out there.

But it doesn't appear to be that there's all that many limitations.

Speaking to that idea of limitations, I think it's important to note the reason this is coming before voters is the Missouri Supreme Court said a few years back that these fees were unconstitutional because they were not directly related to the administration of justice.

And that's the very reason that voters are going to have a say on this.

So, yeah, well, we've seen the legislature pick up the penny.

Up until this point, you know, allocating funds.

We're seeing sheriffs themselves pay 5% into into those pension funds every year.

But budgets are extremely constrained when we're at the county level.

And there's a lot of officials that are concerned about the sidedness over tax cuts in Jefferson City.

And they're saying, okay, well, what about our county jails?

So they don't don't love that this is a cost that they lost access to.

So thank you for showing us that there's actually a method to the madness here.

And there are explanation as to why we are seeing these on your ballot.

You have been watching on the ballot your handy dandy guide to all the issue questions you will be deciding on election Day with you and KC political scientist Beth Vulnerably.

And Casey was Bryant Allison from the Beacon, May Cunningham and Park University political scientist Matthew Harris.

Of course, there are dozens of state legislative and congressional races on the ballot too.

We haven't forgotten about those with our partners in public media, including the Beacon and Casey.

While we put together your 2024 Kansas City Election guide, we profiled all the candidates for you and you'll see what their positions are on all the hot button issues.

It's just a mouse click away at KC Voter Guide dot org.

And if you feel shortchanged this week because you live in Kansas and most of the issues we discussed during Missouri, we rebalance the scales next week as we bring you the Kansas Third District Congressional debate.

Sharice Davids will be here taking on her Republican opponent presents ready right here in our studios.

It's part of a joint partnership with KC You are and the Johnson County Post.

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

Be well, keep calm and carry on.