A statement from Mid-Missouri DSA on votes to overturn Amendment 3 and Proposition A
The Missouri Senate voted yesterday to strip their constituents of the right to access reproductive healthcare, paid sick leave, and a minimum wage that tracks the cost of living. This is theft: theft of money from your pockets and theft of your ability to care for yourself and your loved ones. Missourians resoundingly endorsed these measures at the ballot box — but a small clique of lobbyists and politicians decided they know better.
This isn’t over. The forces that put these issues on the ballot will fight to vindicate them — including Mid-Missouri DSA. These campaigns won by going to the people of the state with a vision of a fairer society. The bosses and bigots opposed to these measures knew they could not win the electorate over on the merits — and never bothered to try. So long as Missouri politics allows a final appeal to the people, these movements cannot ultimately be defeated in the back rooms of the state legislature.
The right to abortion will go back on the ballot under transparently deceptive ballot language — an abortion ban with no mention of a ban on abortion. This is a sign of weakness: an indication that the movement for an abortion ban knows it could not win a fair fight. We must ensure that Missouri voters are in on this con when they step into the ballot box.
Just two weeks after paid sick leave went into effect the legislature’s action removes the right entirely, along with annual cost of living adjustments for minimum wage workers that have been in Missouri law since 2012. Legislators responded to an overwhelming vote for a higher minimum wage with legislation that will result, after a few years of inflation, in a lower wage than would have prevailed had voters rejected the measure. The voters wanted fairness; the business elite wanted to squeeze their employees just a little more. That elite can win in the legislature, but workers won at the ballot box — and can do so again.
Mid-Missouri DSA will be there every step of the way. Right-wing overreach strengthens our convictions and swells our membership. The voters have not turned away from these ideas in the last six months. The real risk is that the people who organize to put these issues before voters will allow this moment to demoralize them. In the words of martyred union organizer Joe Hill: “Don’t mourn — organize!”