Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway at an event in St. Louis on Nov. 24 (photo courtesy of the Missouri Attorney General’s Office). <\/p>\n
No one has ever accused Jay Ashcroft of being a lefty.<\/p>\n
The former Republican secretary of state was a regular source of ire for Democrats during his eight years in office, whether it was how he crafted ballot summaries or his advocacy for things like book bans and voter ID.<\/p>\n
But in 2017, when a coalition of labor unions delivered 300,000 signatures to put a right-to-work law on the statewide ballot, Ashcroft followed long-established precedent and suspended the law until voters could weigh in the next year<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s what happened in 1981, when James Kirkpatrick \u2014 Missouri\u2019s longest-serving secretary of state and the namesake of the building that houses the office \u2014 put a new trucking law on hold after signatures were submitted for a referendum. A lawsuit demanding immediate implementation was dismissed.<\/p>\n Or go back to 1952, when the Missouri Supreme Court explicitly said the purpose of a referendum is to suspend or annul a law before it has gone into effect<\/a>. Allowing a law to take effect and then later be suspended, the court warned, would invite instability and confusion.<\/p>\n For decades, the process has been clear: when citizens gather enough signatures for a referendum, the challenged law doesn\u2019t take effect until voters get a say.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why last week\u2019s decision from Secretary of State Denny Hoskins came as a shock. On the advice of Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, he announced a gerrymandered congressional map would go into effect despite the submission of 305,000 signatures for a referendum<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hanaway even bragged online: \u201cThe Missouri FIRST map is now the law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n