MO GOP Stealthily Takes Aim at Liberal Nonprofit Funding
Much is being written about the Missouri Senate’s decision to end filibusters attempting to stymie GOP efforts to roll back two measures that were approved by Missouri voters in 2024. The bills in question focused on separate measures passed by Missouri voters. One aimed at issues of bodily autonomy and the other rolled back recently won paid sick leave for Missouri workers. These legislative moves also appear to have a secondary target: the remaining field infrastructure for Democrat-aligned political nonprofits.
The first bill passed sends a question to Missouri voters that will ask them to roll back reproductive rights advancements. After passing a statewide constitutional amendment to grant Missourians access to abortion services, the MO GOP will now be asking voters to pare back those rights. The ballot question will also ask voters to weigh in on gender-affirming care for minors. An effort had been made to split the two issues into separate ballot measures, but Democrats were unsuccessful in convincing their GOP colleagues to bifurcate the ballot question. As is, voters will now be asked to both dramatically scale back reproductive rights and restrict healthcare decisions for trans minors. If passed the new measure would restrict abortions after the 12th week of a pregnancy. It does include exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.
The second measure takes aim at paid sick leave and minimum wage cost of living adjustments in the recently passed minimum wage and sick leave ballot measure. Labor groups have long pushed for higher minimum wages, with the first statewide minimum wage ballot measure passing in 2006. That law instituted the automatic cost of living increases, once the minimum wage reached the level outlined in the measure. These automatic increases are part of minimum wage policy in numerous states. The combined wage and sick leave measure survived court challenge, and the sick leave portion of the bill took effect at the beginning of May. While the legislature didn’t overrule the state’s planned rise to $15/hr in 2026, the legislature has effectively ended the sick leave and cost of living increase portions. Unlike the abortion measure, which passed as a constitutional amendment, repeal of the labor-related ballot initiative does not require voter approval.
The Missouri legislators that voted to overturn the will of the people likely had another target in their sites: what little political field infrastructure remains for their nominal opposition. As previously mentioned, one of the big reasons that the GOP feels comfortable overturning popular ballot items is that they face no real competition at the ballot box. The Missouri Democratic Party is no longer a major political force in the state. It doesn’t have a single official elected to statewide office. The GOP’s hold on the state legislature is so strong that they have also lost any real fear of losing their supermajority. As such, GOP lawmakers’ real political hazard lies in the Republican primary. On issues like reproductive rights, which most GOP voters oppose, they have little to no reason to fear a backlash. Since there’s no longer a functional statewide opposition party, there isn’t even a group poised to try and extract a price.
You may be wondering what this has to do with liberal field infrastructure. The connection is that ballot items have been the only way for center-left forces to pass policy changes in Missouri. As the state party became increasingly irrelevant, resources followed this shift of focus away from the legislature or Governor’s mansion to ballot initiatives with deep-pocketed funders redirecting their giving to ballot measure campaigns. Nonprofits that run signature gathering operations increasingly stepped into the void created by the Missouri Democratic Party’s absence. The revenue they generate as contractors for the initiative campaigns not only helps fund their paid signature gathering operations, it is also an important part of many nonprofits’ non-election-year financing. Money paid by the campaign committees to these organizations is saved to finance staffing and overhead in the lean years between ballot measures. After close to twenty years of this pattern, the nonprofits that do this kind of work are about the only political field assets in opposition to the GOP’s agenda. If ballot initiative funders decide they no longer want to finance efforts that the GOP legislature will simply overturn, then the impact could be the diminishment or disappearance of some issue-focused nonprofits. Lacking a relevant state Democratic Party, these organizations are the primary opposition to the GOP’s supermajority in the state legislature. Without them, Missouri Republicans would have very little opposition in the policy sphere. Their absence would also eliminate GOP fears that more substantive opposition infrastructure could be rebuilt. While many donors and foundations that fund the ballot campaigns could increase their direct support for these organizations, the lack of a tangible output, like the potential for a successful ballot initiative, would probably mean less money going into the liberal political apparatus. At a minimum, a business model many have grown accustomed to could have to change.
The Missouri GOP’s decision to shut down the filibuster and move forward will likely impact future liberal policymaking. The Missouri GOP has long wanted to restrict access to the ballot for liberal initiatives. While not a direct attack on the initiative process, this is still intended to have a chilling effect on future efforts. It will take time to clearly see the outcome of the Missouri Senate’s actions, but it is likely to impact many policy areas, going well beyond the current issues of bodily autonomy and labor rights. The immediate impact is the loss of workers’ rights and the need for a future campaign to defend reproductive freedoms. Longer term, the potential loss of revenue for liberal groups could be a significant concern for their members and supporters.
