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June 5, 2024 |  By: Rudi Keller - Missouri Independent

Missouri Supreme Court backs August election on Kansas City police funding

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By Rudi Keller - Missouri Independent

The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday turned back an effort by Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas to push an election on Kansas City police funding to November.

The court on April 30 overturned the results of a 2022 election on the issue, agreeing with Lucas that the fiscal note summary printed on the ballot was misleading.  In that ruling, the court revised the fiscal summary and ordered the new election in November on the measure proposed by lawmakers.

On May 28, however, Gov. Mike Parson directed that the vote be held in August.

That set off a flurry of weekend filings by attorneys for Lucas and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft. Starting Friday and concluding on Sunday, attorneys for Lucas asked the court to hold Ashcroft in contempt for accepting Parson’s directive and reset the election for November.

“The secretary’s action is especially perverse in light of the fact that this court has not yet ruled on (Lucas’s) motion to modify, which requested an adjustment to the court’s proposed fiscal note summary,” a May 31 filing signed by five attorneys representing Lucas stated. 

In response, attorneys for Ashcroft responded that he had no choice except to follow Parson’s order because the governor can call special elections on measures sent to voters by lawmakers. 

“Despite attempts by (Lucas) to claim otherwise, the Secretary of State acted appropriately and pursuant to the governor’s lawful order,” wrote Todd Scott of the attorney general’s office. “At worst, the secretary was placed in the unenviable position of performing his official duties in the face of potentially conflicting directives from the Supreme Court and the governor.” 

The court instead changed the election date in the opinion to agree with Parson’s order and dismissed the motion to hold Ashcroft in contempt as moot.

The April 30 decision wasn’t final when Parson set the election date, a footnote added to the opinion states.

“At the time of the governor’s and secretary’s actions,however, this court had not ordered a special election for November 5 (or any other date) because no mandate had issued and the April 30 opinion was not final,” the footnote states. “Accordingly, Lucas’ May 31 motion is denied as premature.”

And because the decision wasn’t final, the footnote states, the court doesn’t have to weigh the question of whether Parson had the power to alter an election date set by the courts. The court modified the order to conform with Parson’s election date on its own motion, the footnote states.

“As a matter of comity and to accommodate the governor’s apparent desire to have the question decided on that date, one of those modifications is to change the date of the special election now called by this court from Nov. 5 to Aug. 6, 2024,” the footnote states.

The court’s decision Tuesday ends litigation over when Missourians will vote and what they will see in the ballot language. The judges granted one minor point to Lucas in the changes made to the April 30 opinion – a footnote was added that the decision should not “be taken as expressing any opinion as to the enforceability” of a law setting funding levels for Kansas City police.

In a statement issued after the decision, Lucas said he appreciated the ruling in his favor on the original fiscal note summary and accepts the modifications to the April 30 opinion.

“Unlike others, we understand and respect the rule of law in our country,” the statement read. “We continue to appreciate the court’s ruling in favor of Mayor Lucas, local control for the people of Kansas City, and fair elections. We also respect the court’s rewording issued today, which now makes the Secretary’s prior unlawful action all good.”

The ballot measure, which will be Amendment 4, grew out of a conservative reaction to the “defund the police” rhetoric from Black Lives Matter protests after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. It would allow state lawmakers to pass a law mandating that Kansas City spend at least 25% of its general revenue budget on its police department.

When voters saw it in 2022, the fiscal note summary stated that the measure imposed no new costs and created no savings for state or local governments. That summary ignored Kansas City’s estimates that it could be required to increase police funding by up to $38.7 million, Lucas argued successfully to the courts in the case to overturn the election.

When voters see it in August, the fiscal note summary will now incorporate that estimate: “This would authorize a law passed in 2022 increasing required funding by the City of Kansas City for police department requests from 20% of general revenue to 25%, an increase of $38,743,646, though the city previously provided that level of funding voluntarily. No other state or local government entities estimates costs or savings.”

The proposal applies only to Kansas City because its police department is funded from city taxes but controlled by the state under a board appointed by the governor. All other police departments are under the control of local officials.